The Summer Triangle is out, ladies and gentlemen. This is an asterism made up of 3 of the brightest stars in the summer night sky.

Deneb is the "tail" of Cygnus the Swan, Vega is in Lyra (the Lyre) and Altair is in Aquila the Eagle. Lots of pretty cool things to find in that region of space.

Check out the Ring Nebula in Lyra, for instance. I was able to resolve this in my telescope only one time...it basically looks like a grey/green Space Spaghetti-O.

To add to the heat we now have smoke from forest fires. The fires themselves are some ways away but the smoke is everywhere . It rained a bit this night and I hoped that would help get rid of the smoke, but sadly it didn't. When the smoke first came I thought it was fog but when I went outside and instead of fresh air I got smoke in my nose I realized it wasn't fog. It's not that bad, just smoky outside all the time, when the wind blows through the open windows it smells like smoke which isn't too pleasant. It was windy today though and not as hot as yesterday which was very nice. I hope it gets cool soon and I pray for a lot of rain

Thanks for the note on the Summer Triangle, SL. It's definitely the first thing to catch one's eye on these summer evenings, after the planets in the west have set.

There was more on today's news about those fires, wild rose, including the call for more people to fight them. May you get some significant rain soon!

I've received several inquiries from friends about what the news outlets are calling a 'solar tsunami.' The alliteration is catchy but I think this title gives people the wrong impression. The sun spits out stuff fairly frequently, especially when it's ramping up to solar maximum (as it's finally beginning to do). Astronomers call these by the less-glamorous but more descriptive title coronal mass ejections.

CMEs normally don't do much more than create colorful displays of auroras (northern and southern lights), though the really big ones can disrupt orbiting satellites and even the power grids in high-latitude places.

This CME probably made the news because it's one of the first really big ones after the prolonged solar minimum we've had, and it's pointed right at us. While it's spectacular to watch, it probably won't do anything more than provide those auroras. So tonight, if it's clear where you are, check it out! Look low in the north (or south, if you live Down Under). But the best bet is if you live between about 48 and 55 north (or south) latitude. You'll still have a shot if you live closer to the equator than that, but they'll be less spectacular and may not be visible at all. (I'm at 45 degrees north so I hope to see something tonight).

Dark skies help a lot as well.

Find more about this CME and other solar info at www.spaceweather.com.

I half envy you for your latitude, gazer. The pictures I saw were spectacular, with green aurora borealis going all over the place. I'm afraid I live too far down south to see anything. I did see it once about 10 years ago and it's a sight I'll never forget. Take pics if you have a camera!

Somebody save me from the smoke....sighs......it's worse than the heat. It was so thick today that when I looked out the window I could barely see in front of me. It's practically cleared up now, to which I am so grateful. The temperature is usually from about 37 to 40 degrees Celsius, and how I envy you who can see the night sky, with all this smoke you can't go star gazing. (in fact it's nicer not to go outside at all if you can help it )

Whew! wild rose, with temps like that I think I'd prefer to stay indoors (especially if there's air conditioning in your house).

Despite my slightly-more-northerly latitude, I failed to catch northern lights this week. Part of that may be due to city lights illuminating all the haze around here.

I went out a while ago to catch Venus near Mars and Saturn. It's more humid - with a higher heat index - than it was during the day today! South winds are bringing in clouds, humidity, and storms for tonight. I don't mind the pitter-patter of rain on the roof as long as it's not accompanied by hail, falling trees, and power outages.

Back into the 90sF tomorrow. Maybe I'll go see Inception in a nice air-conditioned theater.

it's so freezing cold here due to the winds and rains! brrrr. *shivers*. I barely can touch water with the weather, woo! I just wished sun would come out, but not too hot though.

Mmmm. *loves that familiar summer triangle* We had some good views of it at the Moot. Thanks for that reminder, SL, and for the cool nebula photo!

I have tried a few nights now to catch a glimpse of the aurora, but with no success. Unfortunately, that northern direction is somewhat towards the Big Lit-up City, and the light pollution is high. I would dearly love to see this, but I think I'm out of luck this time.

wild rose, my heart goes out for your area. May you receive some steady rains soon!

