Luna and Their Wondering Stars (by sarah)

There is a lot of wonderful astronomy type stuff going on at the moment and sometimes I find myself able to capture just a glimpse of the worlds and burning suns in our sky. At the moment there is a visible comet - my eyesight is pretty bad these days but I am still hunting for it as I did with Neowise a few years ago - this time I do not have my mum to drag out in the car with the kids with thermoses of hot chocolate and lots of moaning and excitement when a shooting star is seen or a planet spotted. But I do have a Mary and Mary likes to point out "weird" extra glowey stars and wonder on what they might be and they have been many things - more things than I thought they would be. And so we have this picture taken on the dance run of a new moon growing from a slither so so thin and delicate with planet in tow - Venus and Saturn - at least I think that's Saturn much smaller and fainter there.

The moon always has held a fascination for me and of course it is for many cultures that this new moon - this moment is the New Year and with everything that has been going on and the illness over Christmas that feels right. Besides I like the idea of a rabbit in the moon - I know I've mentioned it before but I had a little outfit when I was a kid with embroidered bunnies on it and this idea kind of stuck in my head. Plus our bunny Angel is named after Mum and I am scrabbling for so much that was or should have been and I am becoming I think a re-Me or a new-Me or at least an adapted me at the moment.

This seem so cyclic as stuff from years past rears its head and says you need to use this skill or investigate this thing you knew or just look at the world in the wonder you once had. I found the MoonMania embroidery and have a wood to look at nature and rocks in and I found needle ice on my own drive way - a thing I've known about but never seen. I've been photographing mushrooms and taking part in Wassails and playing music. I have been finding the sky and the forest floor to be filled with things I know of but have been missing, I see landscapes and world and stories that want to flow but I am so very tired and broken - as Jean used to say "need glue" or maybe some gold to stick these fragments together again. I don't know. I don't even particularly care but I took some photos of the moon and of stars over the River Severn and found siderite and drew things for my kids.

Sometimes I dream of adventures in those skies and I wonder were exactly the wonderers are wondering off to but then I know I could just look it up or plot it out myself but is that any different to my walks were I find so many things to see and investigate.

Last year we failed to get the telescope out at all - this is an amazing fact to me but something I hope to counter this year.

Fire Balls, Space Junk and Ring Lightning (by sarah)

Wednesday on our way home from the kids drama and singing lessons we saw a weird orange light in the sky that seemed to flare but by the time we had processed it and mentioned it to each other it was just another dimming light that could have been a floating lantern or a satellite or plan wing tip - having just come back from a conference on the paranormal and tricks my mind churned with the possibilities. At first I thought it might be a satellite dancing across the sky or a launch I had lost track off - after all something was due to happen with Space Link wasn't it?

I struggle these days to keep up with launches and fly bys and some are more noticeable that others - also due to the visual distortions caused by a mix of graves disease, damage from head injury ie a blind spot my mind tries to correct for and sometimes wrong colour due to blood sugar levels mucking up my lenses - I am always suspicious of what I see. But I wasn't the only one and we talked about Day of the Triffids and I thought on how it didn't seem right for the fly bys or launches I have seen. Nor if I am honest did it look like any meteor shower I had seen including one with a confirmed landing.

Now as a family weird stuff does happen to us - the probabilities of our life are so extreme they have to be real life because you could not get away with this shiiiite in fiction and sky phenomena is one of the things we seem to be proune too. We have seen clouds with fluorescent edges, cold fire flickering in strange colours(st elmos fire), a green flash from the sunrise, sundogs guarding the sun, moon bows, transits of planets in tear drop shapes across the sun, eclipses, green skies, sand storms in spout form, strange lightning, shooting stars.

I on my own have seen, felt and heard a thunder bolt crash in a flash to the ground - the sound of it was deafening as we sat in our car by the traffic lights - a ring of lightning that arrived in Grey Towers at the end of Hornchurch town centre when I was very small - it was amazing and painful and very too close - I am not sure what the out come would have been if we hadn't been sitting in the car with its rubber insulated feet.

