The Starry Heavens Above

Early in September, after the sun had set, a gang of curious residents took the Kendal bus to the home of Dick, one of our drivers. Dick is an astronomy buff, and he had invited us over to see the wonders of the late-summer sky. The night was dark, cool, and clear - jacket weather, with no moon and no urban lights. And like any serious amateur astronomer, Dick had a seriously massive personal telescope, conveniently mounted for us in his front yard. This was our window on the glories of the heavens.

A friend once told me that all little boys pass through their moments of fascination with stars and dinosaurs. (And maybe little girls do too.) I know I went through both phases, and they were buttressed by school visits to the Hayden Planetarium and the Museum of Natural History in New York City. In any case, this interest in things astronomical never really left me, and the opportunity afforded by Dick's invitation reignited it.

There were about ten or so of us that night. After a little instruction, we took our turns, one by one, at the computer-directed scope. For some it was easy to use. For others getting the knack of it was a bit more of a challenge. But for almost everyone there was that moment - and a gasp from the viewer let everyone know it had come - when a magnified picture of the sky suddenly jumped out of the eyepiece and the marvels of the heavens opened themselves up.

For me the highlight of the evening was seeing the four large satellites of Jupiter, conveniently strung out in a row to the right of the planet. I tried to imagine what Galileo had thought. We also saw the Hercules cluster (spectacular under the magnification of the scope), a double star (featuring partners of contrasting colors), and the Andromeda galaxy (still only smudge, but far and away the most distant thing I've ever cast my eyes on).

I had taken along my bird-watching binoculars, but they turned out not to be very useful for viewing particular objects, even those as large and (relatively) close as Jupiter. Still, when pointed at the gauzy haze of white that drifted across the sky directly above us, the binoculars converted it into an astonishing array of thousands of sparkling stars. Milky Way indeed!

We didn't become children again that night. But we recalled some of the simple pleasures and happy anticipations of childhood. And we were reminded that the there is much to be gained by seizing opportunities to move beyond our day-to-day lives and to touch realms of existence that ordinarily lie beyond our ken.