Stargazing

Stargazing

Something I like to do after dinner is to go to the helipad, lie down on the concrete with something under my head and watch the stars.  It is relaxing, reflective and one never knows what one might see.

Today was a generally uninspiring day.  Didn’t do a whole lot of what I would consider constructive work so I thought I’d spend some reflective time under the stars.  Dinner was pretty good; beef ribs (I think) with mashed potatoes, mystery veggies and some cookies that were actually crunchy.  Afterwards, as I was walking back to the tent, I thought; hmmm, good night for a view.

The temperature was in the lower seventies with a gentle but consistent breeze from the southeast, that’s where the mountains are.  The sky was a little bit hazy, so visibility wasn’t the best.  But in the brighter stars were there, and a circular area above the base where I could see through the haze let enough starshine through that it was worthwhile.  To the south was the constellation Orion.  A crescent moon was just setting over the mountain to the west.  I’ve been told that planets shine from reflective light so they don’t sparkle.  Based on that theory, I saw what I thought was Jupiter above me and Venus close to the setting moon.  They were the brightest things I could see and shone with a steady brilliant light in the sky.

My wandered to a time long ago when I was a teenager at a camp in Colorado.  I had been recently saved and spirit filled and felt like finding a retreat of sorts from the hubbub of the camp.  A couple of close friends and I ventured up onto a lookout point on the mountain overlooking the valley to sit and pray.  I remember the incredible view of the stars from our lofty perch.  They were bright and uninhibited by the meager light of the town far below.  The clarity that night in summer was like a perfect crystal and the stars shone with an unmatched intensity.  It was a fond memory of contentment in the Lord.

Flash, squirrel, I mean, shooting star.  Yes, I saw one; it was faint and not very long; but it was still cool.  Nice thing about stargazing is that there are squirrels that interrupt on occasion; but they are usually good squirrels, well worth watching. 

My minds wanders on the events of the day.  Robert is sponsoring a church construction project on the side a few miles from here.  We took river gravel over there last week and prepped it for the concrete crew.  Today we moved materials like rebar, buckets and wheel barrels along with some long concrete forms for them to use.  Most of the time was spent running to and from the site and then loading and unloading.  Not to exciting as days go, but needful nonetheless. 

Squirrel!  I mean, hmmmm….this one probably is a satellite.  It makes a beeline for the horizon and a rather fast clip and disappears.  Funny how that stuff just pops out and catches the attention.

The gentle breeze reminds me when my good friend Gary and I used to lay out on the back balcony at the Madison house and stargaze in our sleeping bags.  One or more of the kids would join us, it was an adventure for them since they were still young, and usually fall asleep by midnight or so.  There wasn’t a lot of light pollution in Madison in those days.  Gary and I would talk about life and watch the brilliant display of celestial lights before us.  It was fun.

Along the southern horizon is a star that twinkles a steady blue, red and then white.  It sits below Orion and is rather bright.  I don’t know its name but it is grande.

When I worked for Colorado College one of my tasks was to take students on fieldtrips.  One fall I took a week long camping trip with Anthropology to Chaco Canyon in Northern New Mexico.  It is one of the most remote places in the States with zero light pollution, except for the visitors center which pretty much shuts all of its lights off after nine.  That particular night there was a club of amateur astronomers out at the center with their telescopes.  The Park also had a 16 inch reflector telescope that was built privately decades ago.  These folks had set up positions on the scopes with views of things like Saturn, Jupiter and a number of star clusters and galaxies.  I went around and saw them all; it was magnificent, for me, a once in a lifetime experience that I will never forget.

It is funny how the mind wanders from one thing to another when it stargazes.  I think that is what makes it so relaxing, along with the unexpected excitement found in ….. SQUIRREL      -- that was a big one, too.  It was white and yellow and soared across the sky like a bottle rocket. 

Ah, stargazing, makes me wonder and wander at the same time.