The stars of night and especially the Milky Way were unavailable this week. The Vineyard along with much of the country is under a high altitude cloud obscuring the faint objects of the night.

Even the moon in the last few nights looks like it is locked in sunset mode. The sky is so different. This is not the summer night sky we remember of weeks ago. Fog is a challenge but it comes and goes with changing weather patterns.

The sky is now caught in a gigantic weather pattern that isn’t just related to weather. Large areas of the Pacific Northwest are on fire and the smoke reaching high into the atmosphere is floating continuously over our heads.

For those of us who like to look at astronomy with a measure of thoughtfulness have to conclude that the Earth, our Earth, is remarkably more fragile than we thought only a few years ago.

What stands out in our day and night skies is something irrefutable. Large fires thousands of miles to our west, can change the color of our day and further darken or obscure our night.