Easter at the now-empty tomb

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From a (briefly) sunlit Church of the Holy Sepulchre, also know as Anastasis (Church of the Resurrection) -- greetings for a glorious Easter to Christians near and far!
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(You're encouraged to click once, twice, to bring down the beautiful details of the dome and chandelier.)
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Berlin by night and home again

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Last night was the first time for me to fly Air Berlin, now Germany's second largest airline.
My Vienna to Berlin and Berlin to Tel Aviv flights were pünktlich, exactly on time and pleasant.
Plus, the cabin crew stands at the door with a smile and a basket of red heart-shaped Lindt chocolates as a way of saying a sweet goodbye!

Too bad my first and only time to see Berlin was only from above.
Maybe someday ...

 

I waited a few hours in Ben Gurion Airport until the first train to Beer Sheva and was rewarded with a nice sunrise on the way south.

Back home already at 8:15 am with the good earth of Israel smelling fresh from RAIN (so pleasant when you haven't seen rain since last spring).

The end of a marvelous 37 days in Austria.

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Oh, say can you see by the dawn's early light / What so proudly we hailed at the twilight's last gleaming?

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The setting sun glowed tonight through an Israeli flag.
The roundabout at the center of Meitar has been decked out with flags for the last month.

The sun dips into the Mediterranean Sea, along the beaches of the Gaza Strip, which is about 30 miles or 50 km west of my town.

We are in the third day of a 3-day ceasefire.
If we awake to Red Alert sirens early tomorrow morning you will know that Hamas did not extend the ceasefire, and we will be watching the sky for in-coming rockets.
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Linking to Sky Watch Friday.
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UPDATE Friday morning:  Promptly at 8:00 am Hamas renewed their rocket fire.
In the last two hours 20 rockets were fired at our south. 
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The sky, source of wonder

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A Meitar sunset, last night, with birds.
At 4:55 pm,  so early. 

Why does the sun always look squishy the second before it disappears behind the hills?
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This morning I heard real thunder and we had one minute of sprinkles!!
Our first since last spring! 

This evening  the grandkids  and I walked to the edge of town, to the edge of the desert, to spot the International Space Station going over!!
How exciting and moving!
You can sign up for alerts from NASA here. 
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 On November 3 we in Israel will see a partial solar eclipse.  More info from the Starman of Mitzpe Ramon.
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Linking to SkyWatch Friday.
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Sundown

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Sun setting behind the Jerusalem Hills, as watched from Mount Herzl tram station.

It's a far cry from how the sun looked during the awful dust storm Israel had on Monday.
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For SkyWatch Friday.
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Dust in the eyes, nose, lungs

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Today, Monday, Israel is suffering through our worst dust storm in years. 
Here's how the sun looked in the haze over the Jerusalem Hills today at 4:00 pm.

An article all about the Egyptian dust blowing in says this:

Throughout the day, the presence of small respirable particles from 10 microns in size proved to be very high, the Environment Ministry reported. . . .
Short-term peak concentrations were much more astounding, with levels in the North reaching 30 to 40 times those of a clear day, 95 times in Jerusalem, 30 times in Beersheba and 36 times in the southern coastal plain areas of Ashkelon and Yavne . . .

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What a strange Passover.
First we had (and have) the plague of locusts (also coming up from Egypt) and now what looks like a plague of darkness.
What will be next?!
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UPDATE: The skies cleared on Tuesday and life is easier.  We learn to be grateful for our normally blue skies.
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(Linking to Our World Tuesday.)
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NASA pics of transit of Venus !

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No, sorry, it's not the sun and Venus; it's just the full moon rising, as seen from my village in the Hills of Jerusalem.

BUT-- you can see stupendous photographs of the transit of Venus at NASA's Astronomy Picture of the Day:
http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/astropix.html for June 9
and also here.
More here.
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(A post for SkyWatch Friday.)

