Count your Lucky Stars

We had a stroll up to the allotment in the early hours of this morning to look for shooting stars during this year's Perseids meteor shower. It was a beautiful night and the moon had just dipped out of view from the bench so we had a great dark sky to view. 

That's not a photo :-) We only saw a couple of meteors each, but it was worth venturing out. An owl was very active and noisy in the trees around the site and on our way through the Croft a hedgehog trundled across our path! We'd only mentioned yesterday that we hadn't seen one for a couple of years.

We had a lovely sunny afternoon on the plot yesterday; watering, feeding and deadheading various plants.

And look! The sunflowers are here! The tall ones are still growing but not flowering yet, but the short ones are very sweet and the bees love them.

We picked a few bits for dinner - our yellow courgettes are getting greener each day! Cucumbers are featuring in every harvest now.

A bit annoying that this was amongst the carrots. That could have been our entry for the 'funny shaped veg' in the show next week. I expect there will be more to choose from though!

Welcome to 2014!

I thought I'd add a quick New Years message to my blog. As we haven't really got any news from the plot I thought I'd find a nice picture on line... so...

Best wishes for a happy, healthy and veggie-filled
 new year!

A rather odd-looking spud I think you'd agree - but we've all grown one of them :-)

From http://www.scrapalbum.com/xmasp13.htm

And, this one obviously attracted the eye because of the beetle, and brings me to another fave subject - astronomy...

From http://www.boltonmuseums.org.uk/collections/local-history/social-history-images/19646817by

The Quadrantids meteor shower should be at its peak over the next two nights. So, if the rain holds off we may just be lucky... This sentence in particular is of interest....

"Early viewing on the evening of 3rd January therefore might just bag you a spectacular haul of shooting stars"

Asteroids and Meteors

After the amazing footage of the meteorite falling in Russia this morning I'd been looking forward to seeing the DA14 asteroid this evening from the well-placed allotment site.

Russia, not Hungerford

We took our flask of coffee, binoculars, camera, sky map and star map Android app along with a little rum and settled in the container at about 7:30 ready for the start of the 'show' at 7:50.
It was a fabulous night for star gazing. Lovely and clear with a newish moon not causing too much light. The DA14 asteroid passed between Earth and some satellites but it's only small so not visible to human eye without at least binoculars.

DA14 asteroid image

The moon looked great through the binoculars and Jupiter was shining brightly. Sadly, finding the planned location of the asteroid wasn't as simple as that. My hands were shaking so much with the chill that I could barely make out the stars of the plough constellation through the binoculars. So, tracking down the star M94 and the asteroid near that was an impossible task!
So, we returned home fairly quickly, just as clouds began to cover the sky. Never mind, we'll stick to going out for the perseids in August when it's warmer and easier to spot!