Cloudy Nights, Can You Read Outside at Night?

The evening of Day 276 DY 2 or September 22, 2008 of the Julian

Mercy! As usual I was out last night, getting right with the Goddess, focused on the heavenly bodies. Yes. A heavenly body, like for example M 55, when focused upon, allows an average amateur astronomer like me to totally forget about everything except that heavenly body. Focused on that heavenly body, an average amateur astronomer is doing no harm, no good, nothing. So, while thus focused, the average amateur astronomer may be, getting right with the Goddess.

Focusing on a heavenly body is a two-step process. First, the mental cogitation and derived action that the average amateur astronomer employs to find the heavenly body in the night sky. Then there is step two, focusing the focus on the heavenly body.

M 55, globular star cluster, is low in the sky in these parts. The closest naked eye star is probably Nunki in Sagittarius. Scanning east from Nunki, an average amateur astronomer employing binoculars is apt to eventually locate four stars disposed in a tetragon. These stars are of about equal magnitude, 4-5. They are 58, 59, 60 and 62 Sagittarius. The stars 59 and 60, the middle ones are sort of in line to point up, northeast to M 75 and down, southwest, to M 55.

So far, I have yet to actually espy M 55 for sure. I mean, sure, I have seen M 55, but I don’t know which one of the several heavenly bodies that I have espied, M 55 is. That is because M 55's location is, so far in my experience, always partially behind a cedar elm or clouds and low in the light pollution sky glow.

Speaking of light pollution sky glow, yesterday evening, around 10:30PM, the clouds came up from the south, occluding all the heavenly bodies, not just M 55. All of a sudden I could read my watch and my copy of Pocket Sky Atlas in the “dark”. Mercy! The clouds were reflecting all the light pollution back down on me. It was a miracle. Jesus! I could read in the dark! Another reason I don't trust America.