Thank you!
Your support is sustaining the future of local news in our communities.

The Moon Gets Company

This past Monday, Aug. 13, the moon was new.  If you were to imagine a 93-million-mile line connecting Earth to the sun, then the moon was on that line — in between the other two.  Any sunlight that hit the moon, therefore, bounced right back to the sun and never made its way to our planet.  So, since the moon does not produce its own light, it was not visible to us.

   Now the moon continues its monthly sweep away from the sunny side to the outer or “night†side of Earth. As it gets closer and closer to the night side of Earth, more and more of the sun’s rays can both reach the moon and reflect toward us.  An increasingly greater portion of the moon’s disc is visible and the moon appears to “wax.â€

   This week, the moon will wax from a slim crescent to a hearty “gibbous†(three-quarter).  If you look to the low west shortly after sunset (at about 7:53 p.m.), the night of Friday, Aug. 17, you’ll find that the crescent has some company.  Directly to the left of the moon and toward its top will be a singularly vivid star: the most obvious object in the moon’s neighborhood.  

   This star is Spica.  

   Spica is the brightest star in the zodiac constellation Virgo.  It is the 15th brightest of all stars visible from anywhere, anytime, on Earth. Spica is approximately one-and-a-half times as massive as our sun.  It lives approximately one-and-a-half quadrillion miles away from us. This means that for Spica’s light to reach your eye, it has traveled for approximately 260 years. The Spica you see is actually the Spica that existed before the American Revolution.

   What of the Spica that exists now? We have no way of knowing if there even is one.

   We nonetheless expect Spica to remain home in Virgo each night after Aug. 17.  But the moon will continue to slide to the left — farther and farther away from the constellation.  Spica will thus become more difficult to identify.  

   Half of the moon will be illuminated Monday, Aug. 20.  One would expect the moon to appear full roughly a week later — on Tuesday, Aug. 28.  This month, however, things will be delightfully different.  Nature has lined things up for the totality of the moon to be eclipsed by Earth’s shadow!

  Stay tuned.

   Readers with astronomy questions are invited to send them to Compass@lakevillejournal.com for an answer or explanation from Dan Yaverbaum.

Latest News

‘So Little to Do,’ so much to discover at James Barron Art

‘So Little to Do,’ so much to discover at James Barron Art

Curator Deborah Goodman Davis reads the Emily Dickinson poem “The Grass So Little Has to Do.” Spencer Finch’s “Following Three Bees (Zinnias)” buzzes in the background.

Photo by Natalia Zukerman

“The Grass Has So Little to Do,” on view at James Barron Art in Kent, takes its title from Emily Dickinson’s poem “The Grass So Little Has to Do,” written in 1862:

“The Grass so little has to do—
A Sphere of simple Green—
With only Butterflies to brood
And Bees to entertain—”

Keep ReadingShow less
art

Marina Kotchoubey is not a woodworker

Marina Kotchoubey is not a woodworker

Marina Kotchoubey at the Ian Ingersoll Cabinetmakers showroom in West Cornwall.

Photo by D.H. Callahan

After 40-something years navigating the world of custom fine furniture, Ian Ingersoll was getting ready to retire. Starting off with a little dovetail stool that he sold at a shop in West Cornwall in the 1970s, he’d grown his skill and his business into something he — and the whole town — could be proud of. Shutting down that business was not an option.

Ingersoll built Ian Ingersoll Cabinetmakers, which produced mainly classical Shaker furniture, on passion: the passion he had to make a living through creative challenges and the passion of his employees, who all seem deeply in love with their craft.

Keep ReadingShow less
community

A legacy of giving at Norfolk Chamber Music Festival

A legacy of giving at Norfolk Chamber Music Festival

One hundred and twenty years ago, Carl and Ellen Stoeckel commissioned New York architect E.K. Rossiter to design The Music Shed in Norfolk, Connecticut. After nearly a decade of entertaining their friends and neighbors with the finest music of the day, they built a permanent home for their beloved Litchfield County Choral Union.

The commission and full funding of the construction was not unheard of in an era when great fortunes led to public enrichment. Railroad tycoon John D. Rockefeller was instrumental in funding institutes of higher education. Steel baron Andrew Carnegie was building libraries all over the country, and famously said that a man who dies rich is a disgrace, challenging his peers to give their fortunes back to the people.

Keep ReadingShow less
music
google preferred source

Want more of our stories on Google? Click here to make us a Preferred Source.

Two unique exhibitions at Geary Gallery

Two unique exhibitions at Geary Gallery

Henry Klimowicz with his sculpture, “Partial Pillar 1”

Photo by D.H. Callahan

On Saturday, Aug. 1, Geary Gallery opened its doors in Salisbury for two unique shows in its first- and second-floor gallery spaces. Art lovers flooded both floors over the course of the afternoon, giving the events a vibrant feeling that enhanced the importance of the art.

On the first floor is a show by Chicago-born, Colorado-based photographer Summers Moore, titled “Lobitos: Pueblo Fantasma,” or “Lobitos: Ghost Town.” The work centers around her daughter’s current hometown in Peru. Moore herself found a home away from home in Colorado in the mid-1980s and encouraged her children to seek out new places outside of their comfort zones.

Keep ReadingShow less
art

Writer’s retreat in the woods

Writer’s retreat in the woods

Participants in a 2024 Great Mountain Forest Woodland Academy workshop at Yale Camp.

Photo by Mike Zarfos

Great Mountain Forest (GMF) will host its first Nature Writing Retreat at the historic Yale Camp in Falls Village from Aug. 7-9, 2026. Writers of all levels are invited to draw inspiration from one of New England’s most notable forest landscapes. GMF envisions the retreat becoming an annual event celebrating writing, conservation and the relationship between people and forests.

This immersive three-day retreat reflects on the legacy of Hal Borland, the American writer and New York Times nature columnist whose work was deeply connected to this landscape. The retreat explores how wilderness shapes language, strengthens close observation and fosters environmental consciousness.

Keep ReadingShow less
community

From Cornwall to Rome, Adam Van Doren at Berkshire Botanical Garden

From Cornwall to Rome, Adam Van Doren at Berkshire Botanical Garden

Artist Adam Van Doren and curator Donna Hassler talk to a group of visitors at the Berkshire Botanical Garden. A Stephen Proctor vessel sits to their left.

Photo by Natalia Zukerman

This summer, the Berkshire Botanical Garden in Stockbridge has hosted “Grounded in Nature: Paintings by Adam Van Doren,” an exhibition exploring the intimate relationship between architecture and the natural world.

On view for only a few more weeks in the Leonhardt Galleries, the exhibition features more than 35 watercolor and oil paintings by the New York-based artist, architect, author and Yale professor, curated by art historian Donna Hassler, director emerita of Chesterwood. The works span three distinct places that have shaped Van Doren’s artistic practice: New York City, Cornwall, Connecticut, and his travels throughout Europe.

Keep ReadingShow less
art
google preferred source

Want more of our stories on Google? Click here to make us a Preferred Source.