The Evening Star

I first posted this in July 2010 as I left a visit to my mother in a nursing home, not long after her 85th birthday. Today she would have been 87; I have another remembrance in the works, but I post this today to celebrate her birthday.

What a beautiful sight in the night sky long after the sun had set but still colored the horizon. I was convinced this point of light was an airplane since there were others moving in that area, very near Pittsburgh International Airport. But this one held its ground.

I only had my little hand-held digital with me, and I don’t have as much control over the lens as I do with my SLR, but the photo looks like a tropical evening even though it’s Pennsylvania and I’m in the parking lot of Kane Regional Nursing Hospital leaving from a visit with my mother. A rejuvenating sight after an evening visit.

The evening star, the real “star” of the evening, here is Venus, showing just after sunset and brightening as the sky darkened around it. To the upper left are Saturn and Mars, much fainter and only appearing as the sky nears full dark; I actually didn’t see them at first, then thought they were just digital dust in a slightly grainy image. But I snapped several images over the course of a few minutes and the last one included them in full, though I didn’t know it at the time!

The full Thunder Moon was rising behind me, but by the time I got that photo a slight haze of clouds had moved in front and I couldn’t get a clear one.