Close Encounters

Have you ever heard a skunk scream? Yeah, scream. Yeah, a skunk. Me neither. Okay, short story long, this actually happened to me last night. You can’t make this stuff up.

I was minding my own business, enjoying the relative clear sky, somewhat wrapped around my telescope trying to image the near-conjunction of Venus and Jupiter (the real conjunction happens June 9, at 9:10 ((not to put to fine a point on it))), when I heard a blood curdling (whatever that means) scream from the side yard. It sounded like a child in real distress.

I extracted myself from the chair (as quickly as possible) to save the child. I reached for my large flashlight, always handy to beat off criminals, but had forgotten it last night, and headed for the screaming. Suddenly, about 20 feet away, coming straight at me, my buddy Fred, chasing and screaming at another intruding skunk, which was also screaming. I started screaming and ran for the house, only to wake Susan (it was the middle of the night) who was not screaming—only trying to sleep. I grabbed my large flashlight, ran outside and— all was quiet. I quickly realized Fred had saved the neighborhood, his use of chemical warfare, however, was not going to make him welcome with the other neighbors. He later continued his Neighborhood Watch duty farther up the street.

Here’s the near conjunction of Venus (on the right) and Jupiter. They’ll be much closer June 9, weather permitting.

I then settled in for more stargazing. Speaking of gazing, while looking at some stars I gazed down at my foot and noticed an opossum sniffing my right shoe! After a bit more screaming, the opossum ran off.

The real target of the night was M63, the Sunflower Galaxy. Suspend disbelief, squint your eyes a bit, and you can see this near-edge-on galaxy as a sunflower. Hey, it’s 27 million lightyears away. Airplane intrusions free of charge. Grrrrr