Butterfly and Planets

This yellow admiral gave me a good workout this morning. It teased me mercilessly, flying at me, above me, pretending to settle, then fluttering off. It even pursued me when I went to another part of the garden.  At last it ran out of steam and settled on the shed for a breather.

This morning I awoke before dawn with my bad shoulder giving me pain. It’s always worse when I’m lying down, so I got up. The sky was clear, which was a surprise, and I remembered the planets. I walked down the road to a place where I could see the northeast quarter. There was an orange glow on the horizon and in a great arc to the northwest were the five planets and a sliver of moon. At first I couldn’t identify them and had to return home to study the illustration on my iPad again. That was the example for late January. I went back for another look. Mars was a problem, but then I saw it up out of line. The yellow tint was unmistakable. Low on the horizon was Mercury, with Venus and Saturn in line with the distant Jupiter, and Mars and the moon a little above the line. It was a stunning sight, from the glow at the horizon up to the blue-black realm of Jupiter.