74% moon

 

Opened up the observatory and started to adjust the focus, connect the camera etc. and had just started taking pictures when heavy snowstorms came. But between these I was able to take pictures of tonight's moon which was 74% full. In the pictures you can see large craters like Copernicus, Plato, Archimedes and lava fields like Mare Imbrium with high mountain ranges Montes Alpes. Montes Alpes (Lunar Alps) is a prominent mountain range on the northern side of the moon, named after the Alps on Earth, and known for its highest mountain, Mons Blanc (3,600 m), and the impressive valley Vallis Alpes. The chain extends for about 220 km in a crescent shape, with a part bordering the lunar sea Mare Imbrium, and is one of the moon's most distinctive formations. Vallis Alpes is a lunar valley that divides the Montes Alpes area into two parts. It extends 166 km from the Mare Imbrium basin and trends east-northeast to the edge of Mare Frigoris. The valley is narrow at both ends and widens to a maximum width of about 10 km along the midsection. Copernicus is a prominent impact crater on the Moon located in the eastern Oceanus Procellarum. The crater is 96 km in diameter and 3.8 km deep. According to samples taken by Apollo 12 astronauts, the crater is about 800 million years old.

Giant crystals of feldspar and airglow

 

I´ve red about giant crystals of feldspar and small red gemstones of garnet in the rocks by the east coast of Sweden and really wanted to see/photograph them. For 1.9 billion years ago, there were explosive volcanoes there that spewed ash and lava over a shallow sea that covered the area. Early forms of life, microorganisms, lived on the seabed, which together built up limestone layers. Iron precipitated in the limestone and layers of iron ore formed, something that is common throughout Bergslagen. Deep below the volcanoes, large magma chambers have solidified into the rocks diorite and gabbro.

After a couple of hours of driving, I arrived at the port that was supposed to be near the place with the crystals. Then how to find them was another question. But I had looked at Google Maps and saw a trail that I could take and then turn off towards the coast. After a rather sweaty walk with heavy equipment, I was able to locate the outcrops where the crystals would be. a beautiful place with the sea right on the horizon. When darkness fell, I could see a nice starry sky with noticeable airglow, faint northern lights in the north and the Milky Way. After searching for the crystals with a headlamp in the dark for a couple of hours I finally found them and solved them with the UV lamp and the crystals fluorescent red in the dark – beautiful!!

Colors in the dark from a burial ground

The view from the ground, the small things. Standing at a historical site, old burial ground from the Iron Age. The stoned ones moved by the people creating the burial ground. At the stones moss and lichens grow, some very colorful in UV light. 

What are lichens?

Lichens are miniature ecosystems made of fungus and an algae and/or cyanobacteria. These different life forms work so closely together that the algae or cyanobacteria actually sits inside the fungus. The algae or cyanobacteria provide the fungus with sugars made from sunlight, and the fungus provides the home. Lichens look like spots or clumps of colour, like someone has splashed paint onto a branch of a tree. Their colours range from green to brown to white to russet red. Even in these colours, lichens can be understated additions to tree trunks and rocks, and you might miss them at first glance. There are many types of lichen but they only grow in three ways. They can be branched like tiny shrubs, they can have crinkly little leaves or they can grow like a crust on a surface.

Mosses are small, non-vascular, flowerless plants that form dense green clumps or mats, usually in damp places, lacking true roots, stems, and leaves but having root-like rhizoids and simple leaf-like structures. They absorb water and nutrients directly through their surfaces, reproduce via spores, and are vital for soil stabilization, water retention, and creating microhabitats, acting as an important link in ecosystems.

In the sky a faint green light visible below the Big Dipper. According to Spaceweather.com it is SOLSTICE STORM IN PROGRESS: A minor G1-class geomagnetic storm is in progress on Dec. 21st. Why? Earth's magnetic field is connecting to the sun's (SWx jargon: "BsubZ is pointing south"), giving the solar wind an unimpeded path into our magnetosphere. Arctic sky watchers should be alert for auroras.