*offers sandy an extra warm and cozy blanket, and a hot water bottle*

As is the usual meteorological pattern, our area's weather is about a day behind stargazer's, so after a very comfortable and non-humid couple of days and nights, the 'soup' returns later tomorrow, with possible storms in the forecast on and off all week. Being August now, it's rare for us to have extended heat waves, so as I look at our forecast, I keep hoping to see some relief, but as of next weekend (Aug. 14 & 15) there appears to be none as yet, with temperatures up nearly 30C/86F, yet with the humidity feeling around 40C/104F, and only getting down to around a sticky 21C/70F for sleeping. I keep telling myself "Autumn is coming!"

The heat index here has dropped to 'only' 107F/42C with the arrival of some rain. But that will serve only to up the humidity again once the sun comes out tomorrow. Some forecasts call for highs exceeding 90F here all week, with heat indices passing 100F each day. We're just not used to that! Not to mention that we will surpass the annual average of 13 days each summer over 90F. (I hear you Southern NarniaWebbers chuckling! )

But in 4, 5, or 6 months, the effective temperature (windchill) here could easily be 140F/78C or more cooler. Ahhhhhh....

The hazy, murky skies that usually accompany these humidity levels - not to mention clouds of very thirsty mosquitoes - put a damper on watching the Perseid meteor shower (which peak the night of August 12-13 this year, with the moon conveniently out of the way).

stargazer wrote:
Whew! wild rose, with temps like that I think I'd prefer to stay indoors (especially if there's air conditioning in your house).

Sadly we don't have air conditioning, and we have one fan for the whole house, we sort of pass it from room to room

Thankfully the temperatures have gone down to 27-30 degrees C, so it has gotten so nice and cool. We were joking how soon it would be 25 degrees and then we would be really cold (25-30 degrees C is usually the average temperature in our area, but now when temperatures got to 35-40 on a daily basis, 25 seems like such cool weather)
The smoke got a bit thicker today and that is annoying but at least we have cooler weather to compensate, also there seems to be a slight fog which helps get rid of the smell, so all in all I think things are getting better

thanks Johobbit! . I feel warmer now. .

nice to know that the sun was shining brighter than yesterday today. I had fun going to school, except going home, haha. I had sweat all over my body while going home, but good to know that the weather is fine today.

I salute those of you enduring this heat without air conditioning!

This hottest week of 2010 continues, with record highs expected today and tomorrow. And the air is so thick it's almost easier to swim through it.

With dewpoints this high (80F/27C), it doesn't take too much to trigger heavy rains (the local weather guys have joked about the proverbial 'butterfly flapping its wings' from chaos theory). Last night, up to 6.5 inches (16.5 cm) of rain fell in a very short time, accompanied by spectacular lightning. It was fun just watching it for a while!

It did cause some flooding of low-lying highways and other areas around here and some road washouts in western Wisconsin. Similar heavy rain and local river flooding has closed portions of Interstates 35 and 80 near Des Moines, Iowa.

This heat and haze may inspire me to cut back my Perseid viewing the next few days.

More heavy rain and possible flooding is expected Friday, as slightly cooler and drier air finally moves in for the weekend. Next week might actually be cool enough to consider a fire in the backyard fire pit.

Wow, it rained so heavy today! We had a bit flood, but not that deep. Now, the evening is fine, and weather is cool and just the way it should be. But I expect that there are going to be heavier rains tomorrow so, good luck to me! LOL. .

sandy: floods yikes sounds scary, I hope everything is going to be fine and it won't rain to hard

I can breathe!!!!!!!!!! *calms herself* I guess you never appreciate fresh air until you've had smoke for a week. Praise God the smoke is gone and we have air again. I actaully went outside for the first time in a week and I couldn't get enough air. The days are still terrible hot but the evenings have gotten nice and cool and some how now the heat doesn't seem like so much anymore, after all breathing all that smoke, I can stand any heat so long as there is clean air to breath I truly hope that the smoke doesn't come back.
Oh and we had a bit of rain yesterday night....and the wind...it was sooooo pleasant. I'm beginning to believe that autumn will come after all. (The biggest and most popular joke for the past week was that cool weather would never come and it would stay +40 degrees Celsius till November, I hope that isn't true )

today, our Fahrenheit is 99 degrees, woo! Better than heavy rains. Hihi. There are a lot of storms approaching, as the others predict, and I pray that everyone will be safe.