Alaric on the other hand has witnessed not 1 but 2 fatal air craft accidents, on of which they then spent their time administering first aid to the crowd (to be fair they have attended a lot of air shows and been a first aider/emergency response of some sort at many events).

We've seen strange fogs, and rare cloud formations, inverted rainbows, but not the aurora - I thought the translucent clouds we saw were this but they did not shift and move and are another meteorological phenomena called Iridescence or Irisidation. Some I thought could not be real like the dawn flash - but they are along with scientific explanations.

I wonder if it is just because we are outside a lot or because we look to the sky or because the improbable is still probable if there are billions of people living their lives on an increasingly chaotic system of a planet.

So I promised the kids I'd see if there was anything on meteor watch about the strange lights in the sky - and promptly forgot as not only did it remind me of Day of the Triffids but it reminded me of Smallsville - a Superman spin off taking us through the adventures of a town decimated by a meteorite strike - and I ended up knitting and watching that instead. It didn't even seem that strange if I am honest - oh another UFO - I wondered if a satellite had fallen, burning before it could crash into the surface of our world but no biggy really.

The next morning however I woke up regretting that I had failed to capture it on my phone - I had tried but it was over and we were weaving around small roads and I just took too long - now I wanted to know what it was... as a personal set completion - space junk was preferable - from a studying and travelling the cosmos point of view a meteorite would be preferable on many many levels including just not making our own sky a no go travel zone because we've created so much space pollution ie debris.

So what do we know about this fire ball? It was seen most in Scotland and Northern Ireland but others including here in the SW of England saw it, some of which are our friends who commented on my Facebook post - also if you say you saw one mysterious sky object people will tell you all their UFO stories - I like this it is interesting - if you want to share go ahead and leave a comment <3

When I initially checked it was thought to most likely be debris from something and that was being checked out - but later in the day it seemed to have become the meteor scenario - so a rock from space that exploded in our atmosphere from uneven heating caused by the friction of falling through our atmosphere and the different materials, cracks and possible things like ice evaporating to super heated steam very quickly (this process can cause serious explosions as can many gas or liquid reservoirs within things like asteroids - also there are classification systems for all of this which I am semi ignoring to use words more widely know).

WE didn't even really see a fire ball - just a flare at most and there seems to be two times floating around for the even which might be an issue with daylight saving or maybe there are two events which wouldn't be particularly surprising as natural or human origin space debris tends to scatter on its way down especially if there are explosions! Or of course people are people and they make mistakes!

I really thought it was going to be one of the star link satellites if I am honest but according to the UK Meteor Network and other such groups and bodies of experts it looks like it was a meteor and that it is likely to have landed in the sea. There is more sea than land on Earth so that isn't really surprising and I recall several lectures on the finding and not finding of meteorites and the reasons behind this - the Earth is still "accreting" were are hoovering up space dust and being bombarded with rocks and narrowly missing the big chunks of other planets that are no longer planets or never quiet formed into planets in the first place.

Of course I am obsessed with space rocks so could bore you for hours with them - I am currently trying to set things up so that I can collect micro meteorites as such projects like Project Star Dust have managed - I even rope in groups of scouts - mainly we stare at bits of sand blown in from the deserts, or rocks thrown off the road but occasionally something unusual turns up.

(I found that this post had not gone live for some reason so it was back blogged to the date of writing)

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Gaia – Llanthony 2019 (by sarah)

This weekend starting tomorrow there is going to be a giant Earth floating in the grounds of the historical site Llanthony Secunda Priory and Moon Mania Mega Make my community textiles project will be there with it 🙂

It will be there from 10 am till 5 pm for three days:

Friday 28th of June Saturday 29th of June Sunday 30th of June

I will be there from 1 pm on the Friday, 2 pm on the Saturday and all day Sunday. If the weathers nice I will be outside by the coffee van if it's bad I'll be inside. This will also be the first proper outing of Moon Memories where I hope to snag people and get them to tell me their tales of the moon landings and space race or what their aspirations for the future of space exploration is. This is for a legacy piece which will result in a book and website and my hope is to archive these stories properly so that they are not lost to the sands of time (or moon dust!).

