You are looking at the bottom of a very long formation set above Longfellow's Bathtub in Carlsbad Cavern, toward the end of the Big Room tour, shortly after Rock of Ages. The Cave Research Foundation completed a project last year that has been underway for ten years, cleaning the mud and silt from the bottom of this pool. We took advantage of the unusually dry state of the cave (which has lasted well over a decade) to painstakingly transfer water to a dry pool, remove mud, and move it back by the end of each long holiday weekend we spent in the cave. The results have been spectacular; if you could see the before and after shots, you would agree.

Thanksgiving weekend we worked on the Red Pools area (which will now have to be renamed, or they will when we finish removing the red clay that has discolored them). But while we were working, we checked the Bathtub to see how it looks. It has begun refilling! The shiny look of the flowstone tells you that it is active and wet. The pool is being dripped in, and the water level is already several inches higher than it was. And that wall has been dry for about thirty years - I last saw that wall wet that long ago.

We got it done just in time. It is now too deep to transfer enough water to nearby pools.

This morning in the sky

OK, that was freaking awesome!
We went outside at six, and of course there was the crescent moon hanging low in the sky, with Venus shining brightly to its immediate left. Above them a little ways was Saturn, as expected, and Mars was much farther up than I expected - almost directly overhead. Directly opposite the moon (spin around with those binoculars), but much higher in the sky, we saw the fuzzy ball of light that was Comet Holmes, the comet that exploded October 23.

Then, at 6:20, we started watching for the space shuttle and the International Space Station, which would be rising just about... oh, darn, right behind that huge tree. Well, wait for it. At 6:23, they popped out from behind the tree, shining brighter than Venus, one following the other. The larger and brighter of the two lights was in front, probably the ISS. They were almost directly overhead Andrews to the northwest, but high enough in the sky to be spectacular, without having to strain our necks!

We didn't see anything from the Southern Taurid meteor shower, which peaked today, but we didn't really expect to. That one produces about five meteors an hour if you're lucky - though those do tend to be really special as meteors go - and I'm not quite that patient.

It almost makes the Ron Paul money bomb pale in significance, but I'll enjoy that, too!

If any of you got up to see any of these wonderful things, post a comment here, would you?

Sky stuff

Get up early for some neat stuff in the sky, tomorrow morning, November 5. In the east, you should see a crescent moon, with Venus to its left shining brightly. Above them will be Saturn, and above Saturn, Mars. In the western sky, look for a soft fuzzy ball of light about half the size of the moon in appearance. That's a comet that exploded October 23, and it's expanding as it moves away from us. All you need to make it complete is a spaceship or two to go by - and we have that, too. The International Space Station and a Space shuttle will be flying overhead and lit by the morning sun before it rises for us, rising from the southwest and flying toward the northeast. It should appear at 6:20 am and go out of sight at about 6:25