Leap day and March ahead

February 29 is Leap Day, that occurs only once in four years.

(Darker blue means less moonlight in the following night.  The Moon is Full on Jan. 10 and Feb. 8, New on Jan. 24 and Feb. 23.)

There isn’t, as far as I know, a festival for bonus day added to the year, though one might think there should be, especially when it’s a Saturday.  Perhaps you’ll find some springy way of celebrating.

There is also going to be a blog leap.  That is, no more posts from me for some days.  We are moving on March 2 from beside the sea to beside a river, so there is as much confusion as there must have been when Noah was packing the Ark.

I hope the transitional state will not last as far as the March equinox, but here’s looking forward to that.

In this detail from our Zodiac Wavy Chart. for 2020, the Sun (exaggerated 8 times in size) is shown at mid March.

Each day, from March 1, it advances along the ecliptic (the blue line) by about the width of one of the steps in the graded Sun glow, until on March 20 it crosses the celestial equator (the red line) into the northern hemisphere of the sky.

There may be time for ore about the spring equinox when my computer gets unpacked.

The experience called “moving” is notoriously stressful – has been ever since humans progressed, if it was progress, from nomadic to sedentary and to the accumulation of possessions  One of my worry-dreams was that I had packed dozens of boxes too tightly, so that their inside pedals wouldn’t be able to turn.  It was a relief to wake and realize that boxes aren’t like bicycles: they do not have pedals and wheels.

Once upon a time, a family up in Lancashire lived in a house that was haunted by a boggart.  What’s a boggart?  He’s one of them invizzables that lives in a hoose and goes bump in the night and plays tricks – moves things around, trips y’up.  The family got tired of their boggart and decided to flit.  They loaded everything onto the dray – back then, folk didn’t have so much stuff, they could get everything onto a dray pulled by a nag.  They had all their chests on the dray, and the granny and the youngest bairn too, and were ready to go, when a neighbor came strolling by.  “What, neighbors.” he said, “are ye flitting?”  And a squeaky little voice piped up from inside one of the chest: “Yes, neighbor, we’re all flitting!”  So the family saw it weren’t no use to flit, and they unloaded all the chests, and the bairn and the granny.  (Who gave them a wink.  That’s a last twist I’ve just thought of adding to the yarn.)

Which reminds me.  I’ve recently written two novels and a three-hundred-line poem, and I’m thinking I should get beyond my self-publishing habit.  If you know, or are, a literary agent, please contact me.

__________

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.

Sometimes I make improvements or corrections to a post after positing it.  If you click on the title, rather than on ‘Read more’, I think you are sure to see the latest version.

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