APOD: Planet Earth at Blue Hour (2019 Oct 11)

[APOD Robot]

Planet Earth at Blue Hour

Explanation: Nature photographers and other fans of planet Earth always look forward to the blue hour. That's the transition in twilight, just before sunrise or after sunset, when the Sun is below the horizon but land and sky are still suffused with beautiful bluish hues of light. On August 8 this early morning blue hour panorama scanned along the clear western sky, away from the impending sunrise. A breathtaking scene, it looks down the slopes of Mt. Whitney, from along the John Muir Trail toward rugged peaks of planet Earth's Sierra Nevada mountain range. Above the horizon a faint pinkish band of back scattered sunlight, the anti-twilight arch or Belt of Venus, borders the falling grey shadow of Earth itself. Subtle bands of light across the clear sky are anti-crepuscular rays, defined by shadows of clouds near the sunward horizon. Actually following parallel lines they seem to converge along the horizon at the point opposite the rising Sun due to perspective.

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[Ann]

This APOD has now received Ann's official stamp of approval!

Stamp of approval.png

Ann

[Case]

Amazing how far one can look in this image. The atmosphere must have been exceptionally clear that day? Beautiful.

[BDanielMayfield]

Amazing how far one can look in this image. The atmosphere must have been exceptionally clear that day? Beautiful.

Yes, especially so considering that it is California in the fall. There have been fewer bad wild fires this year, thankfully.

Bruce

P.S. That's just fewer fires in the western U.S. Globally, the worsening fire trend continues.

[neufer]

This APOD has now received Ann's official stamp of approval!

<<Surreal humour (also known as absurdist humour or surreal comedy) is a form of humour predicated on deliberate violations of causal reasoning, producing events and behaviours that are obviously illogical. Constructions of surreal humour tend to involve bizarre juxtapositions, incongruity, non-sequiturs, irrational or absurd situations and expressions of nonsense.

Surreal humour is the effect of illogic and absurdity being used for humorous effect. Under such premises, people can identify precursors and early examples of surreal humour at least since the 19th century, such as in Lewis Carroll's Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking-Glass, both of which use illogical and absurd (hookah-smoking caterpillars, croquet matches using live flamingos as mallets, etc.) for humorous effect. Many of Edward Lear's children’s stories and poems contain nonsense and are basically surreal in approach. For example, The Story of the Four Little Children Who Went Round the World (1871) is filled with contradictory statements and odd images intended to provoke amusement, such as the following:

• After a time they saw some land at a distance; and when they came to it, they found it was an island made of water quite surrounded by earth. Besides that, it was bordered by evanescent isthmuses with a great Gulf-stream running about all over it, so that it was perfectly beautiful, and contained only a single tree, 503 feet high. >>

[orin stepanek]

Beautiful! I never new It was called the Blue Hour!

2019-08-08-JMT19_1521-Pano-Edit_h600.jpg

[BDanielMayfield]

Beautiful! I never new It was called the Blue Hour! :oops:2019-08-08-JMT19_1521-Pano-Edit_h600.jpg

What's that black line doing across today's APOD Orin? The infamous magic marker strikes again

[De58te]

Amazing how far one can look in this image. The atmosphere must have been exceptionally clear that day? Beautiful.

Yes, especially so considering that it is California in the fall. There have been fewer bad wild fires this year, thankfully.

Bruce

P.S. That's just fewer fires in the western U.S. Globally, the worsening fire trend continues.

Wait? Is it actually fall or autumn in California on August 8, the date of the picture? I didn't know that. Californians always do things differently.

[Chris Peterson]

Amazing how far one can look in this image. The atmosphere must have been exceptionally clear that day? Beautiful.

Yes, especially so considering that it is California in the fall. There have been fewer bad wild fires this year, thankfully.

Bruce

P.S. That's just fewer fires in the western U.S. Globally, the worsening fire trend continues.

Wait? Is it actually fall or autumn in California on August 8, the date of the picture? I didn't know that. Californians always do things differently.

Not even close.

[orin stepanek]

Beautiful! I never new It was called the Blue Hour! :oops:2019-08-08-JMT19_1521-Pano-Edit_h600.jpg

What's that black line doing across today's APOD Orin? The infamous magic marker strikes again

I was going to fix it; than I thought( people wouldn't know what was going on!) So i fixed it over here!

2019-08-08-JMT19_1521-Pano-Edit_h600.jpg

I'm really at loss as to what happened as all I did was copy!

[BDanielMayfield]

Yes, especially so considering that it is California in the fall. There have been fewer bad wild fires this year, thankfully.

