My wife and I hope that all of you had a great holiday season. We enjoyed our usual Christmas family get-together. For once, the two of us had a "stay-at-home" New Year all by ourselves. After watching the New York time ball at 9pm, we raised a toast or two, reminisced about past riotous New Years' parties here at home, in California and Mexico, and family members and friends who have died, and went to bed around 10pm - getting old, I guess.
A number of astronomical events (including a relatively rare triple shadow transit on Jupiter) were rained/fogged out during this month. A clear sky break during last week made it possible for me to have a look at comet Lovejoy, though. This is a relatively bright comet, easily seen through binoculars. It's bright enough to be seen with the naked eye as a faint, fuzzy star, but not in the light-polluted Metro area.
The days are getting longer; we're looking forward to more sun.
