The SKY over 31 Mile Lake Aug 2023
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- Created: Wednesday, 16 August 2023 14:17
The SKY over 31 Mile Lake-Aug 2023
We went canoe camping on an island during the prime time for shooting star observation. Aug 12 was very cloudy, but I woke up in the middle of the night, to answer nature's call, and surprise! surprise! I saw a sky full of stars! I woke up Katie and for the next hour we were rewarded by many shooting star sightings. The first one I saw was the most spectacular: it was long and wide. It is unusual because most of them are very thin. The Milky Way was very visible and there was no moon. The next night, the sky was starry right from the beginning of the evening, so the four of us stayed up until 11 PM and screamed with joy every time we saw a shooting star. The third night the sky looked a bit hazy, the night was warmer (cool nights are clearer it seems) and it took us one hour before our first sighting. Afterwards we saw only a few.
Each night and day we had concerts: coming from the sky and from the water: the loons were singing. Imagine watching the stars with a backgrounds of various loon songs!
One day we saw the complete arc of a colourful rainbow on the eastern sky. A loon was sighted flying through the middle of it. On two evenings, we had nice sunsets. Also, we saw a spectacular Big Dipper, called “Grande Ourse” in French. These are usually not that exciting. But this one was the clearest and biggest I had seen, the closest to the horizon with the brightest and largest stars.
We expected and were ready to get lots of rain because of the forecast. But we had less than three hours of rain during our four-day vacation. As spectacular as the sky was, the high point for me was getting to know three fun and interesting persons: Amanda, Edith and Katie.
Upon our return to the canoe shed, what did we see in the sky? a hawk perched on a nearby street light watching the traffic and waiting to see if dinner would be served, in anticipation of a road kill.
Dominique
