"Wolfgang" wrote in message
...
Standing out on the front stoop just now, I looked up at the full moon. I
was facing nearly due east. High thin clouds looked very much like the
ripples in the sand in the shallows of a lake.

There's few things like a full moon & clouds of any sort to paint some
stunning images. Yours sounds exceptional. We have the same full moon, but
maybe we'll get those high cirrus tonight.

That's one drawback I've found with the flood of point & shoot digital
cameras. No shutter adjustment for time exposures.

Reminds me of one of the coolest astronomical things I've seen. What must
have been a large meteorite made a huge, bright, trailing but brief streak
as I was looking up. My mind barely had time to form the impression, "wow",
when I heard a "pop" sound behind the meteorite. For a long time, I'd
assumed I'd actually heard the meteorite hit the atmosphere; but in
retrospect, the sound came way too soon after the streak to have traveled at
the speed of sound from that altitude. Is it actually possible the pop
sound was from the meteorite, or is it more likely the sound coincidently
came from somewhere else?

Joe F.