Today the Moon covered the Sun again: total in Siberia and Mongolia, not for us. Less than half covered at our place, in the late afternoon, so we saw a low yellow Sun with a dent in it above the mountains. A truck driver stopped on the highway and asked whether it was the end of the world. We said no, offered him tea, and he stayed for twenty minutes.
I wanted a new eyepiece, a 6 mm one, from a shop in Moscow. In February it cost 190 som with the shipping. Then in March the som was moved from 5 to 8.40 for the dollar and the same eyepiece is now 320. I do not understand money, I understand glass, but I know a thing is dearer.
The club collects. A father from the market brought 30 som in coins in a handkerchief. I put them in the box.
Three days ago, on 24 October, a small faint comet called Holmes suddenly became a million times brighter in a few hours. Tonight it is a round golden ball in the constellation Perseus, brighter than almost any star. You can see it with your naked eye from the school yard.
The children cannot believe it is a comet, because it has no tail. It is a ball of gas that grows bigger every night (the gas, not the nucleus!). I told them that the sky does not always do what the books say.
I promised. The Moon was new, the night was black, and at night this year the whole valley is dark, with only a few lamps, because everyone is careful with light. It was the best Perseid night I have seen: about eighty an hour, some of them as bright as Venus, one that left a trail we could still see after four seconds.
We lay on the roof of my house, six of us, wrapped in blankets. Once we heard the guns, very far. Then only the crickets. Then another meteor.
I am not telling this because the sky does not care. I am telling it because it does.
No posts since 2 June. I won't say why. The telescope is all right: it spent the month in my cellar, wrapped in a blanket. So am I.