Venus, The Morning Star

At seven this morning I glanced out east at the bright morning star.  

The picture is not as clear as I would like, I remained stiff, the open window was allowing the frost laden wind to enter, and I was still half asleep.  I still am.

The 'Morning Star,' is usually the planet Venus hanging about just before sunrise.  Occasionally its place is taken by Mercury during July to September, or Sirius at other times.  

Jesus is of course referred to as the 'Morning Star,' and John Wycliffe was called the 'Morning Star of the Reformation.  'Morning Star,' was the name of a Cheyanne Leader, also known as 'Dull Knife,' though I suspect not to his face.  The USA, as you may have expected, has several small towns called 'Morning Star,' for reasons unknown and I canny be bothered to look.       

Several Ships have carried this name including six Royal Naval vessels dating from a Dutch Ketch captured in 1672 to an 'M' Class Destroyer launched in 1915, and a Broad Guage locomotive was built by the Great Western Railway in 1839 and called by this name.  This was intended for sale to the USA.

'The Morning Star' is of course a somewhat left leaning London based paper.   Known once as the 'Daily Worker,' it was unashamedly Communist, now under the new name it struggles to survive and leans towards the Labour Party.  I suspect none of the 'Workers' involved come from a working class background.  Most true Socialists today are Middle Class and have never done a proper days work in their lives.  Just saying like.

Films and TV have made use of the name, songs abound as do albums, musicals and even a variety of cannabis, though you will know more about that than I do.  

This reflects the effect the 'Morning Star' has upon the people when we see it rise.  The fact that the vast majority have never seen it, most not rising before sunrise, is not worth considering.  The sight, not reflected very well by the picture, of a bright shining Morning Star against a deep blue background, sometimes accompanied by a crescent moon can live in the memory.  Maybe that is why this is replicated on the Pakistan Flag?

Now I have scribbled this I am back off to bed...

 

 

Venus

To the untrained eye that 'blob' seen just above the ever so dark treetops is in fact Venus!  Glinting brightly in what can only be called the wrong part of the sky, I had to squash against the wall falling over things to have several attempts to capture a picture, it was impossible to resist.  How I wish I lived in a better placed house!  However, I managed several moving pictures, one or two possible abstract art works worth millions and eventually obtained this before the planet dodged behind the trees and out of sight. 

Smithsonian

This is what it looks like in close up.  This picture is not one I could take sadly, the high powered telescope is beyond my pension money.  Such a lot of swirling poisonous gas in one place.  Space is full of such marvels, this one however somewhat hot to touch.  Japanese spacecraft are orbiting the planet, sending back this picture among others, watching the swirling mass and giving astronomers work for years to come.  What practical use the info will be I am not sure, but it is interesting, at least to those of us who knew 'Dan Dare' and that Green Mekon!
Of course the cloud hides Venus tonight in spite of sunshine for much of the day.

The difference 75 years makes to Politics...