Category: Articles

Monday, July 11


Unicorn Comments & Graphics

Monday, July 11

 

Monday is the sacred day of the moon, personified as the goddesses Selene, Luna, and Mani. The moon is ruler of flow, affecting the changeable and impressionable aspects of people. If a full moon falls on a Monday, then the powers of the moon are at their most potent.

Deity: Mani

Zodiac Sign: Cancer

Planet: Moon

Tree: Willow

Herb: Chickweed

Stone: Agate

Animal: Crab

Element: Water

Color: Green

Rune: Lagu (L)

Celtic Tree Month of Tinne(Holly) – July 8 – August 4. Holly, an evergreen plant reminds us all year long about the immortality of nature. A symbol of masculine energy and firmness.

Runic Half-Month of Ur (primal strength) – July 4 – July 28

Goddess of the Month of Kerea – July 11 – August 8

 

 

Source

The Pagan Book of Days
Nigel Pennick

 

The Sky This Week: July 11 – July 17


Unicorn Comments & GraphicsThe Sky This Week: July 11 – July 17

 

Asteroid 7 Iris makes an appearance, Pluto still shines, and the Delta Aquarid meteor shower begins to fall.
By Richard Talcott

Monday, July 11
You can find the First Quarter Moon in the southwest as darkness falls, then watch as it sinks toward the western horizon, where it sets shortly before 1 a.m. local daylight time. Our satellite officially reaches its First Quarter phase at 8:52 p.m. EDT. The half-lit Moon spends the night among the background stars of Virgo the Maiden, some 5° north of that constellation’s brightest star, 1st-magnitude Spica.

Saturn lies nearly due south and at its peak altitude as darkness falls this week. Shining at magnitude 0.2, it is easily the brightest object in its host constellation, Ophiuchus the Serpent-bearer. When viewed through a telescope, the planet measures 18″ across while its dramatic ring system spans 41″ and tilts 26° to our line of sight. You also should keep an eye out for its brighter moons. A 4-inch scope easily shows 8th-magnitude Titan and the 10th-magnitude trio of Tethys, Dione, and Rhea. An 8-incher will bring in two more satellites that are well-placed this evening. Look for 11th-magnitude Iapetus 2.2′ north of Saturn and 12th-magnitude Enceladus 35″ west of the planet.

Tuesday, July 12
Pluto reached opposition and peak visibility last week, and it remains a tempting target all night. It glows dimly at magnitude 14.1, however, so you’ll need an 8-inch or larger telescope with good optics to spot it visually. Pluto currently lies in northeastern Sagittarius, some 0.4° west-southwest of the 3rd-magnitude star Pi (p) Sagittarii. See “The quest for distant Pluto” in the July Astronomy for complete details on finding this world.

Wednesday, July 13
The Southern Delta Aquarid meteor shower gets underway this week. Although the shower doesn’t peak until the end of July, you should start to see some meteors in the hours before dawn. The best time to look is between 3 and 4 a.m. local daylight time, after the Moon has set and before twilight intrudes. To tell a Southern Delta Aquarid meteor from a random dust particle burning up in Earth’s atmosphere, trace the streak of light’s path backward. A shower meteor will appear to originate from the constellation Aquarius the Water-bearer.

The Moon reaches apogee, the farthest point in its orbit around Earth, at 1:24 a.m. EDT. It then lies 251,201 miles (404,269 kilometers) from Earth’s center.

Thursday, July 14
The waxing gibbous Moon forms a flat triangle with Mars and Saturn tonight. The Moon stands highest and about 8° to Mars’s upper left once darkness falls; Saturn lies approximately 16° to the Red Planet’s left.

Friday, July 15
For observers in North America, the Moon appears 3° above Saturn this evening. The ruddy 1st-magnitude star Antares in Scorpius the Scorpion lies 10° below the Moon while Mars blazes well to the trio’s right.

