What goes through your mind when you gaze up at the stars and moon at night?

I have two bricks sunk in my back yard. One marks the spot where the shadow of the peak of the garage roof hits at noon on the winter solstice and the other marks the equinox. The summer solstice hits just 32 inches from the garage. I follow the change during the year. My daughter in law asked me why. I don't know. It's fun to watch I guess.
 

Where I live at the south end of the huge San Francisco Bay Area, beyond the common Pacific Ocean light absorbing marine atmosphere, is impossible light pollution. However as a 4+ decades backpacking and hiking enthusiast, I yearly drive east over the Sierra Nevada to the much drier, less polluted Great Basin where on its common clear nights one can see myriad stars.

Have spent many nights given good weather sleeping out tentless cowboy style under stars at over 10,000 feet of elevation where the atmosphere is thin and views of our Milky Way Galaxy and Universe, are incredible. As a science enthusiast have also read many books on astronomy and physics, so have a deeper appreciation of what I am looking at.
 
I say "well, hello there moon" and I love looking at the planets and a few constellations that I can see from here. I just can't get anyone else in my house as interested as I am although older son and I do talk about it. I have watched the odd meteor shower when I was younger and of course, any eclipses that come my way. I would love to live farther north away from all these lights but I guess that won't happen in this lifetime.
 
When I look up, I always wish I could see the Milky Way like I saw it growing up. I took it for granted and now light pollution makes it invisible, at least in the South east of the USA. It bothers me that my children have never seen it as I did. Maybe they’ll travel out West one day where the night sky is still magnificent.
 
at my Daughters' home in the mountains of Spain there was no light polllution at all.. and the skies above her property looked like this.. almost like you could touch the stars

gettyimages-1134057774.jpg

here where I live in the semi rural area where there are street light .. it's still dark enough in my garden to see Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn on a clear night...

This is a typical sight from my garden...

Jupiter-Saturn-f33879a.jpg
 
hollydolly said:
at my Daughters' home in the mountains of Spain there was no light polllution at all.. and the skies above her property looked like this.. almost like you could touch the stars

gettyimages-1134057774.jpg

here where I live in the semi rural area where there are street light .. it's still dark enough in my garden to see Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn on a clear night...

This is a typical sight from my garden...

Jupiter-Saturn-f33879a.jpg
Click to expand...
Wow, that is stunning. Who wouldn't enjoy that view.
 
Grampa Don said:
I have two bricks sunk in my back yard. One marks the spot where the shadow of the peak of the garage roof hits at noon on the winter solstice and the other marks the equinox. The summer solstice hits just 32 inches from the garage. I follow the change during the year. My daughter in law asked me why. I don't know. It's fun to watch I guess.
Click to expand...
I have thought about making a sun dial. I have a leaky old bird bath that could make a nice pedestal. (The birds don't want it.) I wanted to save some big old circular saw blades from my dad's shop but I was flying. I thought if painted they could make a cool dial. My ideas are fun but seldom come to fruition.
 
Two things go through my mind... and the second will indicate how strange I can be. :) First thought... "oh, that is so beautiful!" Second thought immediately following is the line Johnny 5 (robot) says in Short Circuit... "Beautiful stars, better see."
 
While I look at the stars and moon, I try to imagine what it was like for people long ago when they didn't know what it was they were looking at.
 

"What goes through your mind when you gaze up at the stars and moon at night?"​


I look at the stars and wonder how long in time it would take to get there. And how far back in time am I looking when I look at a specific star.
 
Magna-Carta said:

"What goes through your mind when you gaze up at the stars and moon at night?"​


I look at the stars and wonder how long in time it would take to get there. And how far back in time am I looking when I look at a specific star.
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Yeah, it blows your mind to think that the light from some of those stars have been traveling at the speed of light for millions of years to get to earth. It's just unfathomable.
 
Grampa Don said:
I have two bricks sunk in my back yard. One marks the spot where the shadow of the peak of the garage roof hits at noon on the winter solstice and the other marks the equinox. The summer solstice hits just 32 inches from the garage. I follow the change during the year. My daughter in law asked me why. I don't know. It's fun to watch I guess.
Click to expand...
I love this idea! Thanks for sharing!
 
bobcat said:
Yeah, it blows your mind to think that the light from some of those stars have been traveling at the speed of light for millions of years to get to earth. It's just unfathomable.
Click to expand...

From a point of view of light traveling at the 'speed of light', I prefer to see it as 'light' traveling at the 'speed limit of the universe'. I don't see the 'speed of light' as the limiter.

I see the speed limiter being the speed limit of the universe. I believe that if the speed limit of the universe became faster than its current limit, then light would travel faster to reach that speed limit.

I suppose now that I think of it a bit more, if light were to travel faster than its current speed through a vacuum, then time would have to slow down to compensate, or perhaps time would have to go backward in order to increase the speed of light? It's a fascinating 'place' we live in.
 
Think of my Dad teaching me to use a Sextant when I was learning to Sail.
Recently I have been reading about the Astrolabe, the forerunner of the Sextant.
Invented around 150 BC and refined during the Medieval Period.

Using this device, one could chart star movements, your latitude, tell time, measure the height of objects,
etc. with relative accuracy.

With the invention of the Chronograph Clock to tell Longitude and the Astrolabe/Sextant to tell Latitude, the world was forever changed.
 

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