Skywatch Friday: The Cooling Hour

We Skywatchers are not the only ones who look up more now, after having been a part of this community. It seems that our families are affected as well. Not long ago I reported that the Beloved Spouse noticed a gorgeous sunrise and, knowing that I would want to capture it, woke me a bit earlier than usual.

Last Saturday evening we were watching the cooking shows on PBS (I'm usually insired by them to do something nice for our evening meal) when the BS noticed a promising sunset. I picked up the camera and wandered out in time to get this sequence. Had I waited even a minute longer I'd have missed most of it, because just after I completed the last shot it faded away to gray, and was gone.

I did move slightly out of my usual boundaries (the back or front yard), and walked outside the fence and down the alley for a larger view, so at least some of the shots are more open than what I ususally get.

While it's true that many north Texas sunsets are enhanced by our collective refusal to improve our air quality, I guess that lovely sunsets provide a small anodyne to those of us who really do think that cleaning up the atmosphere is a good idea.

The post's title comes from a bit by Byron, in Don Juan, of which I am frequently reminded at sunset:

It was the cooling hour, just when the rounded
Red sun sinks down behind the azure hill,

Which then seems as if the whole earth it bounded,
Circling all Nature, hushed, and dim, and still,

With the far mountain-crescent half-surrounded
On one side, and the deep sea calm and chill

Upon the other, and the rosy sky
With one star sparkling through it like an eye.

No mountains or even hills here, to speak of, we're nowhere near the sea, and no star emerged, but the impact of a good sunset doesn't seem to require much more than clouds and color.