Saturday, July 16
If you like observing challenges, tonight is your night. Mercury passes just 0.5° (the diameter of a Full Moon) north of Venus in the early evening sky. From 40° north latitude, the two lie less than 4° high in the west-northwest 20 minutes after sunset. With a flat horizon and pristine skies, you might just glimpse the pair through binoculars. At magnitude –3.9, Venus will be the easier of the two to spot (Mercury glows at magnitude –1.0).

Sunday, July 17
Observers of the outer solar system should target Uranus this week before the Moon sheds its unwanted light into the predawn sky. The best time to look for it is shortly before twilight begins around 4 a.m. local daylight time. Uranus then lies 40° high in the northeast among the background stars of Pisces the Fish. This morning, use binoculars to find the magnitude 5.8 planet about 4° west of 4th-magnitude Omicron (o) Piscium and 3° north of 5th-magnitude Mu (m) Psc. A telescope reveals Uranus’ blue-green disk, which spans 3.5″.

 

 

Astronomy Magazine

Sun & Moon Data for Monday, July 11


Unicorn Comments & GraphicsSun & Moon Data for Monday, July 11

timeanddate.com

 

The Sun
Sun Direction: ↑ 95.81° E
Sun Altitude: 45.62°
Sun Distance: 94.500 million mi
Next Equinox: Sep 22, 2016 9:21 AM (Autumnal)
Sunrise Today: 5:44 AM↑ 61° Northeast
Sunset Today: 8:16 PM↑ 299° Northwest
Length of Daylight: 14 hours, 31 minutes

The Moon
Moon Direction: ↑ 64.64° ENE
Moon Altitude: -35.36°
Moon Distance: 250180 mi
Next Full Moon: Jul 19, 20165:56 PM
Next New Moon: Aug 2, 20163:44 PM
Next Moonrise: Today12:52 PM
Current Moon Phase: Waxing Crescent
Illumination: 46.2%

Courtesy of timeanddate.com

Good Morning To All Our Family & Friends Here At WOTC! May the Goddess Bless You This Monday and Always!


Unicorn Comments & Graphics

The Goddess is our sanctuary;
Her embrace holds us night and day.
We can be unafraid in the earthquake and
Comforted in the hurricane knowing we are not alone.
She is the river of joy, gladness is her voice.
She streams from the mountains, into the desert,
And into the parched heart that longs.
She answers the call of desire and stirs the soul’s bidding.
Tho we are surrounded with despair and taught doubt,
Yet we lie upon her Body and are comforted.
Look at the abiding beauty of Life.
Through destruction and chaos comes renewal.
Listen to the melody of the wild and the music of regeneration.
Love holds us in her song.
Tho riches are robbed and lies are honored,
Nothing stands before the turning of the Wheel.
The sacredness of life will continue,
Within the Palm of the Mother are we all held.

—-Earth Psalms
Angela Magara.

I Want To Ask You A Question….

As you well know, my life for the last two weeks has been a total disaster. I was going to take today off to rest and just basically try to forget everything that has happened. First, my baby passed, next the micro-burst occurred which blew out the windows in my office and finally I lost my tree. I know to the average run-of-the-mill person this would seem like any great tragedy but to a witch it is.

 

Kiki is buried out in the back under a shade tree. I thought for a while that perhaps this was way to soon after her death to get another Pom. I was out there the other night and started crying. This is the honest to goodness truth, I heard a voice through all my tears and sobbing. The voice told me, “You have way too much love to give, give that love to another animal and make it yours. Kiki is fine, she is happy & content and she wants you to love again. She knows that you loved her more than anything on this planet. But she said she has moved on so must you.” A don’t know where the voice came from but around here, strange things happen all the time. So a voice is nothing unusual.

 

My question to you is: Do any of you breed Pomeranians? Do you know of one that does? It doesn’t have to be in this area, I would glad travel to come and pick the pup up and pay for any re-homing fees? It would have a wonderful home and a witch that has a lot of love to give. If you can help me in anyway, please let me know. You can email me at witches_of_the_craft@outlook.com.

