The Heavens Declare the Glory of God

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!

Dancing with the Stars!

Tonight, the temperature is a balmy 16 degrees, very pleasant for the last day of September. Not only was it warm, but the skies were clear. The night called to me, and I borrowed a pair of binoculars, called on a friend, and we went out stargazing once again.

Armed with the latest edition of Sky News, the Canadian backyard astronomy magazine, a small flashlight, a drawing of the Ursa major constellation, of which the Big Dipper, well-known to many, is only a part, we set out at about 10 p.m.

We were well-rewarded. The wide-sky country of this area does not disappoint. Constellations (and asterisms!) that had eluded me at other times jumped out like diamonds on black velvet: Auriga, lying close to the northeastern horizon; Draco, the dragon, twisting its way between the Big Dipper and the Little Dipper; Ursa Major; Pegasus, with its great square high in the southern sky; Aquila, the eagle; Delphinus, the dolphin, and, of course, the others that are already our friends—Cassiopeia, the Big Dipper, Polaris, the Summer Triangle, the Pleiades, and Cygnus, for example.

And yes, the Coat Hanger! I knew where it should be, and by scanning the area with the binoculars for several minutes, I found it! It’s formal name is Brocchi’s Cluster, but, really, it does look like a coat hanger.

Appreciating the natural world around us doesn’t have to be expensive, even though the ads in the magazines would convince us otherwise. There is so much to see even with the unaided eye. One thing that does make it more enjoyable: a friend to share it with.