When the heavens delight us

  • starrysky-w-orion.jpg

    I’m way behind on the blog­gable stuff, but I thought I bet­ter start with some celes­tial fun.

    Greg and I were com­ing back home late from errands, and we were both a lit­tle tired as we went into the house. We knew home was just a quick stop before going back out to feed a friend’s cat, but I still couldn’t keep from look­ing at the stars on the way in. I’m nobody’s astron­o­mist, but I’ve always liked look­ing at con­stel­la­tions, and the night hap­pened to be per­fect for it: moon­less and cloud­less, so that each star just sparkled and the dusty streak of the Milky Way swept right through the middle.

    Greg had joined me, but the constellation-spotting is really my lit­tle obses­sion. So how unfair was it that when I looked at him for ONE sec­ond, he said, “Hey, look! A falling star!” And I did look, but there’s noth­ing as black and still as the night sky the sec­ond after the falling star. They’re just so quick! You not only have to be in the right place at the right time, but you have to be look­ing in the right direc­tion and NOT choose that minute to tell your hus­band some­thing. I had hit three out of four, but I was still a loser in the falling-star-spotting derby. Rats!

    After we fed Clemen­tine and bun­dled back into the car to take care of the kitty, we talked over falling star sight­ings, and it seemed to me that if I had to count how many I’ve seen in my life, it might be less than five. The prob­lem is that it’s really a very small event –visu­ally, any­way — in a very big sky, and when you just see that dart of white out of the cor­ner of your eye, you don’t know whether it should really count.

    While Greg was lock­ing up after cat-feeding, I went back to star-gazing, even if I was feel­ing a lit­tle wronged by my starry friends. Our friend’s house is truly out in the mid­dle of nowhere, and with the sound of the unhar­vested corn­field rat­tling in the icy air, I sat against the car and looked up at the glit­ter­ing black sky. Greg joined me and tried again to get the hang of Orion, which is a con­stel­la­tion so glar­ingly obvi­ous that every plan­e­tar­ium starts with it. But for some rea­son, he’s constellation-challenged, and usu­ally gives up.
    “Look right there,” I said. “See the lazy H?”

    “No.”

    “Okay, see the three bright stars that are lined up absolutely straight?”

    “Yes.”

    “That’s the cen­ter of a let­ter H. Do you see it now?”

    “Yes.”

    “THAT’S Orion. You have now offi­cially seen Orion. And the fuzzy patch just below the mid­dle of the H is a clus­ter of stars. And the top left star, right where Orion’s right arm is raised, is Betel­geuse, which means ‘armpit.’ And then if you…”

    And then from right below the con­stel­la­tion dropped the biggest! bright­est! falling star EVER. It didn’t just last a sec­ond; it seemed like it went on for half a minute — more than enough time for Greg to let out a whoop and Grace to shriek like a fan cheer­ing the big touch­down. It made such a bright, long slice that I almost expected to look up and find out that Orion had lost his armpit.

    It was SO cool. And I can’t believe the tim­ing — I was finally in the right place at the right time look­ing in the right direc­tion. And I was talk­ing to my hus­band, but I got a pass on that, and got to see a gigan­tic falling star. I’ll prob­a­bly always remem­ber that now, like I remem­ber the eclipses and comets I’ve seen.

    Just some fun, brought to you by the heav­enly bod­ies in the Novem­ber sky.


    Related posts:

    1. Some days are diamonds
    2. Bright Week do’s & don’ts
    3. Life as it should be
    4. Greg’s moody curtain
    5. Wher­ever the wind blows

    November 16th, 2009 | Grace | 5 Comments |

5 Responses and Counting...

  • Grace 11.16.2009

    Anam Cara:
    I hear you. I’ve lived in a lot of dif­fer­ent places, but most of them had too much “light pol­lu­tion” for star-gazing. This area is pretty good that way, but the atmos­pheric con­di­tions aren’t right most of the time. So it only seems like there are about 10 or 20 really good nights for it in a year, and most of those are when it’s so cold that you can’t stand to stay out for long.

    In that way, any night when I can make out the big three — Orion, Big Dip­per and Cas­siopeia — is a good night.

  • Mimi

    That is so cool!
    We had a big storm, there was no meteor shower watch­ing here.

  • Anam Cara

    And of course, here in the DC area, the com­bi­na­tion of trees and light pretty much elim­i­nate any meteor show­ers unless you are will­ing to travel. : (

  • Anam Cara

    If you can see Orion, you can see what we called in Panama “the dry sea­son circle.”

    It has some of the bright­est stars in the night sky. there’s Betel­geux and Rigel that you already know from Orion, Alde­baran from Tau­rus, Cas­tor and Pol­lux — the Twins of Gem­ini, Pro­cyon of Canis Major, and Capella in Aurigae.

    If you want to be able to ide­tify more con­stel­la­tions, I highly rec­om­mend a book by H. A, Rey (yes, the Cou­ri­ous George author) The Stars: A New Way to See Them. All star charts should con­nect the dots the way Rey does!

  • s-p

    Cool. I’ve seen a few falling stars that were pretty spec­tac­u­lar. It is always serendip­i­tous when you think about the vast­ness of the heav­ens and that you just hap­pened to be look­ing at the right place at the right time.

Leave a Reply

* Name, Email, and Comment are Required