Thank you,

Much love,

Lady A

Astronomy Picture of the Day – Noctilucent Clouds Tour France

Astronomy Picture of the Day

Discover the cosmos! Each day a different image or photograph of our fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation written by a professional astronomer.

2016 July 9

Noctilucent Clouds Tour France
Image Credit & Copyright: Simon Lericque (GAAC)

 

Explanation: Bright noctilucent or night shining clouds are not familiar sights from northern France. But these electric-blue waves coursed through skies over the small town of Wancourt in Pas-de-Calais on July 6, just before the dawn. From the edge of space, about 80 kilometers above Earth’s surface, the icy clouds still reflect sunlight even though the Sun itself is below the horizon as seen from the ground. Usually spotted at high latitudes in summer months the diaphanous apparitions are also known as polar mesospheric clouds. The seasonal clouds are understood to form as water vapor driven into the cold upper atmosphere condenses on the fine dust particles supplied by disintegrating meteors or volcanic ash. NASA’s AIM mission provides projections of the noctilucent clouds as seen from space.

Earth Sky News for July 9th: Moon near Jupiter again on July 9

Moon near Jupiter again on July 9

By in TONIGHT

Tonight – July 9, 2016 – as seen from around the world, the moon again shines quite close to the giant planet Jupiter. As you gaze at them, imagine Jupiter’s newest “moon,” a spacecraft that journeyed five years through space to reach Jupiter and began orbiting around it this past Monday. This Juno spacecraft mission is the first since Galileo, which arrived in 1995, to orbit Jupiter.

The featured chart at top shows Jupiter and the moon on Saturday night as viewed from North America.

From mid-northern latitudes in Europe and Asia, you’ll see the moon closer to Jupiter than we see it in North America as darkness falls on July 9.

The most stunning view, though, will be from Australia. Check out the special chart, below, made just for our Australian friends, depicting the moon and Jupiter on this night. Indonesia and eastern Asia will also see the  and Jupiter close together on July 9.

Enjoy Jupiter now. Day by day, the giant planet is defending toward the sunset, closer and closer to being swallowed in the twilight glare. Jupiter will be gone from our sky – traveling behind the sun from Earth – by late August or early September.

Have a telescope? The four major moons of Jupiter – Io, Europa, Ganymede and Callisto – are quite easy to see through a modest, backyard telescope. Some people can even see one or two of these moons in steadily-held binoculars. Often, you can even see these Jovian moons in a twilight sky or a light-polluted city. Give it a try!

The four major moons of jupiter, often called the Galilean moons, have a very rich history in modern astronomy.

When Galileo first observed the moons of Jupiter revolving around the king planet in the early 1600s, it suggested to him the possibly that the planets might actually orbit the sun instead of Earth.

Io, the innermost Galilean moon, enabled the Danish astronomer Ole Romer to come up with a good approximation for the speed of light in 1676. In Ole Romer’s day, it was commonly thought that the speed of light wasn’t finite – but rather, instantaneous.

The Galilean moons also enabled celestial navigators to determine longitude on land. Although the Galilean moons couldn’t be used to determine longitude in the rough and tumble seas, seafarers could double-check the accuracy of their chronometers once they made landfall.

Bottom line: On July 9, 2016, as darkness falls, use the moon to locate the king planet Jupiter. Then use optical aid to glimpse its four major moons, Io Europa, Ganmede and Callisto.

 

Author

BRUCE MCCLURE

Bruce McClure has served as lead writer for EarthSky’s popular Tonight pages since 2004. He’s a sundial aficionado, whose love for the heavens has taken him to Lake Titicaca in Bolivia and sailing in the North Atlantic, where he earned his celestial navigation certificate through the School of Ocean Sailing and Navigation. He also writes and hosts public astronomy programs and planetarium programs in and around his home in upstate New York.

Article originally published on EarthSky