Day 5, Level 2: Fomalhaut, work and not a lot else!

Firstly, the star that created the Smiley Face in the sky is Fomalhaut - known as the Spring Star in the southern hemisphere (or Autumn Star in the north) it's the third brightest star in the sky (as viewed from Earth) that is known to have a planetary system (after the Sun and Pollux). The name comes from scientific Arabic. It's a young star, perhaps only 100 to 300 millions years old, with a potential lifespan of a billion years. 

It appears in a part of the sky that is largely empty of bright stars, and has a dust debris ring and is mentioned in various works of fiction, as well as games. 

So without seeing that Smiley Face, by chance and thanks to the cat, on the early morning of 17th May 2020, I would be none the wiser that a star called Fomalhaut even exists! (You'll need to read the 17th May post to make proper sense of all this!)

Update: I got up several times through early morning hours today to planet and star gaze. The crescent moon rose beautifully, on its back, looking like a golden boat rising in the sky, sometimes disappearing behind clouds, creating a mysterious glow. Awesome.

There was, however, no Smiley Face to be observed - Mars and Fomalhaut were shining brightly, but far too far away from the moon to form any sort of cohesive shape. 

But to make my escapades onto the cold dark deck worthwhile, there was a phenomenon in the sky (which I verified via the Time and Date website) ...

The Moon, Mars, Saturn and Jupiter were all in a line across the sky, in that order, with the moon lowest in the sky. You could have linked them up with a ruler and pencil, that's how straight the line between them was. There were other faint stars in between, but these four bright glows in the sky stood out making for more magical sky-gazing moments between 2.30 and 5.30am on 18th May 2020!

Daytime - well today I never moved from the chair in front of my computer. It was a lovely day but I saw none of it, I was on too much of a roll. Refined my logo, my travel offering, other stuff. Solidly productive even if I didn't take advantage of weather and location.

Had a Zoom committee meeting at 5pm for Epsom Girls Grammar School Old Girls Assn, of which I'm Co-President. It's the first Zoom I've chaired, went fine. Lots of follow up work to be done so tomorrow will be busy focussing on that. 

Sister chat for a while.

More work.

Then it was time to stop and go to bed. 

Fomalhaut - not taken by me!

BRUNCH: Avocado and emmenthal cheese on lightly toasted grain bread

DINNER: Mushroom/capsicum risotto

That's kind of it for today!