This morning’s crescent moon about 30 minutes before sunrise. Not a cloud in the sky, but the sky had a nice purplish colour to it.

Caught the flash from an old Russian rocket body, a Tsiklon-3, that's been orbiting our Earth for just over 39 years. Also, this rocket body orbits almost 600 miles from our Earth’s surface. Most sit 300 – 450 miles from our Earth’s surface. This one is listed as Meteor 2-15, launched 1/2 #space

Words and Phrases from the Past. CHTHONIC (adjective) – in, under, or beneath the earth (pertains to deities or spirits of the underworld, especially in relation to Greek religion). Artwork is of the Greek Goddess Hecate, keeper of the keys of the Underworld (Tartarus).

Sunrise this morning with an 13% waning crescent moon.

Words and Phrases from the Past. SENESCENT (adjective) – growing old; aging.

Venus and Mars at superior conjunctions and conjunctions. Venus at superior conjunction, followed by Venus and Mars having a very close conjunction (visually 10 arcminutes from of each other), and then Mars at superior conjunction. But Wait! What's that bright light starting to show-up off 1/8

Myths of Gods and Demons. PSYCHOPOMP (noun) - creatures, spirits, angels, or deities in many religions whose responsibility is to escort newly deceased souls to the afterlife. Their role is not to judge the deceased but simply provide safe passage.

Just four day after Venus reached superior conjunction and one day after Mars reaches superior conjunction, Jupiter will reach opposition on January 10, 2026, at 01:00AM MST. Opposition is when our earth sits directly in the middle between our home star and one of the superior planets. 1/8 #Space

Remember when you were young and you would lie out on the grass, look at the clouds above and sometimes, sometimes see the clouds formed as something else. Image is of the clouds above Jupiter, taken on 29th October 2018 by the Juno spacecraft. Do you see the “Dolphin”?

Four generations of my family have served our country. Service is in my blood. The President wouldn’t know anything about that.

A second Kreutz sungrazers is caught by the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO) spacecraft's cameras as Venus and Mars move towards a superior conjunction. The blue part of the video is from Large Angle Spectrometric Coronagraph (LASCO) camera 3, the red part from LASCO camera 2. 1/3 #space

The item growing on my Cat Palm tree has opened up and out, but I still have no idea what it is. #houseplants

Words and Phrases from the Past. ARANEIFORM (adjective) – having the form of a spider. Spider Queen by Ben Juniu.

The Simpsons and The Dictator predicted everything.

Watered my house plants yesterday and found something odd on the Cat Palm tree. I’m not sure if these are going to turn into blooms or what. Can’t find anything online about a Cat Palm having blooms. I just have to keep checking on it each day and see what happens. 1/2 #houseplants

A Monstrous Manifesto ― Catherynne M. Valente.

This year will be special when it comes to full moons because for 2026 there will be 13 Full Moons. May will have two full moons; the second one being called a Blue Moon (more about that when we get to May). The Full Moon for this January will happen this Saturday, January 3, 2026, at 1/7

Dinner tonight was something different to start off the new year. Debbie made French Dip but did it much differently. And it was really good. No dip needed. 1/3

My last pictures for 2025 are feather-like wispy clouds in the sky above my area this afternoon. Love these types of clouds because you can watch them change shape in minutes.

Another year comes to an end, with another 580 million miles traveled around our home star. Tomorrow, we start the trip again. Here’s hoping for a Happy New Year, and another safe trip.

Words and Phrases from the Past. QUALTAGH (noun) – The first person one encounters upon leaving one's home or, in some cases, outside one's home, particularly on New Year's Day. The qualtagh (he or she) may also be the first person who enters a house on New Year's morning. In this 1/5 #floklore

An extremely small Kreutz sungrazer was caught by the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO) spacecraft's LASCO 2 camera just a few hours before it burned up. It was too small and dim for the LASCO 3 camera. #space #KreutzSungrazer

3I/ATLAS Flyby apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap25122... This deep exposure captures the comet from another star system as it gently swept across a faint background of stars in the constellation Leo

IT WAS THE NIGHT BEFORE YULETIDE It was the night before Yuletide and all through the glen Not a creature was stirring, not a fox, not a hen. A mantle of snow shone brightly that night As it lay on the ground, reflecting moonlight. The faeries were nestled all snug in their trees, Unmindful 1/12

"The Physics of Santa Claus" A Scientific Disproof of the Santa Theory by Linda Harden No known species of reindeer can fly. But there are 300,000 species of living organisms yet to be classified, and while most of these are insects and germs, this does not 1/14 www.noradsanta.org/en/map

Campbell’s Soup ad from 1971. M'm! M'm! Good!

