Summer evenings....

[Rodrigo Istalindir]

I got to sit out on the Mall Monday night and watch 'The Day the Earth Stood Still'. Kinda cool watching the flying saucer zoom around the monuments and Capitol, since the real thing was looming over the screen. Hot, but not unbearable.

But man, I counted, and there were only 6 stars visible (and probably two of them were really Mars and/or Venus). And it was a clear sky.

 

[Jdvn1]

But man, I counted, and there were only 6 stars visible (and probably two of them were really Mars and/or Venus). And it was a clear sky.

Saturn is more likely than Venus. That's city life, though.

 

[Jdvn1]

I was just giggling to myself that several of you were responding to the thread who were not terribly inclined to go outside in the middle of the night anyway.

Oh, don't get me wrong, I still like to go outside and watch the stars. I have a really cool telescope and love watching the night sky. But around here, it's better in winter.

 

[Mycanid]

Ahh ... my good Sir Jdvn. It's nice here in Winter too. Amazingly clear skies. But you wouldn't catch me outside in winter time here walking around barefoot!

You must be an astronomy fan to go walking around with the telescope like that. That's wonderful. I'm not much of a dedicated fan in the way you describe myself, but I think it's wonderful that folks nowadays still like to do that sort of thing.

 

[Jdvn1]

Hey, it can be a balmy 70-80 degrees here in the middle of winter!

The telescope is cool, but it's big and bulky, and made before they had the nifty automatic-turny-things. I like pulling it out (and looking at nebulae! ), but sometimes I just want to lay back (or sit in a chair) and gaze...

 

[Mycanid]

Hmm ... I might go wandering around in the middle of the night in winter too then....

Where I live we gets bursts of snow up to 3 feet and lots and lots or rain and COLD weather. But then again ... I love cold, wet, indoorsey weather in general too.

An interesting thing eh? In traditional, i.e. "agrarian" based societies, the seasons and the weather and the natural world was so much more important on so much wider of a level. Nowadays that is mostly gone in terms of the stuff that surrounds folk growing up and struggling to exist in the world (at least in the "civilized/industrial" world).

But people still yearn for such things. They still yearn for the natural world (not all, of course, but many people do) and in some way, shape or form it bursts out of us. Among other reasons that's why I think it's great you go plodding around under the stars in winter.

I remember being so blown away when I moved up here from a year and a half in San Francisco. Wow! Ad astera ... ad astera ....

One of my favorite images from The Silmarillion is when the elves wake up for the first time in Middle Earth under the twilight and began to walk around in wonder and amazement - primarily at the starry vault stretched out above them.

 

[Numion]

I liked doing that when doing guard duty in the military service (it was all training, so nobody was going to come with real guns, and listening was of better use anyway. It was dark, after all). I couldn't get barefooted, obviously, but just looking at the stars.

And once the aurora borealis (northern lights). It was a stunning sight, it covered the whole nightsky with a kind of flowing green light. It was visible really well because we were on a remote fortress island with no lights at all.

 

[Aeolius]

Saturn is more likely than Venus. That's city life, though.

I'd rather see Saturn than Uranus.


::ducking::

 

[Mycanid]

Aolius - go stand in the corner! ::wags his finger at him:: shame on you! Horrible pun to boot...

Numion - YES! The northern lights are amazing, eh? My parents live on an island off the southern coast of Alaska, and you can see them there too. WOW. Amazing things....

 

[Mycanid]

Phooey ... well the next 6 or 7 days are supposed to be 90's plus in the evenings. Which means roasting. Proably lots of opportunities for wee hour of the morning strolls. Be so tired I'll likely be shuffling around like a zombie....