Often at night, when I should be sleeping, I find myself leaning out of my window, staring at the stars on the horizon until my vision grows blurry. It's one of those things I love to do at anytime of the year - it's just so much easier in the summer: your fingers aren't freezing off and you can still feel your toes if you stretch out in the slightly damp grass and cup your eyes until you can't see the streetlights. Gradually your eyes adjust to the dark, and you realise that if you let your gaze wander, you can see more than just ursa major and a few planets.
That all said, there is something to look forward to in the autumn and winter - I have strong memories of sitting camped out in the darkest corner of the garden, wrapped in blankets and hunting out the meteors until I've lost count of how many I've seen (and how many wishes wasted).
I'm pretty in awe of my dad's ability to point out constellations with ease, or tell me what planets I can see in a given month.. It's something I hope that by the time I'm his age, I'll have the same stargazing ease. I tell myself that those nights leaning out my windows and listening to the screech of foxes, or letting the cold and the damp seep into my slippers in the garden, is like my research.
Wow these photos are beautiful. I love looking up at the night sky... It's just so beautiful and there's something very magical about it. :)
ReplyDeleteJessica
the.pyreflies.org
Gorgeous photographs, we get too much light population here in the 'burbs to ever really see anything expect on the odd couple of nights. I have been to an international dark sky park though, that's an amazing experience if you love star gazing, even if you don't really know what the constellations are, the sky is just filled with stars, it's incredible.
ReplyDeleteGreat photos, we can see the stars really clearly here too, I should try taking some similar photos some time.
ReplyDeleteIt's definitely a blessing of living in the middle of no-where! haha you really should, those moon photos of yours were incredible! x
ReplyDeleteOh thank-you! I really want to go to one of these places like in the Arizonan dessert where you get the most amazing skies, but I'll make do with my little corner of the countryside. You can see a bit of the light pollution here, mostly in the bigger towns and cities, but I'm actually pretty lucky, thankfully! I'm trying to get better with knowing the constellations, it's one of those things I gradually learn more about. x
ReplyDeleteIsn't it just? It still makes me feel really small and amazing, even now as an adult! Glad someone else understands. (: x
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