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For a limited time only

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Every year at this time the earth comes around to a certain point that makes the setting sun cast a dramatic light on the chapel wall.
Here it looks like the horn of light is devouring the icon!
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The sun is entering through a partly-opened round window.
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Eleven days later it looks slightly different.
It is a matter of May 30 at 5:55 pm compared to June 10 at 6:34 pm for these two photos.
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This summer seasonal play of light and shadow is for Summer Stock Sunday, which Robin here in Israel is starting up again tonight, and for Tracy's Shadow Shot Sunday .
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Calm returns

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The friends and I had an overnight in Tiberias.
Tuesday was the hottest day of the year, in the mid 40s C, with a dust storm.
The hot dry wind whipped up the Sea of Galilee into crashing waves and whitecaps! This is a rare phenomenon.

The next morning the lake was calmed, as if by a miracle.
Here is the view from our hotel balcony at 5:30 a.m.
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By 5:50 the sun had risen from behind the Golan Heights.

A strange silver ribbon appeared on the water at 7:44 and stayed just a minute or two.

By 8:36 we were a bit north of Tiberias and the sky continued to reward us with photos for Sky Watch Friday.

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Too warm

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At 3:30 this afternoon the sun was still high enough to be reflected from the cars in the Hadassah Hospital parking lots.
But the haze to the west disguised the Jerusalem Hills.
There is a village on the hill behind the first line of trees, but you would never know it in today's weather conditions. It was windy, dusty, hot.
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Israel is having the warmest February on record.
Many of us are digging in the storage box to get our sandals and T shirts out again.
Trees and flowers are thoroughly confused.
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Happy SkyWatch Friday to you all, especially those who are tired of snow and cold.
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More about the humble dude

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Wow, you want-to-know readers never let me off easy!
Your questions about yesterday's solar water heaters need a whole new post.

1. OK, so today I telephoned the company that installs the dood shemesh pictured above.
The basic dood unit costs 2300 shekels = $614 =446 Euros.
Not bad, right?
Big savings on your electric bill when you let the sun heat your water for free.

2. The black collector panels connected to the water tank are NOT the same as solar panels.
The water inside the black coils heats up quickly (because that is what black does).
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Solar panels, on the other hand, collect heat and turn it into useable electricity.

3. The high percentage (90%) of Israeli families that have a dood shemesh is because we WANT them and believe in them, not because it is now mandatory.
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I found the following historical information in a good blog called MetaEfficient, The Guide to Highly Efficient Things:
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"These heaters were first installed when the country experienced a fuel supply crisis in the early 1950s. The government responded by severely restricting the times when water could be heated. Israelis in turn responded by purchasing huge quantities of solar water heaters. By 1983, 60% of the population heated their water with the sun. A law was eventually passed requiring the installation of solar water heaters."

4. We are poor in natural resources but rich with sunshine.
Israeli companies are the forerunners in alternative energy sources.

Hawaiian bloggers like Cloudia even tell me that our ORMAT company is harvesting power from their Big Island's volcano!
I think it is something like digging a well to capture geothermal fluid (steam?) and turn it into electricity.
But better you ask the Hawaiians about that. :)
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Hey dude

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For D Day at ABC Wednesday, let's take the Hebrew word dood.

A dood shemesh is a solar water heater.

Some 90% of Israeli families have one on their roof.
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The first two photos are not representative because these tanks are sitting on the ground, next to their house. (Well, actually it is a converted chicken house, with a roof apparently not strong enough for a dood on top.) But it is a good chance to show you a dood up close.

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Typical domestic units consist of a 150 liter insulated storage tank and a 2 square meter flat panel. The black collector panel collects solar radiation, heats the water, and passes it to storage in a pumpless, gravity-driven loop.

Convection carries colder water from the bottom of the tank into the collector and hot water rises to the upper intake on the tank.

After a few hours of good Israeli sunshine, you just open your taps and out comes near-boiling water!

If the sun hides for a few days (which happens only in winter), set the timer or flip the switch to run the immersion heater built into the tank for half an hour before you want a shower.

