See her how she flies Golden sails across the sky Close enough to touch But be careful if you try...



There was a hard frost this morning, the kind of morning that makes the Surrey Hills a place worth the visit of the dawn. The ground was hard and sparkling, catching Belgian shepherd puppy footprints and shaded by faint shadows thrown by the rising sun, and...my camera was at home so the verbal description will have to suffice

By the time of my evening walk, the moon was drifting into the west.



And she wasn't alone. Also spinning westwards were the dog and his master, who have spent so much of this winter hiding from me behind the veil of grey clouds.



For the uninitiated, the very bright star in the middle left is Sirius, the most brilliant of all as seen from Earth - except for the Sun, of course. This is the same section of the sky in Stellarium.



I tried shooting at 1000 ISO and a shutter speed of about ten seconds. Tripods are good



But like the frost, these constellations will not linger long. There is always an excitement in autumn upon first glimpsing Orion's hands at dusk, but as the Earth continues on its orbit, Orion and Canis Major appear earlier and earlier, until they are finally swallowed up by the dawn. Seeing them now is almost a farewell.



It's winter's epilogue.

Probably