If anything ignites the imagination it is Space. So much is unknown about space and with our human curiosity and imaginative minds we like to conjure up all kinds of ideas as to what is out there and not out there. I have been enthralled by it since I was a child. Having grown up in the country, stargazing was a regular activity. It was an activity I really enjoyed doing with my Mother, she too loved astronomy. I learned so much about astronomy as a child: how to plot stars and constellations, how to find the planets and their moons, how to find other celestial bodies such as galaxies and nebulas. I have seen some incredible Aurora Borealis over the years as well and viewed a few comets too. Oddly enough, stargazing is something I became interested in because my Mother enjoyed it and I wanted to spend time with her, but I quickly learned to love it very much!
Sir Edmund Halley Returns in a Flame
In Junior High, my Science Fair projects for all three years were space related. One year, my subject was Aurorae Borealis and I created a computer simulation (on a very old Apple computer) that made Northern Lights dance across my computer screen. The year that Halley's Comet passed by our planet I did a project entitled: Sir Edmund Halley Returns in a Flame. Ok, the title is a little cheesy I know, but the project was a lot of fun. Space completely captured my imagination as a child. I even fancied the idea of becoming an astronaut when I grew up. Something I could not (puke) possibly imagine now as I get nauseous just being in a car sometimes, never mind a plane or a rocket ship!
The year that Halley's Comet came my Mother and I travelled to what was then called the Space Science Center and stood in line for two hours in the freezing cold to witness this celestial event through one of the largest telescopes in the area. To our amazement, Halley's Comet was in fact bigger, brighter and more amazing through binoculars out in the country than it was through this massive telescope in the city. Interesting.
You Can Hear Your Own Heartbeat
The stars were always their most amazing at my Grandmother's house out in the country. That is quite an experience in itself, to be out in the country at night in complete darkness. It is so quiet you can hear your own heart beat. Definitely unnerving for city folk. Outside at Granny's house however I had the comfort of a familiar place and the darkness of the countryside. There, the sky is littered with stars, too many to count, too many to imagine. What a sight!
When I was about fourteen I saw the most amazing and unnerving Northern Lights I had ever seen in my life. I don't remember what alerted me to the situation, but I stepped out onto the deck and the sky was gone. In it's place from the center of the sky above me were red and green streaks reaching down to the ground in all directions. It truly was like something out of a science fiction movie. I think it was at this time that my Mother told me of some Northern Lights she had seen as a child that she found almost frightening: Big, long, bright red ribbons streaking down vertically through the sky. That would scare a small child for sure.
Over the years of observing the night sky out in the country we saw so many beautiful things: Satellites of other planets, lots of comets, the Horsehead Nebulae just below Orion's belt and the Andromeda Galaxy. I bet a lot of you do not realize that you can see our nearest neighbouring galaxy through binoculars if you are out in the country!
As an adult I have tried to keep up my Astronomy hobby mainly through reading but have lost a lot of the knowledge I once had. I am finding now though, that as I renew my hobby, the knowledge is coming back. We joined the RASC - the Royal Astronomical Society of Canada this year! I am looking forward to some really cold nights of stargazing - the night sky is always most impressive in the Winter - there are a lot of really cold amateur Astronomers in this country!
Happy Stargazing!
Tascheleia
Astronomy compels the soul to look upwards and leads us from this world to another
~Plato~
