Starwatching
I have always liked the stars. I say 'liked' deliberately - I know I've never had a real love of starwatching, always felt them to be too far away, and maybe even too hyped. I liked constellations, I liked staring at them at night, I liked going to the desert to watch for shooting stars.
Last night I went up to a broad open space, where the grass wasn't more than faintly damp. There was some bite in the air, but I had a jacket and cap, so I sprawled out comfortably and decided to make myself familiar with these stars people always talk about.
I've seen starfields like that before. Better, even, because even here I found myself studying two-thirds of the sky because the other third was fogged with city-glow. Still, these were countryside stars, a lot better than in the city. The area is ringed with trees, so as I settled in it was like lying in a cupped hand. Dense earth beneath me, the give of the grass, just that touch of chill. Autumn, in its archetypal form.
Looked for the old familiar constellations. Found a snail, instead - the sweep of a shell, curve of the neck, two spots of eyestalks and a shadowed tail.
Then I found eyes. Do you know how many pairs of stars there are in the sky with similar brightnesses, that when you start recognizing them, you find looking at you? Hundreds. And many of them have faces, if you look for them; there's a snarling wolf not far from the snail.
And then I realized that I was looking at the foggy trail of the Milky Way, too-- a mist across the sky, almost horizontal to my perspective. It took me a few moments to try to put it into context in my mind, and then in that moment I realized I was looking across the galactic plane.
It was akin to standing on the peak of Stone Mountain, staring out over the surrounding blanket of trees and far on into the distance. It was seeing, with a distance view of unimaginable length.
Billions of stars, and I stared across them like looking across a pool of fog in a mountain valley.
Last night I went up to a broad open space, where the grass wasn't more than faintly damp. There was some bite in the air, but I had a jacket and cap, so I sprawled out comfortably and decided to make myself familiar with these stars people always talk about.
I've seen starfields like that before. Better, even, because even here I found myself studying two-thirds of the sky because the other third was fogged with city-glow. Still, these were countryside stars, a lot better than in the city. The area is ringed with trees, so as I settled in it was like lying in a cupped hand. Dense earth beneath me, the give of the grass, just that touch of chill. Autumn, in its archetypal form.
Looked for the old familiar constellations. Found a snail, instead - the sweep of a shell, curve of the neck, two spots of eyestalks and a shadowed tail.
Then I found eyes. Do you know how many pairs of stars there are in the sky with similar brightnesses, that when you start recognizing them, you find looking at you? Hundreds. And many of them have faces, if you look for them; there's a snarling wolf not far from the snail.
And then I realized that I was looking at the foggy trail of the Milky Way, too-- a mist across the sky, almost horizontal to my perspective. It took me a few moments to try to put it into context in my mind, and then in that moment I realized I was looking across the galactic plane.
It was akin to standing on the peak of Stone Mountain, staring out over the surrounding blanket of trees and far on into the distance. It was seeing, with a distance view of unimaginable length.
Billions of stars, and I stared across them like looking across a pool of fog in a mountain valley.