Wolf Moon

[SorellaLaBefana]

...Full Moon is the brightest lunar phase, and tonight you can stand in the light of the first Full Moon of 2026....on January 3 at 10:03 UTC...

about 7 hours later planet Earth reaches its 2026 perihelion, the closest point in its elliptical orbit around the Sun...

while you're out skygazing don't forget to look for rare, bright fireballs from the Quadrantid meteor shower.

This masterful, mysterious, understated and remarkable APOD is found on this link

Ed: Single block of text reformatted for clarity

Came back in from morning walkabout with catz to check on cameras had setup to have another go at catching a Boötid meteor. Yes, do know that this shower is more correctly named the Quadrantids (vide supra) after the ‘extinct’ constellation Quadrans Muralis.

Howsomever, one of our catz is named Boötes (after the Current Constellation where the radiant is) or Boots (when he goes to the Vet) or Baffles for his usual state of apparent confusion or MrB...all depends upon how he's acting. So we think of them as the Boötids

It was as wonderful a walkabout as is possible moving beneath and within the calm, gentle light of the setting moon.

There are many traditional names for a year’s full moons.

We learned this many decades ago one winter at Timberline Lodge (built by the New Deal WPA) from the wall hangings. ‘Wolf Moon’ was given as the name used by (unspecified) Northwest indigenous people. It was said this was because of the incessant night long howling of the hungry wolves of deep winter.

Since then, we’ve an interest in what other cultures may have named these remarkable, repetitive events. Have only ever been able to find Northern Hemisphere names. Even read somewhere that people in the Southern Hemisphere never had particular names for full moon. This seems BS—if anyone knows…

Anyhow, around the Great Lakes the name ‘Cracking Tree Moon’ was used. We never really understood this until a few years ago we had a severe winter storm which overnight coated the trees with inches of ice from freezing rain and then piled snow on top of that.

In the morning there was the LOUD Explosive Cracking of tree branches breaking as they warmed up just a few degrees—tho was still well below freezing—and crashed to the ground. I put on my hard hat, went out (no catz interested in coming with) for walkabout with curiosity and camera.

Soon realized was too dangerous and came back inside by the fire.

I do wish us all—once more—a Newer, Better, New Year

[GiqueCee]

1. Beautiful photo...

... and warm and welcome sentiment to end with. But I fear "better" is not on our dance card for the foreseeable future after the psychotic stunt the Orange Hellbeast just pulled in Venezuela. WITHOUT Congressional approval, I might add. Constitutional law is just an irritating annoyance to this mob of traitors. He's got to be stopped.

[Grumpy Old Guy]

2. Great shot!

Congratuations! Thanks for sharing!