Another take on the Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy, this one by Lindsey Stirling. youtu.be/0RkSy6ElNIY

A really nice take on the Dance of the Sugar- Plum Fairy & Waltz of the Flowers. Really worth watching. www.youtube.com/watch?v=piBZ...

Words and Phrases from the Past. NIVEOUS (adjective) - pertaining to snow, especially in whiteness. Snowy.

Happy Winter Solstice Day! Today is Winter Solstice Day, which marks the shortest day and the longest night of the year for those of us that live in the Northern Hemisphere. After tonight the nights will start to get shorter and days longer. The Winter Solstice usually falls around the 1/13

What it looks like when a ball of “gas” gets blown off our home star during a Coronal Mass Ejection (CME). The bright white ball is an expulsion of plasma. During a CME billions of tons of coronal material are ejected. #space

Astrochemistry Update: SPHEREx Observatory Completes First Cosmic Map Like No Other astrobiology.com/2025/12/astr... #astrobiology #SPHEREx #astrochemistry #interstellar #AGU25

Words and Phrases from the Past. SOPITE (verb) - to put to sleep; to quiet. Together by Marina Dormidontova

Video scenes from the International Space Station with the music of “Waltz of the Flowers” by Tchaikovsky. www.youtube.com/watch?v=DETb...

Had a hot air balloon come low over our house early this morning. Debbie seen it as she was backing out of the carport, it startled her because of how low it was. Didn’t get a picture of it until it was over the neighbor’s property. It ended up landing in someone's front yard by the highway. 1/2

Mars has now joined Venus in the view of NASA's Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO) spacecraft's LASCO (Large Angle Spectrometric Coronagraph) C3 camera. On January 9, 2026, Mars will reach superior conjunction, just two days after it and Venus have a close conjunction (visually 1/2

Have you ever wondered why the names of comets contain a bunch of letters, numbers and odd names? There is a simple reason for what looks like numbers and letters just thrown together. Comets are listed by their type, the year of their discovery, the time of the month, 1/12 #Space #Comets

Words and Phrases from the Past. DELIQUESCE (verb) – to melt away.

Will be just down the road from me. Looking forward to new trails to ride. www.singletracks.com/mtb-trails/d...

Had an unwanted visitor this morning sitting in one of the backyard trees. A redtail hawk. All the hens were in their coop, only the rooster was out in the yard, crowing away. And he’s a mean SOB. Have to take a rack into the pen to keep him from attaching me & sometimes that doesn’t stop him. 1/2

Myths of Gods and Demons CHIONE (noun) - the nymph or minor goddess of snow. She is the daughter of Boreas, God of the North Wind, and Oreithyia, the lady of mountain gales and daughter of Erechtheus, king of Athens. #folklore

I took three pictures from tonight's sunset and placed one over the other to show what the sky looked like from the northwest to the southwest. I don't have (nor do I want) any type of enhancement programs so yes, there are lines showing the overlay.

Tonight's sunset was really sometime to see. Started off with some orange & yellows above the setting sun, cotton candy pink skies to my east (the one with my burros in) and to my south (looking towards the San Miguel Mountains), and then a nice deep orange after sunset above the western horizon.

Words and Phrases from the Past. RACONTEUR (noun) – a person who is skilled in relating stories and anecdotes in an interesting and engaging manner.

NOW this is truly funny. 🤣🤣🤣

What looks like a strange, unusual nebula around a star is in fact an image of Jupiter as seen through frost that formed on my camera lens.

Tonight's Cold Full Moon as seen from the western slope of Colorado.