It is star gazing time this fall and winter. The operative word in that sentence is star. Star is one of those nouns that have multiple interpretations, If we were talking about entertainment it might mean one or all those shows where the stars give themselves awards for all the good things they did this year. Recently George Strait was named entertainer of the year. Heck he has been a good entertainer for a lot longer than a year.
This is the time of the year for all those award shows and most of us enjoy watching those celebrities pat themselves on the back and say thank you to all the folks who helped them get so popular.
However, the stars I was really thinking about are the real ones that sparkle in the night sky. In the fall and winter we often have those cold north winds that give us cloudless night sky. That makes that star gazing really exciting. This is especially true here where we do not have excessive light pollution like in Houston or some other big city. Even in the slight pollution we have you can find a place that minimizes the light pollution even more.
One of the delightful things of such a night sky is that awesome view that gives our galaxy its name the Milky Way. Because I lived in the country up north I must say it was probably a little more spectacular up there, but that could be because I was younger and more impressionable. I remember one night I took my son, who was a city boy at the time, out in the family timber and literally no light pollution. He looked up and saw the Milky Way and asked “what the devil is that”? I laughed and we had a short discussion of the galaxy and its name and place in the universe and our place in it..
When we came to Calhoun county and settled on the west side of Carancuha bay it was a surprise to find that looking out my bedroom window around midnight that the Big dipper was framed upright across the bay and just above the horizon. It is true that the official name is Ursa Major. However, it looks more like a dipper to me than a bear. Most folks who look at stars rather than study them agree. In fact I can’t even see a bear.
The outer edge of the dipper points over to Polaris or the North Star. That star has helped guide seafaring folks find their way for centuries. Winter is when it is just right from my window.
Polaris is 434 light years away from earth. That is about 260 trillion miles which is further than the federal debt is big. Besides that, it is still in our galaxy. There are galaxies beyond ours. That says we live in one huge universe. As one gaze at those stars it can cause us to wonder. Good star gazing to you because wondering is really wonderful.
