I am working on a difficult entry for the Ultimate Concern series (#5), but I thought I would take a short break and point out another of my life-long delights: astronomy or star gazing. There are some very good apps available for pursuing this subject, but once you get oriented on what is happening up there, the various movements of the heavenly bodies are not difficult to follow. Two nights ago, for example, we had a clear sky with Jupiter, followed by Saturn, clearly visible in the south-south-west. I had gone out about 11 p.m. to watch the moon and Mars rise in the distant east. Jupiter and Saturn were still visible, but I had to take Fairway around the bend down toward the cul-de-sac since trees block my vision of the sky here, at #3. Once I turned the bend, so to speak, I could see the moon just coming up with Mars riding the moon’s left shoulder, so to speak. They were gorgeous. Mars is very bright now as it is coming closer to Earth in its orbit.
I went out the following night about the same time; the moon was now farther to the east behind Mars, and tonight, (my excuse was, “taking stuff down to the recycling container”) the moon was again smaller and more distant from Mars.
Knowledge of the heavenly activity is delightful. I used to know all the major constellations and the paths of the sun, moon, and planets through them every year. Of course I filled notebooks with my observations; I used my high-powered binoculars to observe the 4 moons of Jupiter and how they changed from night to night, just as Galileo did in the early 1600s. For him they were more evidence that there was only one realm instead of two, the sub-lunar and the trans-lunar. Through his telescope the moon looked as though it had an earth-like landscape; and if Jupiter can move with its 4 “planets,” it is like the Earth and the Moon moving around the sun. So Galileo thought and wrote.
The three apps that I have are Star Walk 2, Night Sky, and Sky View. I forget which one I enjoy the most.
NASA has an internet program wherein you get notices throughout the year concerning the passing overhead of the ISS. Seeing the international space station moving swiftly and silently overhead is still thrilling. It’s actually incredible.
The Michigan State University’s Abrams Planetarium has a monthly Sky Calendar available for 12 dollars a year. You can punch holes in the margin and put them in a notebook! There’s one sheet per month with a calendar on the front side describing each day’s heavenly events, and on the back is a kind of beginner’s map of the heavens. I consult it regularly, of course, since the notebook lies open close to my desk. Whatever you do, look up and find the planets once in a while, at least, if you don’t already. They are a truly beautiful sight, and knowing their names is very satisfying.
We have left our footprints there, but its beauty is undiminished.