Bruce

P.S. That's just fewer fires in the western U.S. Globally, the worsening fire trend continues.

Wait? Is it actually fall or autumn in California on August 8, the date of the picture? I didn't know that. Californians always do things differently.

Not even close.

Sorry for mistaking the season, must have just assumed it was a more recent photo than it was.

[BDanielMayfield]

Beautiful! I never new It was called the Blue Hour! :oops:2019-08-08-JMT19_1521-Pano-Edit_h600.jpg

What's that black line doing across today's APOD Orin? The infamous magic marker strikes again

I was going to fix it; than I thought( people wouldn't know what was going on!) So i fixed it over here!


2019-08-08-JMT19_1521-Pano-Edit_h600.jpg I'm really at loss as to what happened as all I did was copy!

Some form of anti copying without photographer's permission, perhaps?

[orin stepanek]

What's that black line doing across today's APOD Orin? The infamous magic marker strikes again

I was going to fix it; than I thought( people wouldn't know what was going on!) So i fixed it over here!


2019-08-08-JMT19_1521-Pano-Edit_h600.jpg I'm really at loss as to what happened as all I did was copy!

Some form of anti copying without photographer's permission, perhaps?

My wife says I fall asleep at the computer; maybe I did it in my dream! Ha Ha! Guess I can't use any more emoji!

[Ann]

Beautiful! I never new It was called the Blue Hour!

Click to view full size image

Summer evening on the beach at Skagen. The painter and his wife.
P.S. Krøyer.

The description, "The blue hour", was made famous at least to us in Scandinavia thanks to the beautiful paintings of the "Skagen painters", the most famous of which was Peder Severin Krøyer (1851-1909).

Ann

[orin stepanek]

Beautiful! I never new It was called the Blue Hour!

Click to view full size image

Summer evening on the beach at Skagen. The painter and his wife.
P.S. Krøyer.

The description, "The blue hour", was made famous at least to us in Scandinavia thanks to the beautiful paintings of the "Skagen painters", the most famous of which was Peder Severin Krøyer (1851-1909).

Ann

Nice! But I Can't imagine a woman walking on the beach in a floor length gown (dress)! Back in the day I sure that was the norm!

[neufer]

I can't imagine a woman walking on the beach in a floor length gown (dress)!

Back in the day I sure that was the norm!

<<mundane (adj.) mid-15c., mondeine, "of this world, worldly, terrestrial," from Old French mondain "of this world, worldly, earthly, secular;" also "pure, clean; noble, generous" (12c.) and directly from Late Latin mundanus "belonging to the world" (as distinct from the Church), in classical Latin "a citizen of the world, cosmopolite," from mundus "universe, world," which is identical to mundus "clean, elegant," but the exact connection is uncertain and the etymology is unknown.

Latin mundus "world" was used as a translation of Greek kosmos (see cosmos) in its Pythagorean sense of "the physical universe" (the original sense of the Greek word was "orderly arrangement"). Like kosmos (and perhaps by influence of it), Latin mundus also was used of a woman's "ornaments, dress," which also could entangle the adjective mundus "clean, elegant."

The English word's extended sense of "dull, uninteresting" is attested by 1850. The mundane era was the chronology that began with the supposed epoch of the Creation (famously reckoned as 4004 B.C.E.).>>

[Ann]

Click to view full size image

Danish landscape (at the non-blue hour).
Painting: Axel Schovelin.

Nice, Art! Yes there is something somehow Danish about the blue hour of the world (although not if the worldly view contains mountains)!

Ann

[Chris Peterson]

Nice, Art! Yes there is something somehow Danish about the blue hour of the world (although not if the worldly view contains mountains)! :D

I guess you've never visited the mighty Himmelbjerg near Silkeborg.

[Ann]

Nice, Art! Yes there is something somehow Danish about the blue hour of the world (although not if the worldly view contains mountains)!

I guess you've never visited the mighty Himmelbjerg near Silkeborg.

Click to view full size image

Painting by P.S. Krøyer.

I've never visited Himmelbjerget, no. I remember that we used to laugh at the idea back in school that a hill of 147 meters would be called The Mountain of Heaven (Himmelbjerget).

But Denmark is beautiful. I can't resisting posting another painting by P.S. Krøyer. Isn't it beautiful and lovely?

Ann

[Chris Peterson]

I've never visited Himmelbjerget, no. I remember that we used to laugh at the idea back in school that a hill of 147 meters would be called The Mountain of Heaven (Himmelbjerget).

