The Sturgeon supermoon...as it appeared in the sky over Union County Thursday night, August 11...at around 9 p.m. The sunset which could be seen in the sky over the Peach Festival in Cobden last Saturday evening was well  worth a second look...

Sometimes...it's good to just look up at the sky...

Please read this...

Sometimes, when a little bit of inspiration might be needed, all you have to do is look up in the sky.

That’s what I did several times during the past week or so, which meant that I got to see a supermoon...one lonely meteor...and a colorful sunset on a nice summer evening in August.

Maybe you heard about the August supermoon, which also was known as the Sturgeon supermoon. The space.com website explained that the August full moon “officially” peaked at about 8:36 p.m. our time last Thursday night. That was about the time I was wandering around in the dark, looking for a good place to get a photograph of the bright light in the sky.

A hazy layer of thin clouds cast a bit of a shadow on the view of the moon, but it added a little something to the photograph. 

space.com noted that August’s full moon followed three supermoons in a row which were seen in May, June and July. The Sturgeon supermoon was our last supermoon of 2022. I guess that means the rest of the full moons we’ll see this year will just be plain old moons. 

While I was wandering around in the dark, I also looked for a good place to hopefully catch a glimpse of the Perseid meteor shower. The meteor shower peaked on August 11 and 12...just in time for the supermoon. That apparently was not good timing, since the light from the big ol’ moon put a bit of a damper on attempts to watch the meteor shower.  

“The Perseids are caused by Earth passing through debris – bits of ice and rock – left behind by Comet Swift-Tuttle which last passed close to Earth in 1992,” space.com explained. The Perseids peaked when Earth passes through the densest and dustiest area on August 11-12. 

“Years without moonlight see higher rates of meteors per hour, and in outburst years (such as in 2016) the rate can be between 150-200 meteors an hour,” the website said.  

I saw one meteor. And a lightning bug, which I briefly thought might have been a meteor. And, I think I saw three satellites zooming through the night sky. I was grateful to have seen the one meteor. I’ve gone out in the dark on an August night in the past to watch the Perseid meteor shower. One year, I saw a baker’s dozen.

I had better luck catching a glimpse of a nice sunset last Saturday evening. I had gone to take some photographs at the Peach Festival in Cobden. The sunset was eye-catching...and quite colorful.

Yup...if you need a little bit of inspiration...just head outside and take a look at the sky...

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Gazette-Democrat

112 Lafayette St.
Anna, Illinois 62906
Office Number: (618) 833-2158
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