Are you near to Harper’s Ferry?

Or could you go by there?  I’ll say why in a minute.  Meanwhile, here is how the evening sky is looking, as summer begins to end.

See the end note about enlarging illustrations.

Jupiter continues to pursue Saturn along the ecliptic, but the Sun’s apparent movement along it is faster than theirs, so that by September 8 the elongation of Jupiter from the Sun will have dropped to 90 degrees – the situation called eastern quadrature.

The Moon will reach First Quarter – as its position 90° from the Sun is called – on September 6, a few hours before passing about 2° north of Jupiter.

Venus, Mars, and Mercury are down in the glare of the Sun.  Venus was at conjunction beyond it on August 14, Mars on Sep. 2, and Mercury will be on Sep. 4.

So in the pre-dawn sky of this season, there are no planets to be seen, but there is a grand display of the opposite constellations: the great personages who perform for us on winter evenings – a dress rehearsal for the winter opera.

If I had set these horizon scenes as usual for the mid-USA location of latitude 40° north, longitude 90° west, they would scarcely be different – the Moon just a fraction of a degree farther on.  But I have an interest in another view from Harper’s Ferry, West Virginia.

I’ve been a bit skimpy with blog posts recently, and that was mainly because of time spent in getting a book ready.  It is a novel called Klara Lingvo, with text in English and Esperanto on facing pages, aimed at making it an easy adventure to learn that supremely logical international language.

The opening scene of the story is on the railway station platform at Harper’s Ferry.  If you’ve ever been there, you know that the train from Washington comes hurtling out of a tunnel beside the gorge of the Potomac River.  I need to draw that for a cover picture.  I’ve sort of put it together, but I’m now thousands of miles away and could use inspiration from a photo.  If there’s a chance of your taking one, please discuss with me by email!

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ILLUSTRATIONS in these posts are made with precision but have to be inserted in another format.  You may be able to enlarge them on your monitor.  One way: right-click, and choose “View image”, then enlarge.  Or choose “Copy image”, then put it on your desktop, then open it.  On an iPad or phone, use the finger gesture that enlarges (spreading with two fingers, or tapping and dragging with three fingers).  Other methods have been suggested, such as dragging the image to the desktop and opening it in other ways.

This weblog maintains its right to be about astronomy or anything under the sun.