The last of the Orionids tonight, but a lot of cloud and a cold wind. We stood on the roof for an hour and counted three. Altynai brought hot tea, and the children brought each other their own news: who has a new phone, who has a new brother, who is leaving for Talas to study.
I am sixty-five. The telescope still wobbles. I am not going to fix it.
Moon new. No cloud. Seventy-one in an hour, counted by my grandson with a clicker from the football match. Four fireballs. At the end the whole field fell silent and a girl of nine said, "Is that all?"
"For this year," I said. "There's always the next one."
In Spain they had an eclipse of the Sun this week, which we did not see. We have seen others.
Tonight, a total lunar eclipse again: the Moon turned slowly copper over the eastern ridge and stayed so for about eighty minutes. Fifteen children from the club, seven parents and Altynai, the young teacher who took over physics. She runs the club now, and I come with a thermos.
I am tired and I am happy. This is how a teacher should end.
Last night I was washing dishes and my wife called me from the porch: "Almazbek, the sky is on fire." Low in the north, a pink and red glow, big as a mountain, with pale rays going up. It lasted half an hour. I thought: it must be a fire in a village, but there was none. Then the internet said: aurora, from a huge solar storm. At our latitude! I have been looking at the sky for sixty years and I had never seen one.
My former pupils sent seventeen photos on Tulpar in the night, all from different villages. In every one the red glow is in the north.
A quiet autumn. In October people in the town were careful, as everywhere. I will not write about it here. The club met every Friday as usual. The children looked up and the sky was clear.
The telescope has a new tripod, from the parents' committee.