I awoke at 4 the other night I headed outside for a glimpse of the yearly Perseid meteor showers, always billed as one of summer’s top celestial events. It was supposed to be prime viewing time but I only caught a couple of brief streaks of light, typical of my experience.
It’s the random, unexpected sightings which have the most impact, and have most thrilled me: the sudden streak of a glowing fireball dancing across a winter’s night, it’s tail slowly fading into the darkness; the northern painted hues of the aurora borealis pushing so far south.
One of the charms which originally attracted me to the country, and continues to hold me here is the night sky. To gaze into the depth of space and marvel at the billion points of light, the glowing cloud of the Milky Way, and the planets’ procession through the Zodiac. The sky was so clear the other night I could recognize the red glow of Mars and see, or believe I was seeing the white spec near Jupiter of one of its moons.
Our house is situated in such a way that our own bowl of night is protected from the glare of “security” lights which have become common fixtures on rural homes everywhere. Despite low crime rates, people feel the need to protect themselves in the harsh glare of encroachment on the night sky.
I guess they have never taken the time to step into the shadows, look up an discover the same boundless heavens which inspired and humbled our ancestors.
If they had, they would occasionally turn off those lights, and not have them burn from dusk through dawn and relegate the stars and stargazers to darker, rarer corners of the night.
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