Gaia is part of Gloucester's amazing Earth and Moon festival which will be going on through out the summer and autumn and includes events at the Libraries including their annual reading challenge which is space themed, cinema at the GuildHall, the accompanying Moon to Gaia will be in the Cathedral later in the Year, and of course last but not least there is the Museum of Gloucester which has a Moon Exhibition which is opening this Saturday (29th of June 2019) starting with a kids craft corner focused on International Asteroid Day. I myself will be doing talks, creative writing that's moon themed as well as rock handling at the Museum.

Some of the events can be found in the SoMac brochure, some in the museums and libraries and Guildhalls own brochures 🙂

I also have various poetry, arts and science talks planned starting on Tuesday with a little PechaKucha talk at Liquor and Chow.

Now back to Gaia - this is an amazing installation that is going on a tour around the UK and is made by Luke Gerram with imagery from NASA. I am very excited to have the chance to be involved for Moon Mania!

Gaia is the name of the Greek Goddess who made/is the Earth, that which gave birth to everything, in Earth and Planetary Sciences we have the Gaia Hypothesis which takes the planet as a kind of mega organism with each part - trees, animals, sea, weather - all being part of the whole and what affects one affects the other. Computer Gamers will also be well aware of these concepts!

I have a mini obsession with Gaia so here is one of my favourite art making and concept creating videos about another fabulous art inspired by Mother Earth:

Rebirth of Gaea

Oh and I am looking for as many people as possible to be involved with the Mega Make!

Moon Mania (by sarah)

A thing I bring - Moon Mania

A kind of extended festival or series of events to mark the Moon Landings and space exploration, looking at everything from ancient myths and legends through to the mineralogy of moon rocks and the politics that fuelled the Space Race using arts, crafts, engineering, story telling, rocks.... you name it!

Inspired by my dad telling me about the landings and the TV coverage around it where they had a mix and match of anything and everything to do with the moon - so I thought this was the way to go with it.

I have already done three days of Space Craft workshops with kids on a bit of a Moon Tour of the Libraries here in Gloucestershire and there shall definitely be more of that to come!

Having actually worked on meteorites and even a lunar sample at the Natural History Museum London, UCL, Birbeck et al many years ago now, I am excited to try and show people just what is so awesome about our nearest celestial neighbour, what rocks can tell us about our own origins and planetary science as a whole. Then there is the engineering, political and economic angles which are great discussion points (both the good and the bad). Then there is the art and craft aspect - I see art and science and craft and engineering as the same sorts of things they all come under one banner... Creativity and that creativity is something I want to bring to the general public.

Gloucester the city where I live is hosting a series of events including a Giant Moon at the Cathedral and the Museum is having a Moon exhibitions including a series of talks, story telling and rock handling - I am some of this but not all of it and the exhibition they have lined up is awesome including vintage telescopes and a chunk of the moon on loan to them! They have one of THE GREATS of story telling coming in and so much more!

So what actually am I up to with Moon Mania - well first off I have struggled to get funding but due to bookings of workshops and things and kind donations I have managed to get the ball rolling - I will also confess that I am about a year and a half behind schedule so am kind of just doing it all... RIGHT NOW. I am behind due to miscarriages and family deaths which suck but are a part of life and have actually focused for me how important stuff like this is - this isn't just a series of events it is something more, it is paving a future, it is archiving, it is wonder.

And actually I began to feel that the hunt for funding was beginning to cripple the project, stagnating it when there were bits of it I could be moving forward with. So I cobbled together some other monies - my own and kind donations from friends.

