Tonight will be the first really cold night of the fall for us, marking the turn of fall in the direction of winter. It is 35 degrees now, and headed down to perhaps 25 degrees by morning.
I walked home from the Silver Spring metro station tonight. Pam was sick, so I didn't have my usual ride home from yoga class in Takoma Park. For the first half of the walk, I knew the sky was clear because I could see the moon, but until I got past Spring Street and into the residential neighborhood there was too much light pollution to see any stars. It was a little disconcerting, as the sky looked black - just black and empty.
As I walked along Fairview, I looked for the darker places between the streetlights to orient myself to the sky. I quickly located Cassiopeia and the Pleiades - which I can see as a fuzzy light patch in the sky, but not make out the individual stars. A little farther on I recognized Orion, in a different orientation than I was used to, rising in the east behind the bare trees.
Orion was on its side, the stars of the belt lining straight up and down. I then could better conceptualize the arc that the stars trace across the sky through the night as the earth turns.
When I arrived home I grabbed the binoculars and went back out. The stars of the Hyades cluster near Aldebaran and the Pleiades jumped into clear view - I could see more of the fainter stars as well - the clusters are complex and beautiful.
I'm beginning to feel more of the rhythm of the night sky - how it changes subtly from night to night and will progress through the year as we turn away from some constellations and towards others.
I'm reminded of the value of returning again and again to a subject to look for subtler and deeper things, of being patient with the process of learning, enjoying each new discovery.
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