Watching The Skies

[poliphilo]

I did think of staying up last night to catch the Perseid meteor shower but when I checked around 10.30 the sky was cloudy so I thought better of it and went to bed.

I have seen meteors.  They're great, green, whooshy things. Blink and you miss 'em. In my memory they take up half the sky and come with added sound effects. I know my memory lies. 

As a child I was afraid of the night sky. Standing out on the drive I'd get overcome by thoughts of eternity and infinity and have to rush back indoors before the immensity swallowed me up. In middle-age I mastered that fear by studying star maps.  I got so I could locate all the main constellations and name the bigger stars. The stars have wonderful names- Arabic mostly. Walter de la Mare has a poem in which he wonders whether it's the stars themselves that fascinate him or their names. It certainly adds to the romance of a distant point of light when you can address it as Algol or Betelgeuse. 

I'd love to own one of those old celestial globes where the constellations are represented as mythological personalities  all jumbled together in the baroque style.  Terrifying- but deliciously so.  Not just infinity, not just eternity, but also writhing sea-monsters and enormous men with swords and clubs. 

I slept out once on a hillside in Provence. No clouds. No light pollution. So many stars.  

Comments

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

We suffer from so much light pollution here you rarely see the Milky Way.

Actually for "rarely" read "never". I suspect the last time I saw it was in Provence when I was 19.

Orion is my favourite too. Each year I eagerly await his appearance in the winter sky.

Strange experiences? I'd love to know.

[pondhopper.livejournal.com]

One of our favourite summer activities is to see a planetarium show here on campus. The film isn´t the thing, though. It´s the talk afterwards about the current night skies that I love. The astronomer in charge projects the constellations visible for that night and includes projected drawings of all the mythology connected with the names. It´s rather like the globe you would like to own.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

One of my boyhood dreams was to get to go to the London Planetarium- which is or was attached to Madame Tussaud's. I never did. More recently I saw a show at the plantarium at Jodrell Bank but it wasn't the same.

[goddlefrood.livejournal.com]

There's nothing wrong with the Jodrell Bank show, although granted it's not as good as the London Planetarium show, which I have seen.

Orion has a strange fascination for me also. I've even got to see him both ways up. Looks better in the North, mind you as he's chasing the Pleiades the right way, it's not the same when he's standing on his head.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

That is strange.

I've been trying to come up with a naturalistic explanation- or even a plausible supernatural one- and I can't.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

I'd love to see the Southern stars- but I don't suppose I'm going to- not in this lifetime, anyway.