But what am I actually doing? The Space Craft stuff is fun and I love taking it out and about at festivals but Moon Mania is something more than that - something with the potential to leave a wonderful legacy and to preserve this momentous moment in the history of human achievement - WE WENT TO ANOTHER PLANET!!!!!

There are several aspects to the project:

Moon Memories

I am collecting peoples reminiscences of the moon landings for a website and later a book including getting them archived properly as I fear we are now loosing these memories for ever - my own dad died earlier this year half way through writing his own memories, for this reason I am all the more determined that it has to happen.

I envision these as cafe events where people can come and sit and talk to me over tea and biscuits - younger people may have stories about how the inspiration from the space race etc… formed some aspect of their lives even if they did not see the actual moon landings - kind of intergenerational awesomeness (or the alternatives).

We are loosing these memories as a culture, as a species, they are slipping from us with death and decay of synapses and just the fog of memory.

Dad's memories will still be including incomplete as they are and I will probably add notes of things he'd said about it all to me.

This part of the project was initially a minor part of something else several of us were working on with the Gloucestershire Archives and Heritage Hub but has become a large thing in and of itself. I am going doing some training on how to record interviews and archive them properly and am very excited about how helpful the hub has been with research etc...

Moon Mania Mega Make

This is a community textiles project and is a series of banners depicting various space related scenes using embroidery, appliqué, rag rigging etc… each banner will be brought a long to various communities/general public groups and gatherings etc… Everyone is welcome to do a bit of even if it is only a couple of stitches. I currently only have enough funds for one banner at the moment but hope to get more. What I would like is to again bring it along and let people have a go at it and in the longer term have places where the finished banners can be put up for exhibitions at the very minimum they will appear in the local community gallery.

I have already gotten a banner printed and ready to go on recycled polyester - I picked this material because it is recycled but is less prone to things like moth which attack natural fibres in the hope of increasing its life span. It is printed to make following what colour needs to go where easier and is a copy of Celestial Montage which was part of a multi media piece I did for the European Space Agencies Spaces project. The original is drawn in fine liner from a series of Hubble and other space images in the ESA archive. I thought the bright colours would make this a good one to start with.

This part of the project launches this weekend Sat 8th of June 2019 at a Scout Fund raising event in Cranham called Grove Fest (it's in the Grove funnily enough!) and is 4pm until late with live music, open mic, wet and wild play, BBQ and bar. That is Cranham Gloucestershire UK.

Moon Miscellany

A collection of myths, legends, stories, poems and science about the moon - based on the BBC broadcasts around the actual moon landings where they collected together every and anything to do with the moon. A lot of the poets and story tellers are local to Gloucester/shire and so there is scope there for performance. I have some amazing artists and writers involved in this already and even a trainee astronaut (not based in Gloucestshire but Australia but he was once a Stroudy).

The collection is still open to submissions but there is no pay other than royalty share as I have no proper funding (boo hiss), I have been amazed already at artists and writers who have jumped on board knowing this and am so grateful <3

These stories and poems are very much a part of the legacy and need to be preserved and more importantly shared, some folk tales for example are in danger of vanishing for ever and some poets have little moon poems that have never seen the light of day (or the reflection of it from the lunar surface!).

Science essays are wide and varying too, from bouncing radio waves off the surface for amateur radio to the organics round in comets!

Moon Meets

A general interest group that meet up to talk all things space, to make and create - a kind of variant on the Creative Teas that me and Alaric host - unlike most of the stuff this isn't open to the general public as such nor is it a specific event but more a group of us who are planning to meet up regularly. There are about ten of us so far and there will be some over lap with the community textiles stuff but some people need a none public safe space to just be and so that is what I am providing with this part - I am currently waiting to see if I am getting any funding for this part.

Moon Music and The Planet Pageant

This is the newest addition to the project and so is still forming.

