I've just come in from a two-hour star-gazing episode with a friend. Even though it's a lovely windless night of 5 degrees Celsius, we were cold. My neck was cold (of course, we've already put away all our scarves and mitts.) We set up the telescope and had a beautiful view of the crescent moon with its many craters in high relief.
We saw some double stars and picked out the constellations we know. I always try to spot something new. Tonight we worked on Draco, but we were too close to town light to see it all clearly.
There are so many stars. I never tire of looking at them. Well, my neck gets tired from bending my head back to look up, but I don't tire of gazing at the sky. I love to see that handful of stardust we call the Milky Way. The Chinese call it the Silver River, I'm told.
The sky charts make it seem so easy, with all those lines connecting the dots of the stars into shapes: eagle, crown, bear, dog, a woman on a chair. But they are flat, two-dimensional. Looking through the telescope gives a small glimpse of the three-dimensionality of the sky. There is depth there; it goes on and on and on.
Beautiful Saviour, Bright and Morning Star, how glorious is your name!
No comments:
Post a Comment