The ubiquitous dood shemesh is found on apartment building roofs,

on buildings in Jerusalem's Old City,

on Vatican-property roofs in East Jerusalem,

and on Bedouin village houses in the desert.

In short, EVERYWHERE.

On slanting roofs, the dood is often put in a horizontal fashion.

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Good system to let the sun do the work, eh? Saving fuel, saving money.

Would it, or does it, work in your country?

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In 2005 Spain became the second country (after Israel) to require solar water heaters by law.

And in 2010 Hawaii will require all new houses to have one!

How do you say dood shemesh in Hawaiian?

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Blessing of the Sun

The Blessing of the Sun (Birkat HaChama) is prayed only once in 28 years. Yesterday morning Jews all over the world gathered together to recite the blessings and Psalms that thank and praise God for his work of creation, both then and now.
Apparently this is a tradition from the Talmud. But who knew? I didn't. This time around, word spread quickly, thanks to the Internet and publicity from Chabad.
Over 50,000 people (!) did the ritual Wednesday at Jerusalem's Western Wall.
New Zealand saw the sunrise first and some of her 7,500 Jews said the prayers before any of us.
I myself stood alone in my back yard and prayed after I saw the sun come up over Jerusalem on the horizon.
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According to ancient rabbinical calculations, every 28 years the sun returns to its original alignment with other heavenly bodies, the same place it was on the fourth day of creation as told in the Book of Genesis.

If you'd like to read the short service, click on the special Chabad website. Other how-to information at BlessTheSun.org.
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My photo is of the sun rising over the Golan Heights above the Sea of Galilee.
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Now let's go over to SkyWatch Friday and see what skies other bloggers have shared.

Achoo! Gesundheit!

I looked out the window this afternoon to find that Jerusalem had disappeared from the horizon. The hills across our valley had also been swallowed up.
The sun looked weird and ominous.
I clicked on the local newspapers. Sure enough, a huge cloud of dust had suddenly blown in from Egypt and was covering Israel.
Sde Dov, Tel Aviv's small airport, did not let planes land. And the Environmental Protection Ministry issued a warning of severe air pollution all over the country and urged the elderly, people with heart or lung conditions, pregnant women, and children to stay indoors.

Well, I hoped I didn't fit any of those categories and went out to take a picture.

We are hoping for rain tonight to make the air easier on the nose and eyes. Achoo!

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SkyWatch Friday participants are showing their (hopefully brighter and clearer) skies starting tonight. Have a look.

Sunrise over the Holy City

Welcome to the Jerusalem Hills sky I chose for SkyWatch Friday, a fun group of bloggers who come together every weekend to share and compare skies. You are welcome to visit the others or to join in.
This was the hazy sky as seen from my second bus at 6:10 a.m. Don't you love the driver's bouquet of faux flowers on the dashboard? The archaeological excavation where I'm working all of August is seen behind the middle of the lamppost. Here I get off the bus and start the slow trek upward. The sun was rising by then.
There she is! A glorious sun shining on a still quite empty highway, rising over the skyline of Jerusalem. It is worth getting up at 4:30 every morning to see such as this!

Sun and Sea

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Happy summer solstice!

To you in the south, happy winter solstice!

Sunrise over the Sea of Galilee. View from Tiberias looking toward the Golan Heights.

Enjoy other views of the sky on today's Sky Watch, hosted by Tom at Wiggers World.

Celestial music

Last week some friends and I drove down from the top of our hill, crossed the narrow valley of Soreq, and ascended the taller neighboring hill. There the sun set on a glorious NOTE.

Other participants in this Friday's Sky Watch are waiting for your visit at Welcome to Wiggers World.

S words closer to home

Secretariat of my moshav/village.
You've heard of a fork in the road. This is a spoon in the road, on the goat path through the woods.
Stone stairs on the shvil (Hebrew for trail).
Sign for Ein Se'adim with lots of Ss.
Shafts of sun in Soreq Valley.

Y A W N

The sun is back! There is no pleasure quite like taking a nap in the sun on a warm day in cold February. Here is my friend Lara waking up from a catnap.