April 2020 – Travel Smart With Jodie

Catch the Lyrids streaking across the sky

Meteor showers happen when Earth is in a comet's orbital path and comet debris fly across the sky. (NASA photo) — Meteor showers happen when Earth is in a comet’s orbital path and comet debris fly across the sky. (NASA photo)

Instead of merely staying inside late tonight or tomorrow night (actually very early Tuesday or Wednesday morning), find a spot outside your abode to catch the Lyrid meteor shower while it peaks April 21-22, 2020.

Meteor enthusiasts have been watching the Lyrids for centuries. Among the oldest recorded meteor shower, it was supposedly first noticed 2,900 years ago.

The timing this year is perfect because the moon won’t be interfering as it is in its new phase April 20 and will be just a thin crescent April 22.

Most sky watching sites suggest dressing warm and lying down in or on a sleeping bag with feet pointing east, then looking up and letting the eyes adjust to the night sky. This year, experts predict between 10 to 20 meteors per hour during the peak.

What may help is that the Lyrids are bright and have a long tail of dust. But they are also fast at 30 miles per second.

The shower is called the Lyrids because the meteors appear to radiate from the Lyra the Harp constellation near the bright Vega star.

What you are seeing is debris that has crossed the earth’s orbit from the Thatcher comet. The comet, itself, take about 415 years to orbit around the Sun so earthling won’t be able to see that comet again until 2276.

To learn more about the Lyrids and meteors visit NASA, TimeandDate, EarthSky and Space.

See great American museums from very old to new and historic to live

T-Rex Susie and other dinosaurs reside at the Field Museum. (J Jacobs photo)

Settle in for an unusual video that takes viewers from the Charleston Museum founded in 1773 to when Chicago’s Field Museum obtained Sue in 1990.

Thanks to “Riches Rivals and Radicals: 100 Years of Museums in America” a part of the Great Museums film series, you can travel from the Monterey Bay Aquarium’s “live” museum to the 2004 Smithsonian Museum of The American Indian with stopovers at the National Museum of Air and Space, The Isabella Stewart Gardener in Boston, the DuSable Museum of African American History in Chicago, the Institute of Texan Cultures in San Antonio and the Exploratorium in San Francisco.

Add in NYC’s Met and MOMA, Pittsburgh’s Carnegie Museum of Natural History, Boston’s Children’s Museum, Michigan’s Greenfield Village, Chicago’s Museum of Science and Industry, the US Memorial Holocaust Museum in D.C., New York’s Botanical Garden, the Milwaukee Art Museum and the National Zoo to see the breadth of the definition of museum and how museum architecture has changed.

It’s all on You Tube, so, refill the morning beverage cup, get comfortable, and visit youtube/watch/feature.

Travel virtually to Saint Augustine and Vegas

Photo is courtesy of Visit St. Augustine

Sure there are countries I still hope to explore, but there are also so many places in the US I would love to revisit.

Two of them are Las Vegas, NV because it has become a foodie town but also because I haven’t visited the Neon Museum and similar attractions and St. Augustine, FL because its centuries-old history is so much a part of the town.

Neon Museum

Director/producer Tim Burton takes visitors on a fun, inciteful, virtual tours of the Neon Museum and Vegas. Follow along with him in six short videos that include “Lost Vegas.” The videos make me realize how much I didn’t notice when there about 12 years ago.

St. Augustine Lighthouse and Museum

Visitors get to walk up the historic lighthouse’s 219 steps with Deputy Director Rick Cain without having to huff and puff

They also get a close look at the lens that otherwise has to be seen outside its room. The video also visits the Keepers House.

But just as good are the views of the country’s oldest port city. Founded by Spaniards in 1565, the city cares about its waterfront and cobbled streets.

Supermoon tonight

Supermoon seen in Chicago. ( J Jacobs photo)

The largest looking full moon, a really supermoon of 2020 will be brightening your neighborhood tonight if the sky isn’t cloudy where you are.

The reason we say that largest looking is that its size is an optical illusion. The moon looks larger because its orbit brings it closer.

For April 7, he moon’s closest orbital point to earth, called the perigee, has coincided with the moon’s full phase and will be closest at 10:35 p.m. EDT.

Super and even just full moons have been given lots of nicknames. The April one is often called the “Pink” moon. The Pink moon will look almost as good the evenings of April 6 and April 8, if the sky is clear.

If weather isn’t cooperating mark the calendar for May 7 for the “Flower” super full moon. Just think of the overused but usually true adage of April rain bringing May flowers.

For a fun look at the night sky and the moon visit Space/fullmoon/calendar because it has an interesting video from the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory.

The next closest moons will be in the new moon phase which doesn’t reflect the sun. They come the middle of September, October and November. However, the full moon Oct. 1 is the Harvest Moon and Oct. 31 has the Blue Moon, as in the saying “once in a blue moon” because there will be two full moons in one month

Related 2020 article: Super March Monday is about moons

Related 2019 article: March supermoon marks spring

Visit San Francisco Symphony and Monterey Bay Aquarium

This trolley scene is among those found online for zoom backgrounds.

Until we can physically travel again, Travel Smart will visit cities where art museums, zoos and other destinations are doing videos through youtube, Facebook and Google arts .

When clicking on the links you may get something else but they are just ads so click on” skip ad” and you will be at the even/place you want

Golden Gate Bridge, Fisherman’s Wharf, hills and trolley cars. It’s San Francisco, baby. Until you can go back there are also places you can enjoy online that you may not have thought of in the city and down the coast.

San Francisco Symphony

You can watch and hear about Aaron Copeland or listen to Michael Tilson Thomas conduct the symphony and Emanuel Ax in Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No. 2. Also look for other concerts. They are like having a playlist on the computer to listen to while you work.

SF MOMA

San Francisco’s Museum of Modern Art features different artists and their work on line. See Judy Chicago and others.

Asian Art Museum

Visit the museum online to see its collection or learn about interesting and historic pieces.

Monterey Bay Aquarium

Watch and learn about penguins or see the cams such as the hypnotic moon jelly movement.