Comet Watching and Cat Walking

It was a pretty action-packed day yesterday, by pandemic standards. I had a workshop with the City of Prince George, there were soft tacos for supper, it was family game night (we played Five Crowns) and I had my game night with my co-workers in Vancouver (we played Race for the Galaxy). But it got even better than that, with us putting the harness on Murphy and taking him out into the front yard a couple of times and then Tammy and I walking out late at night to look at the comet NEOWISE.

When we took Murphy out onto the deck during our renovations, we tried just letting him be, with the leash hanging on a hook. That didn’t turn out well for two reasons:

1. He tried climbing up the railing and would have succeeded if we hadn’t grabbed him and
2. When he “backs up”, he can get out of the harness.

Yesterday, I figured actually taking him out on the leash and “walking him” would work. If he tried to back out of the harness, I could just give him some slack and it wouldn’t work. It was successful: it wasn’t exactly “a walk”, but he did do a bit of exploring and rolling around. I think if we’d left him alone he would have been happy to stay in the garden, lying among the plants.

We took him out twice, once after lunch and again before supper. So exciting for Murphy!

Since tonight was my game night and that ends near 11:00 and it was a clear night, I told Tammy that after the games I was going to walk up to the park to see if I could spot the comet. When I was ready to go, she was ready, too, so we went together. At first, I took the wrong pair of binoculars (the broken pair: they’re in the garbage now) and we got long-sleeved jackets to ward off some mosquitoes. When we got back to the park for the second time, I spotted the comet right away. It had gotten dark enough to see it. We had a good time, watching the sky. We say the International Space Station pass overhead, and we could see at least two of Jupiter’s moons. Looking at Sky & Telescope’s calculator, I am pretty sure we were seeing Ganymede and Callisto. I thought I could see another moon close on Jupiter’s right limb, and there’s a pretty good chance that was Europa.

The comet itself was bright enough to see easily without aid, but through the binoculars was clear and easy to see the head and the long, curving dust tail. We didn’t try taking a picture of any sort, just enjoying the viewing and the night. Was almost midnight when we returned home. 😴