Stargazing

Perseid shower tonight. I can claim no great knowledge of astronomy beyond a passing interest - ie. the names of the planets and knowing the plough when I see it. That said, I've always loved looking at the night sky, even though it's hard to find anywhere truly free of light pollution. I was in Flagstaff last year, and the same day I saw the Grand Canyon, I also saw the clearest night sky I've ever seen, with the Milky Way clearly visible - a fantastic combination of seeing the best the land and sky have to offer in the same day.

Since coming back from there, looking up at the sky back home has generally been a truly disappointing experience for me - knowing the fantastic view that's up there, but being denied a good look at it because of the light pollution. Hardly one of life's great hardships, but it bothers me. Anyway, given the Perseid shower tonight I thought I'd take a wander out onto the park and see what I could see.

The result surprised me - still not a brilliant view, but it was far better than I expected. I took the time to lie down and stare skywards for about 20 minutes, letting my eyes get used to the darkness. A few times I'd catch a flash in my peripheral vision, but it was hard to be sure if it was a meteor or just my eyes playing tricks. Eventually though I caught a clear streak, right where I was looking. Satisfying that my time paid off.

Regardless of that though, it reminded me how much I love staring at the sky. Daytime just doesn't cut it, although when there are scattered clouds I do enjoy the way it makes it easy to perceive the curvature of the earth and atmosphere, stretching way over the horizon. But at night, the view goes straight up - stars might not give a sense of specific scale, but they immediately make me very aware of being on a planet which is floating around in the void.

Given my film-viewing history my mind immediately goes to films like Star Trek: First Contact, and Contact (never drew the title parallel before) - two films which open with fantastic zooms through space. I love being made very aware of our place in the universe - a tiny planet in an infinite cosmos, with no clue of everything that's out there. If you haven't recently taken the time to stare up at the night sky I recommend it.