A Sikhote-Alin Meteorite discovered in Brackettville...... inside my mailbox.

I seem to talk about Bob at Blackholes and Astrostuff every other blog now. Which is fine with me! Ten days ago he held a Celestial Image Race, the first person to send him notice of someone's birthday occurring that week and send him a current celestial image would win a Sikhote-Alin Meteorite from his own private collection. I won I won! First race I've ever won, I guarantee.

I received the meteorite in the mail Saturday, thank you Bob! It's awesome! I'm shocked by the weight of it. We had family in this weekend and everybody got to oooh and ahhh over it.

The following images of the meteorite were snapped by Bob using his Celestron LCD Digital Microscope. Pretty, isn't it? And so cool that he can do that.






On Bob's Blog, there's a very informative (and wayyy retro) video about the Sikhote-Alin Meteorite. I've embedded it here for your viewing pleasure. It's quite interesting.





I used my camera's macro features to show you the meteorite as I see it, no micro images from me. Oh, and by the way, I used my Styrofoam plate diffuser for these macro shots. It worked great. The first image shows the meteorite next to a pair of Miley Cyrus 3D glasses in order to give you an idea of its size. Bob sent me those fly shades, by the way. To enlarge images, just click on them.





















The meteorite wasn't the only surprise waiting for me in our post office box on Saturday. I had a package from my friend Bo-Yin in Taipei! She's an artist and a seamstress and had sewn me a couple of tarot bags. You can see more of her whimsical sewing creations on her blog. I feel bad, I promised to make her some Mountain Laurel seed bracelets and have yet to do it. I'd better get a move on that! Thank you, Bo-Yin! They're DARLING! I am delighted to have them. Click on any image to enlarge it.




























The bag with the robed woman just kept opening and opening and opening and I was delighted to find the many ways Bo-Yin had drawn her as she makes her way up from one corner of the cloth to the other. First she lights herself a candle to guide her path. Halfway up she seems to enjoy an icy latte then tosses the cup aside. When she reaches the top of her climb she lights up a star in the sky. Absolutely adorable! Bo-Yin's Very First Blog Entry shows the original drawing and she talks about how the drawing came to be.

Crispy Yellowness

A teaser from one of the San Antonio news stations last night about Monarch Butterflies made me think I needed to go see if there were still any along Pinto Creek. Even as recent as Monday I had seen them along Las Moras Creek. The blurb I heard made it sound like San Antonio was being inundated by them, but I guess it wouldn't have been much of a tease for them to say, "Hey, we're still seeing a few Monarchs in SA."

Out I went and, but heck, I only saw a few Snouts and two Queens on the farm today. I didn't even see a Sulpher or a Fritillary and we were lousy with Fritillaries just last week.

There wasn't much to shoot at all today, really. It's so dry here that everything is dying. Even the Goldeneyes that were covered with all manner of blossoms and flutterbies two weeks ago are now tipped with shriveled crispy yellowness. And, sadly, there are no rain chances in sight.