Quadrantid meteors, a West Coast-favoring total lunar eclipse and time to start watching Mars!
This month the new year’s first meteor shower fizzles, Mars meets Jupiter in the morning sky and the U.S. will enjoy a total lunar eclipse!
Most meteor showers radiate from recognizable constellations. Like the Leonids, Geminids and Orionids.
But the Quadrantids are meteors that appear to radiate from the location of the former Quadrans Muralis constellation, an area that’s now part of the constellation Bootes.
The Quadrantids’ peak lasts for just a few hours, and sadly, this year their timing coincides with a very bright, nearly full moon that will wash out most of the meteors.
You can look in any direction to see all the meteor showers. When you see one of these meteors, hold a shoestring along the path it followed. The shoestring will lead you back to the constellation containing the meteor’s origin.
On the morning of January 6th, look in the south-southeast sky 45 minutes before sunrise to see Jupiter and fainter Mars almost as close as last month’s Jupiter and Venus close pairing.
Mars is only one-sixth the apparent diameter of Jupiter, but the two offer a great binocular and telescopic view with a pretty color contrast. They remain in each other’s neighborhood from January 5th through the 8th.
Finally, to end the month, a great total lunar eclipse favors the western U.S., Alaska, and Hawaii and British Columbia on January 31st. Australia and the Pacific Ocean are well placed to see a major portion of the eclipse–if not all of it.
UK based artist Asmahan A. Mosleh’s deep found love for elaborate mandala designs is evident in all of her compositions, seeking inspiration from temples, mosques and exotic architecture from all across the globe.
It’s been said before but if public libraries weren’t a fact of society and were proposed today they would be roundly rejected as pie in the sky communism
Male Writer: Ah, anniversary jokes are so funny. Because chicks always hate it when you don't remember anniversaries! A plus gold very original
Male Writer: Mother in laws amirite?
Male Writer: My male character who is an author insert of myself pines after a woman I used to pine after in high school. Then they have sex. This is good literature.
Male Writer: Ugh female books are so romance filled
Male Writer: And girl fanfics, so mary suey
Male Writer: Now listen about this original middle aged man who is an expert in everything, suffers from ennui, looks like me, acts like me, and gets all the girls i want.
Male Writer: She was sexy in an alluring, boring way, filled with purple prose and riddled with objectification
Male Writer: If i make a female character parrot my misogynistic views, they cease to be misogynistic! Are you saying you don't respect my fake female characters opinions, feminists?
Male Writer: a good action girl is one who looks hot at all times
Male Writer: If the female main character got in an asskicking line, my work is Feminist with a capital F and no one can criticize me
Specifically White Male Writer: Heroic tropes are so overdone. I'm going to create a boring white guy with stubble to be a completely original antihero no one has ever seen before TM.
Same Guy: It's original because he is a jerk who gets away with bad behavior, just like I wish i could.
Another Specifically White Male Writer: It's in my universe to only have white men do things in my book. I mean, don't you care about historical accuracy
Same Guy: I mean, it's a generic fantasy verse with no real life time period equivalent and i haven't done any research, but i'm SURE that it's historically accurate. To that dark mideval dragon fighting europe period
Same Guy: Where in Europe? Who cares!
Male Writer: There is no better way to introduce a female character to a male character than by him saving her.
Male Writer: Characters hating each other is good sexual tension!
Male Writer: One female character and five male characters is a good team balance
Male Writer: If my female character chooses to act in a sexist tropey way, it's not sexist. In fact, because she CHOSE to do it, it is Feminist.
Ugly girls are only seen by other ugly girls. Here they are, dragging their heavy luggage up a flight of stairs as a sea of men pass by, without even thinking to stop and help. Here they are, sitting in bars trying to hide their despair behind their book. Their ugliness can be an objective beauty, flashing eyes and strong noses and swanny necks. But if it’s not subjective, if the desired gender doesn’t respond, if the parents don’t respond to it, if it’s complicated and grown-into, if it doesn’t attract, then it settles on the girl like ugliness. Christine Chubbuck was striking. But I can’t tell if I can see that only because I’m a fellow ugly girl, of the long untouched variety, the men will call me their kindred souls and then marry someone prettier and softer variety. Because in her posture and manner is the weight of the undesired.