But Denmark is beautiful. I can't resisting posting another painting by P.S. Krøyer. Isn't it beautiful and lovely?

Hmm. The only time I took a dip in the ocean in Denmark I looked just like that kid in the front. "Cold! Cold! Criminy!"

[orin stepanek]

I can't imagine a woman walking on the beach in a floor length gown (dress)!

Back in the day I sure that was the norm!

<<mundane (adj.) mid-15c., mondeine, "of this world, worldly, terrestrial," from Old French mondain "of this world, worldly, earthly, secular;" also "pure, clean; noble, generous" (12c.) and directly from Late Latin mundanus "belonging to the world" (as distinct from the Church), in classical Latin "a citizen of the world, cosmopolite," from mundus "universe, world," which is identical to mundus "clean, elegant," but the exact connection is uncertain and the etymology is unknown.

Latin mundus "world" was used as a translation of Greek kosmos (see cosmos) in its Pythagorean sense of "the physical universe" (the original sense of the Greek word was "orderly arrangement"). Like kosmos (and perhaps by influence of it), Latin mundus also was used of a woman's "ornaments, dress," which also could entangle the adjective mundus "clean, elegant."

The English word's extended sense of "dull, uninteresting" is attested by 1850. The mundane era was the chronology that began with the supposed epoch of the Creation (famously reckoned as 4004 B.C.E.).>>

Gee! Now I'll call the ET's EM's extra mondanes. Just kidding!

[neufer]

...there is something somehow Danish about the blue hour of the world
(although not if the worldly view contains mountains)!

I guess you've never visited the mighty Himmelbjerg near Silkeborg.

I've never visited Himmelbjerget, no.

I remember that we used to laugh at the idea back in school that
a hill of 147 meters would be called The Mountain of Heaven (Himmelbjerget).

The Great Pyramid of Giza
...........................................
Original height: 146.7 meters
Current height: 138.8 meters

Møllehøj's highest point is [unfortunately] obscured by farm buildings

---

<<At 170.86 m above sea level Møllehøj is the highest natural point in Denmark. The summit is marked with a millstone, a remnant of Ejer mill which was situated on the hill from 1838 to 1917.

Ejer Bavnehøj had been measured as the highest point in Denmark in the mid-19th century but in 1941 new measurements established that the top of one of Yding Skovhøj's Bronze Age burial mounds was higher. This started a heated discussion about whether man-made structures could be counted as part of Denmark's highest point which finished with Professor N.E. Nørlund defining the highest point as being the highest natural point, without including the height of man-made piles of earth. As Ejer Bavnehøj was higher than the highest natural point of Yding Skovhøj it was then regarded as being Denmark's highest point until 2005. New measurements made in 2005 showed that Møllehøj was higher than both Yding Skovhøj & Ejer Bavnehøj. These two high points' natural heights are respectively 9 & 51 cm lower than Møllehøj.>>

---

<<The Englishman who Went up a Hill but Came down a Mountain is a 1995 British film. The film is based on a story heard by Christopher Monger from his grandfather about the real village of Taff's Well, in the old county of Glamorgan, and its neighbouring Garth Hill.

The film is set in 1917, with World War I in the background, and revolves around two English cartographers, the pompous George Garrad and his junior Reginald Anson. They arrive at the fictional Welsh village of Ffynnon Garw ("Rough Fountain" or "Rough Spring" in Welsh) to measure its "mountain" – only to cause outrage when they conclude that it is only a hill because it is slightly short of the required 1000 feet (305 m) in height. The villagers, aided and abetted by wily local Morgan the Goat and the Reverend Mr Jones (who after initially opposing the scheme, grasps its symbolism in restoring the community's war-damaged self-esteem), conspire to delay the cartographers' departure while they build an earth mound on top of the hill and make it high enough to be considered a mountain.

One joke in the film which may not be obvious to non-Welsh speakers occurs when a mechanic is asked about a nondescript broken part he has removed from a car, and replies "Well I don't know the English word, but in Welsh we call it a be'chi'ngalw." In Welsh, be'chi'ngalw is a placeholder name, like "whatchamacallit" or "thingamajig" in English. and literally means "what [do] you call" and is a contracted form of "beth dych chi'n galw".>>

[neufer]

Current ocean water temperatures

---

Denmark is beautiful. I can't resisting posting another painting by P.S. Krøyer. Isn't it beautiful and lovely?

Hmm. The only time I took a dip in the ocean in Denmark I looked just like that kid in the front. "Cold! Cold! Criminy!"

• Not as bad as Nova Scotia.