12/03/2006 Windy and Cold

Is it always nighttime in outer space?
It's a cold, windy night here in Tucson. The wind is bad enough that I'm not going to be doing any observing this evening. The moon is full, and high in the sky, so I suppose the conditions wouldn't be ideal anyway, but I'm sure I could find something to look at or image.
It's also cold, and has been for several days now. My last imaging session was on Thursday night and it was sub-freezing; I spent most of the night indoors, watching the computer over the remote link.
On Friday night, I attended a Boy Scouts campout with my oldest son. Actually it was an "Ordeal" to seal my membership in the Order of the Arrow, scouting's national honor society, and also for my son to advance to Brotherhood status in the OA. As part of the ordeal, I was required to camp alone in the desert, with only a sleeping bag. It was a crystal clear night, and I could see Kitt Peak from my location, west of town. The moon was close to full and I did find some time to watch the stars with only my eyes - no telescopes this time. The only negative thing about this setting was the temperature - it was about 20 degrees Fahrenheit outside. My sleeping bag is a good one, but that's cold no matter how good your bag is. Let's just say I was glad when the first rays of sunlight found their way over the Tucson Mountain range and began the defrosting process on my chilled body.
One thing it was not, though, was windy. Today has been quite windy - plenty of big gusts and steady winds between. It's the kind of day that reminds me of Winnie the Pooh and the Blustery Day. It's also the kind of day when I pray that the roof will remain locked into place on the dome, rather than taking off and causing reports of flying saucers in the neighborhood.
It's also windy in outer space. We have our own local wind storm, the Solar Wind, which blows particles away from the Sun and fortunately is largely deflected away from our home planet. The winds in deep space often create stunning vistas for photographers, and provide a source of measureable physical data for scientists to develop theories. Although images of deep space objects have the power to transport me to a tranquil, serene mental space, in reality the environments in the images are often violently dynamic. A hellish interior sometimes creates a beautiful exterior.
Here is an image that I took last week, the first image using a new set of narrowband filters, so it was a short test exposure. It's not really ready for showing as a pretty picture, but it does show an environment sculpted by fierce interstellar winds. The Hydrogen gas prominent in this image of the "Foxfur Nebula" is undergoing dramatic changes.