Many moons ago... I attended a song writing workshop with Paul Murphy who was wonder and lovely as well as being an extraordinary musician. He really encouraged me and kept in touch right up until he died. He knew I mainly just played and made songs up for the kids at home and made me realise that that was alright and that there was value in that but also that there was the potential for there to be more.

Since then I have met so many lovely musicians and taken part in some improve stuff and now have so many many musical instruments! Sometimes I bring boxes of them out for groups of kids to play with.

Then I made the sound panel and designed the sensory cave with sounds made by actual celestial objects ie planets with magnetospheres sing! This was one of my first complex multimedia pieces and was part of the Please Touch exhibition in Cheltenham and later the Science Art Exhibition but I organised the latter myself!

The lady who asked me to be part of the exhibition is a wonderful children's improve musician and is a real motivator who has shown me that the key is giving permission to kids and grown ups alike to just play with sound!

She has also agreed to be part of the project! AWESOME

I then took part last year in the Spaces Project just as part of a scratch choir but it was wonderful and the musician in charge of that asked me if I wanted to go on a song writing day with a man called Boo which I jumped at (especially as it was free for us song writers types as was Pauls - still not sure how I ended up on them!). Within five minutes of starting this workshop I was writing about the moon.. and then events season hit and I have been out at all sorts of events including making junk music shakers with kids and some how BOOM there is a new part to the project.

I am currently trying to fix and decorate old tambourines and adopting the instrument making to be planet themed and adapting the stuff I did with the sound panel so kids or adults or anyone really can come and play. I even have a lot of coloured ping pong balls and rice grains to make rattly whizzing bouncing planets and moons and asteroids - yep I have black, white, green, red, yellow etc... and have tested how easily it is to paint planet texture onto the balls along with how easy it is to post rice grains into the balls to make them shakers and attach the cord so you have and orbiting pair!

I am making custom planets for the kids to get noises out of and am bringing in some amazing musicians for these workshops.

So that's the music part but what of the pageant part?

To me movement, music and the flow of what you are wearing with that movement adds something, having worked with the idea of dress up, cosplay, choreography, improve acting and parade via various events including the Smash Fest science outreach day and the amazing work the University of Gloucestershires drama students performed, the Stroud Drama Festival, the Aethelflead stuff last year not to mention my current work on Carnival.

The upshot of this is the idea of making costumes themed on space and planets and adding movement and dance to the mix. Having an eight year old who is obsessed with dance has also some what formed this concept.

This is something that can be as simple or as complex as people want and it will be beautiful.

Things I Need for Realisation

More musicians and dancers/choreographers aboard Broken instruments to fix up Electronic supplies - Cheltenham Hackspace is already helping me out with some of this. Spaces and groups to work with potentially over a period for costumes if wanted. Funding pots to apply for as currently I will have to charge for this to cover costs, expenses etc...

Space and Aviation Science puppets

I already have puppets which come out for story telling and science craft workshops, comedy etc… and though I do have two that work for space themed things Einstein (physicist) and Brahmagupta (ancient Indian astronomer and mathematician who’s work our whole mathematics system is based on), I would like to make two more these being Caroline Hershel (Astronomer who’s legacy is possibly greater than her brother’s and who had to fight for ever ounce of recognition but ended up being head of the Royal Astronomy Society!) and Amelia Earhart who was an aviation visionary and would be an important figure in helping me explain the aerodynamics and flight mechanics that were involved with the space race and flight in general.

Issue here is that I don’t have enough funds for the textiles to make them and comes back down to funding but hope that as the project progresses this will remedy itself.

Moon Mania Money

Which brings me to the bits I am charging for to help provide the rest but are fun valid things in and of themselves and includes actual space rock and moon!

Rock Handling

I have meteorites ranging from Chondrites to iron, including a tiny slither of the Moon and Mars as well as some space ship specs from various missions as well as terrestrial analogues (rocks from Earth that are similar to meteorites and can tell us a lot about how they formed). I also have a 200 yr old ships telescope to show people to talk about astronomy.

