Narblog

Skywatching from Narberth - Part I

As spring approaches we're all spending more time outside.  Despite our proximity to Philadelphia and extensive light pollution, there is still some quality sky-watching to be had.  The trick is to concentrate on objects which are bright enough to be seen through the orange haze that permeates our night sky. 

Man-made Objects

Man-made satellites may be small compared to the stars but they are a whole lot closer to us.  Also, they have shiny reflective metal surfaces.  There are a number of very bright objects visible to the naked eye.  If you look up on any evening just after sunset or right before dawn you can find them by watching carefully and patiently waiting.

Or, you can lookup the day's sighting opportunities online.  A good resource is the Heavens Above website.  Enter your coordinates (Narberth is 40.01N by 75.27W) and take a look at the predictions for the brightest objects.  Smaller numbers indicate higher brightness and negative numbers are especially bright.  Objects greater than 3.5 magnitude (i.e. numbers smaller than 3.5) will be bright enough for easy viewing in Narberth.

Go Outside Tonight!

Tonight, March 30th head outside at 8:45PM.  Let's hope the weather is clear!  The ISS (International Space Station) will be flying directly overhead.  With its new solar panels deployed, it can become the brightest object in the evening sky besides the moon.  Tonight it will be as bright as the planet Jupiter; A very easy find.

Orient yourself looking towards the Northwest; That is, look to the right of the setting sun.  At 8:50PM you'll see the ISS appear as a bright, slowly moving object just above the treeline.  After three minutes it should be almost directly overhead and very, very bright.  Then a few seconds after it reaches the zenith, it will blink out and completely disappear while still overhead.  This is because the space station has fallen into Earth's shadow. 

If you had a fancy telescope with equatorial motor mount, CCD camera, and special software you could make a movie like this.  But, if all you have are your own two eyes, you'll still have a very satisfying experience.

Spotting the ISS is easy, rewarding, and especially exciting for the kids. Remember, there is a real live crew up there circling the Earth every 90 minutes. 

From the ISS you can move on to spot military intelligence satellites (be sure to wave hello as they pass overhead), defunct satellites (as the tumble they will blink or flicker), space junk (an astronaut recently lost his toolbag), and more.

Have fun!

Narberth Mushrooms

Spring, Summer and Fall always pack interesting mycological surprises in Narberth.  As many of our trees become aged, they fall prey to a variety of parasitic fungi.  The buried stumps and rotting roots of long gone trees provide ample food supply for our local mushrooms. 

Most are inedible, unpalatable, gastrointestinally painful, or flat out poisonous.  A few are delicacies.  Mushrooms are the fruiting bodies of unicellular fungi living in the ground.  As such, they appear only when a mysterious pattern of season, temperature, and rainfall match the hidden clockwork the fungus is anticipating.  When the time is right, they appear almost overnight. 

Unlike much of our local vegetation and insect life which can be manipulated by human development and our gardening tastes, mushrooms beat to their own drum.  Only a handful of the many thousands of known varieties can be cultivated and eradication of the underlying fungus is infeasible.

Mushrooms recently seen in Narberth include:

Rounded Earthstar - The fungus that forms this mushroom probably hitched a ride in a bag of mulch.  I discovered a patch of them in a flowerbed in late fall.  The center is filled with spores which shoot out in a brown cloud when pressure is applied.

Red Stinkhorn - It rises from the dirt with an eye popping phallic shape and begins to ooze a noxious goo from its top.  The smell of rotting flesh and feces attracts flies and other insects who become covered in its spores and fly them on to new locales.  Think sweet nectar, pollen, and honeybees except substitute stinking goo, spores, and disease ridden flies.

Splash Cups - I've found these tiny splash cups on mulched beds through the Borough.  About 1/4" - 1/8" in diameter they look like tiny bird's nests filled with eggs.  The 'eggs' are actually little spore pods.  Raindrops land in the cups and the force of their impact bounces the spore pods off to their new homes.

Hen of the Woods - A highly prized delicacy for many fungiphiles, it grows at the base of an oak tree that it has parasitized.  Once entrenched it carefully manages its use of the tree's resources in an aim to keep it alive as long as possible.  Deer and other wildlife are known to enjoy its earthy flavor.

Giant Puffball - Another delicacy that appears suddenly and grows to enormous size.  When picked fresh it can be sliced and sauteed with spices and butter.  When allowed to mature it becomes a delicacy for slugs.  Eventually the spores inside dry out and are dispersed into the wind.

Big Laughing Gym - This brightly colored spectacle has also appeared suddenly on a number of Narberth lawns.  In the wild it is known to grow only on rotting wood.  I suspect, in this instance, that the wood is hidden under new sod.  The origin and meaning of its common name is left as an exercise for the reader to discover.

In addition to these mushrooms I've captured above, I've seen many other choice edibles including Oyster mushrooms, Ringless Honey mushrooms, and Horse mushrooms.  Have you found an interesting fungus growing somewhere in the Borough?  Tell me about it!  Since we live in a walking community, it isn't hard for me to wander over and take a look firsthand.  Please don't use the information here when choosing to eat a wild mushroom.  Mushroom identification is extremely tricky. Your death is not an improbable consequence of a poor choice.