Since I was a little girl I’ve loved looking out at the stars. I’m going to give away my age and tell you I remember sitting out in the front yard with the entire neighborhood as we watched Sputnik fly over. That was a mind-boggling experience and just the beginning of my fascination with outer space. One of my favorite paintings? Vincent Van Gogh’s “Starry Starry Night”. I was thrilled to see it in person at MOMA in New York.
Nothing, however, prepared me for the stunning beauty of seeing the night sky without the dimming effects of city lights. When I moved to Montana in ’94 I was stunned and awed at the majesty of the far-flung star systems. It was even possible to see the Milky Way. Then there was the aurora borealis…although we never saw it in color, it was still an amazing light show as white bands undulated across the sky. It was absolutely worth spending hours wrapped in blankets lying on our backs in the fields so we could watch the show.
I was so taken with the stars that I even decorated my house with fabrics that had prints of the universe and stars. Okay, so I went a little overboard. But it was just so wonderful to live among the stars…even though they were far removed from the real thing I still would get a momentary feeling of that grand and expanded feeling I got when looking at the stars.
I left the country in Montana to move back to the city and its lights (I also wanted a grocery store that wasn’t 30 miles away, Starbucks, just to name a few). But I still kept my bedroom decorated with stars and moons. When I met my husband, he thought it was a little over the top. One of our agreements when we got married was that they wouldn’t appear again in our shared bedroom. I still have that memory though and it’s something that will never leave me.
A few years ago I was back in Montana for a workshop. It was August which is when there are incredible meteor showers. I was sharing the yurt (a huge tent on a wooden platform) with a city boy from Boston. In the middle of the night we both headed for the outhouse. I stopped him and told him to turn off his flashlight and just look up. We stood there for at least ten minutes watching the meteors and looking at the beauty of the Milky Way. I looked over and he had tears running down his face. He’d actually never in his 40+ years actually “seen” the night sky and the Milky Way. Every once in a while I get an email from him in which he tells me again of how he felt as we stood there…as if he was part of the Universe and All That Is.
There is a part of the movie “What the Bleep” that has a view of the stars. I was in a packed theater and I literally felt the energy as people connected with that amazing expanded energy. If you haven’t seen the movie, I highly recommend it. LOOK UP AMAZON LINK
Some people report looking out at the stars and feeling small and dwarfed. If you’re one of them, try going someplace where there are no lights and no distractions and letting yourself truly blend with the stars. I think you’ll find that if you allow your heart to expand, it will grow to encompass the entire Universe. What an amazing, unforgettable experience. Afterwards you’ll never be able to feel alone and separate for long.
That brings me to another topic….are we alone? Haha I’ll let you ponder that one until next time.
Here are some incredible photos from the Hubble Telescope and some links to even more of them. After looking at these I can’t imagine that anyone can doubt that there are amazing places and adventures awaiting us all.
Enjoy.
http://hubblesite.org/gallery/album/
http://heritage.stsci.edu/gallery/galindex.html
The Hubble Space Telescope was launched in 1990, and after an initial problem with the lens was corrected, the floating astro-observatory began to relay back to Earth incredible snapshots of the 'final frontier' it was exploring.
The following are images chosen by astronomers as outstanding in 2006, from the first 16 years of the Hubble's travels in space. At the time, reporter Michael Hanlon commented in the Daily Mail that the photos "illustrate that our universe is not only deeply strange, but also almost impossibly beautiful."
The Sombrero Galaxy, 28 million light years from Earth, was voted best picture taken by the Hubble telescope.The dimensions of the galaxy, officially called M104, are as spectacular as its appearance. It has 800 billion suns and is 50,000 light-years across.
The Ant Nebula, a cloud of dust and gas whose technical name is Mz3, resembles an ant when observed using ground-based telescopes. The nebula lies within our galaxy, between 3000 and 6000 light-years from Earth.
C 2392, called 'Eskimo' because it looks like a face surrounded by a furry hood. The hood is in fact a ring of comet-shaped objects flying away from a dying star. Eskimo is 5000 light-years from Earth.
Fourth, the Cat's Eye Nebula, about 3300 light-years from Earth.
The Hourglass Nebula, 8000 light-years away, has a 'pinched-in-the-middle' look because the winds that shape it are weaker at the centre.
In sixth place is the Cone Nebula. That part pictured here is 2.5 light-years in length, the equivalent of 23 million return trips to the Moon.
The Perfect Storm, a small region in the Swan Nebula, 5500 light-years away, is described as 'a bubbly ocean of hydrogen and small amounts of oxygen, sulfur and other elements.'
Starry Night, so named because it reminded astronomers of the Van Gogh painting. It is a halo of light around a star in the Milky Way. For more info about Starry Starry Night http://www.vangoghgallery.com/painting/starryindex.html
The glowering eyes from 114 million light years away are the swirling cores of two merging galaxies called NGC 2207 and IC 2163 in the distant Canis Major constellation.
The Trifid Nebula, a 'stellar nursery' 9000 light-years from here, is where new stars are being born.
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