18:45:48 2001-03-08 010308_49.html
Stars and clouds
In one of Richard Bach’s books (Illusions?) is the following bit of dialogue:
"Would you say that’s a perfect sky?"
"It’s always a perfect sky."
He’s right, but sometimes there’s something special there. The reward up here for surviving two days of "the storm of the season" was a perfect clear winter night last night. I had stopped at the gym after work, so the stars were out as I came back to the hotel. Because of the bulk of the hotel and its lights, I could only see half the sky, but the Hunter was there, and the moon was full. I stopped to look at them because I always do.
There were a few clouds moving across the moon, quick enough that I could see their motion, not just tell that they had moved. My internal temperature was high, because I had just rowed a long piece on the erg, and the air was dry, so I was breathing steam even when I breathed through my nose.
From my perspective, the clouds were moving directly from left to right across the moon, and as I breathed out, a veil of steam rose straight up,
crossing the clouds’ motion at a right angle. The stars were sharp and clear, and some showed through the bare branches of the tres on the hill above me.
I have a need to see stars every so often, I think. I love looking at the moon, but there’s always a ache because, unless things change drastically (or at least unless NASA relaxes its vision requirements), I’ll probably never get there. I hope I’m wrong.
But I never really expected to get to the stars, so I can look at them without regret. The more cleaqrly I can see them, the better. The best I’ve seen were out in the deserts, in Oregon, Arizona, and the Australian Outback. Seeing the Southern Cross was, for me, the highlight of our trip to Oz. I don’t have a formal list of Things To Do In This Life, but if I did, seeing stars from the middle of the ocean would be on it. I wonder whether cruise ships have enough lights to have light pollution, or if there’s somewhere on a ship to escape them?
Posted by dichroic at March 8, 2001 04:31 PM