One of the bits of ship I have is minute but it has been to the far side of the moon! And I have a an inclusion in one of the meteorites that contains pre solar grains which is pretty amazing and special.

Big thank you has to go to Dr Rebbecca Wilson for helping me with this.

This can also be part of a larger workshop looking at how we find meteorites, analyse them and the nature of impacts, the biggest version of which contains a sit in sand pit!

Wants

I would love a microscope with cross polars and that can do reflected ligh as transmitted plus the cross sections (slides) to go in it of various minerals.

Space Craft

Kids sci-craft workshops including stomp rockets, junk modelling and puppets, this has already been going out in the Libraries and can be a whole event with six or more activities or just a single craft activity, there is a huge list of craft projects including some new ones. A typical workshop contains 6 different activities and lasts for a couple of hours. It is £250-£400 depending on exactly which crafts are picked and can include rock handling.

I am also offering smaller one off activities:

Stomp Rockets

Junk Modelling space station design

Star Coaster decorating

Space themed origami

Balloon Rockets

Solar System mobile/hanging charms

Cardboard telescopes

Alien finger and stick puppets with cosmic and star back drops

Astronaut window clings and general colouring in

Space dress up and toy play

Story Telling and Puppets

Making planet shakers - also part of Moon Music

Model solar system

Cardboard Hubble Telescopes

Giant card rocket - for colouring in

Messy stuff:

Mini Moon Lamps - papier mache messy

Paper Plate spin planets - paint

Paper mâché solar system - Large

Paper mâché rocket - Large

If an outside space is available then we also have:

Coke and mento/vingar and baking soda rockets

Impact craters - involves mud and sand

Clay Alien modelling

Tea bag hot air balloons

Water rockets

Still under development/need more money to make

laser cut model rockets for the children to construct

Sit in play rocket

Talks

These can including rock handing - I used to work on lunar samples and impact rocks at the Natural History Museum in London and currently will be doing talks in the Museum of Gloucester as well as going over to the Wilson in Cheltenham, I also have other speakers that I can bring in. And though the Apollo missions were an amazing achievement for humanity as a whole there are several aspects that are not brilliant such as it coming out of a militaristic state of affairs and the use of NAZI technology, not to mention the fact that we have not been back, and the environmental cost etc… so I am completely happy to run debates on these types of subjects too.

Talks currently available:

My journey to the Moon - about my time at the Natural History Museum and what it’s like to actually work on Lunar samples

The Kreepy Moon - an exploration into the geochemistry and mineral of the lunar surface

Apollo - a whirl wind tour of the moon landings

First Steps - how it nearly all went wrong - the tail of how we almost never went to the moon

NASA Is Not The Only One - how many space agencies are there?

Moon Quakes, and how the Sun Shakes - find out about Earthquakes and their planetary equivalents including what they can tell us

Ice and Fire - how we find the shooting stars that have come to Earth

Meteorites: A History

Craters and Impact Rocks

So What Now?

Well realistically I can do a lot of this - I have already been booked for about ten activities/talks but to bring this to it's full potential I will need more money - I will attempt to set up some sort of kick starter/sponsume page.

There are a couple of other things I would really love to fit into this but need to design them a bit more and price them up before I announce them.

A schedule needs to be forth coming too! I am starting the Mega Make on Saturday and having my first Moon Meet on Sunday - July is the actual anniversary month so that is when I will be popping out some little Moon Pouches and starting my events proper including talks at the museums etc.. but this is a long reaching project that I plan to match the duration of the Apollo Missions so not just this year though this will be the main/foundation one of course.

I am happy to do all of this stuff outside of Gloucester but once outside of my walking range you will have to pay travel expenses and if far enough away then accommodation as well 🙂

I am very excited and hoping my moon badges arrive before Saturday so that I can give them out to the Cubs, Scouts and Beavers!