The important question of the visibility of the moon will become even more resonant, this weekend, as Muslims around the world look to the skies for a glimpse of the lunar sliver that will signal the end of Ramadan.

This morning I was on the telephone to a devout man in the "naked eye tradition" - those who will only end the fast when the moon has been spotted - who wanted clarification of the moon's rise and set times on the website of Melbourne's Planetarium. Where should he look? When will it rise? At another (American) website a dismal-looking black square signified invisible moons until halfway through the weekend, but the man on the phone insisted that he could see the hint of reflected light, on his own screen, "like a reversed C." I said: "you look with the eyes of faith..." 

Photo: James W. Young  Source: NASA/courtesy of nasaimages.org

Īd mubārak!

An 86-year-old woman phoned the Immigration Discovery Centre asking about a certain lane in Melbourne, wanting to know if it was still a lane, and where it was located. I found Rankins Lane using Google maps and described it to the woman: "I can see the Commonwealth Bank building, and bins, and chefs eating their lunch, and an old sign advertising a printer." In turn, she told me about the Rankin family, and how her pioneering ancestor had run a funeral parlour from this tiny back street. She used to come into the city quite a lot, she told me, but today had to depend on my voice and my eyes to tell her the story of this shady corner of the CBD. "I can see some graffiti," I explained - "but it's nice graffiti." 

Photo of street art in Rankins Lane. By Doogsta via Flickr

I just took a phone call from an employee of Melbourne Airport asking if the museum would be interested in acquiring a specimen of a Brown Falcon.

Apparently, in a match of falcon versus plane, plane won.

And museum scored a nice study skin.

Falcon really lucked out.

Photo: John Broomfield  Source: Museum Victoria

This morning a mother-to-be called the Immigration Discovery Centre wondering about the pronunciation of Polish names - Emile for a boy, Irena for a girl. By contacting the Australian-Polish Community Services I was able to confirm that both names get their second syllable emphasised, by the Polish, and sound like "em-EEL" and "i-REIGN-a" respectively.