Rare Astronomical Sights and Sounds

Jonathan Powell Rare Astronomical Sights and Sounds The Patrick Moore The Patrick Moore Practical Astronomy Series More information about this series at http://www.springer.com/series/3192 Rare Astronomical Sights and Sounds Jonathan Powell Jonathan Powell Ebbw Vale, United Kingdom ISSN 1431-9756 ISSN 2197-6562 (electronic) The Patrick Moore Practical Astronomy Series ISBN 978-3-319-97700-3 ISBN 978-3-319-97701-0 (eBook) https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-97701-0 Library of Congress Control Number: 2018953700 © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2018 This work is subject to copyright. 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This Springer imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature Switzerland AG The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland Contents 1 Introduction: From the Past, into the Present, and onto the Future �� 1 2 The Many Wonders of the Cosmos �� 7 3 Archaeoastronomy Part I �� 21 4 Archaeoastronomy Part II �� 41 5 Observation and Equipment �� 61 6 The More Obscure Sights �� 77 7 The Time, the Place �� 91 8 Atmospheric Factors and Features �� 105 9 The Noisy Universe �� 131 10 Theoretical Part I �� 153 11 Theoretical Part II �� 171 Glossary �� 195 Index �� 213 v Chapter 1 Introduction: From the Past, into the Present, and onto the Future Our ancestors lived and died by observations and rituals created around annual events in the sky. Such happenings gave a pattern of stability to their world: when to sow crops, when to reap crops, the onset of warmer temperatures, and the onset of colder temperatures, reflected by the seasons. To acknowledge the sky and its perceived power, many rituals and sacri- fices were made, all of which were observed with great timing and accuracy. Various civilizations had their own ways of respecting the rising of the Sun, the passage of the stars, and the phases of the Moon. In a comforting form of naivety, not fully understanding the mechanisms and drivers behind what they were witnessing, they still registered the impact the sky could have on their daily lives, an unquestioned authority that in our modern world has sadly been neglected. We must learn today as did our ancestors that while we can see and project our understanding of what we behold onto the sky, such interpretations are not as certain as we might think. Let us not forget that the way our ancestors saw the skies was continually challenged, cor- rected, and in some cases augmented over the thousands of years. Who is to say that our definition is ultimately the correct one? Amongst the annual sights in ancient sky were rarities, oddities, and occurrences that would have proved very disturbing to the onlooker, as such events broke with tradition, upset the equilibrium, and penetrated that comforting bubble of naivety. Eclipses in particular humbled and frightened those who witnessed them. Whilst in modern times, we can explain why and © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2018 1 J. Powell, Rare Astronomical Sights and Sounds, The Patrick Moore Practical Astronomy Series, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-97701-0_1 2 1 Introduction: From the Past, into the Present, and onto the Future how they occur, they are still relatively rare and continue to produce a sense of wonder. Perhaps they are more common than once-in-a-lifetime events, but they are still rare when speaking of the number of people who have actually witnessed a total solar eclipse, or for that matter, a transit of Mercury, thunderclouds on Saturn, or closer to home, a moonbow, a sun pillar, a green flash. Everyday Life Many people from many walks of life seem to gravitate towards a plateau- like zone of existence, a state of being that affords a level of knowing, understanding, and appreciation for what came before and what lies ahead. It may well take weeks, months, or years for an individual to finally enter this stable state. The feat may for a majority prove satisfying well beyond the initial moment of achievement, instilling them with a sense of fulfill- ment that makes them want to remain within that plateau. Maintaining this level of comfort can become a priority that subsequently outweighs ambi- tions to seek other opportunities or paths leading out of that zone. For the minority, the satisfaction will always be fleeting, prompting the questions: what next, where next, and how to achieve it? Those who have achieved existence in their own plateau-like zone (often unique to the individual in its look, feel, and attributes) may well have entered a place that they argue cannot be bettered, or the risk of potentially bettering what they have is too great. Others argue that in order to realize other zones, further sacrifice is required and, in reality, no one zone will ever offer exactly the right ingredients that would allow for the journey to finally end. These zones are not life goals driven by results, performance, and expec- tations set by others, but zones that exist within everyday life—from the moment one wakes to the moment one goes back to sleep. What distin- guishes the passage of time to and from multiple zones in one’s life are certain key features that turn ordinary to extraordinary, where the automa- tion is temporarily eclipsed by a bright flash, or a sound momentarily breaks the silence in a world that has so much noise. These flashes of light or infrequently heard sounds represent the rarities in everyday life, the reality checks that, regardless of what stage we have reached in life, have the power to impact our whole outlook and understanding of the larger picture that exists for us all. A simple action, word, or deed can have a similar affect, becoming a turning point or junction that alters a course or changes an opinion. How many times has it been said that if we Everyday Life 3 could hold one precious, singular moment in life and make that moment resonate for the rest of our lives, then there would exist a true sense of ful- fillment that cannot be bought, earned, or bartered for? A newborn child held in a mother’s arms represents the cycle of life at its very beginning, a moment that for both are frozen in time, held in the moment, and cherished for the future. These life rarities can be applied not just on a daily basis and not just on one solitary aspect of it, but also to a much larger and more grandiose scale. Ultimately, we all exist on the same level within our Universe, and the workings and patterns of our everyday life form part of a significantly more complex picture. It is this search for the big picture that gifts those with enough passion the ability to see the intricate and often unexperienced rarities offered by our awe-inspiring cosmological world. This world acts as a timepiece that not only observes our own time on Earth, but also the general passage of everything that has been, everything that was, and when “the time” comes, everything that will eventually be. Fig. 1 The expanding universe. Courtesy of NASA 4 1 Introduction: From the Past, into the Present, and onto the Future Universal Timepiece Astronomical Rarities delves into the horological side of the universe, look- ing at some of the finer workings of the timepiece that creates its own flashes and sounds. Whilst rare, these events are as important in substance and nature as the most prolific and larger aspects in the universe, as one cannot exist without the other. A river can

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