D’jou believe in jubilees?

The Platinum Jubilee, 70th anniversary of the reign of Queen Elizabeth II, seems to have been celebrated mainly today, Friday June 3, though she became queen on 1952 Feb. 6 when her father died and her coronation was on 1953 June 2. Her reign has become the longest in British history; she may overtake Louis XIV of France’s 72 years. I had had the idea that Pepi I or Pepi II of Egypt had reigned longest, but not so. Of course nobody can beat Methuselah.

Isleworth is lucky in having three village-focus-like spaces, the ruverside, the grassy Upper Square, and the grassy Shrewsbury Walk, and each of them was today full of stalls and events and red-white-and-blue bunting. I like pageantry, but we had been invited to something better, a lovely lunch in a distant part of London with this red (though not white and blue) finale.

Oh, and Lidl, a supermarket with German efficiency but a policy of nods to Britishness, has been offering Jubilee cupcakes.

Other Developments Department

June 5 is Whit Sunday, seven weeks after Easter.

Saturn becomes stationary, at the beginning of the apparent retrograde path that will climax in its opposition on August 14. The stationary moment is Saturday June 4, 20 Universal Time, if measured in ecliptic longitude, but Sunday June 5 at 13 UT if measured in right ascension.

Here is a detail (simplified – believe it or not) from the chart in the Saturn section of Astronomical Calendar 2022. At each end (June and October) of the retrograde loop, the planet’s path makes a curve, if a tight one, so that there is a difference of a few hours between the times when it reverses direction in longitude (parallel to the ecliptic) and in right ascension (parallel to the lines of declination). The line marked “3h” is a line of right ascension.You can tell from the shape of the loops that Saturn is in a part of its orbit that is gradually sloping south of the ecliptic.

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