While outside gazing up a few nights ago just after sunset in Austin, I saw a planet near the horizon, which was the first heavenly body I could detect. Having missed it emerge from the darkening heavens, and further never having actually seen a star wink on from ever darkening sunset sky, I determined to select an area of the celestial tapestry and watch for said phenomenon. As the sky darkened I noticed an upside down equilateral triangle of stars/planets nearly overhead, the perfect area for scrutiny. Five minutes or so on and I noticed Orion's Belt just to the lower right of my triangle. More minutes passed and I thought I could detect stars winking on and off. Five more minutes passed and my five year old leech was growing bored and wanted me to leave off. As additional minutes ticked off, still no stars, although I thought I saw the faintest of appearances and fancied I could hold a lock on several of them. As it got darker still, again there were no stars to be had in my simplest of polygons. Oh! I could see stars that had already winked on all around my Bermuda Triangle. By now my 5 year old tumor had got the better of me and I retired indoors... Night before last at 11 PM, I was a good 50 miles east of Austin gazing up at the sky relieving myself on a barbed wire fence before turning in for a night of slumber. Farther towards the west my Bermuda Triangle laughingly gazed down upon me. Oh! I saw no stars therein and was glad to have had my leech distract me from my Folly of the prior night back in Austin. Oh! But as my eyes adjusted further to the darkness, my astronomical Folly played the cruelest joke upon me, as there before my eyes, the Milky Way appeared, and strode boldly through my triangle!
I tried some amateur star gazing. I wanted to see a star as it first appeared in the darkening sky. I could see no stars where I was looking and my 5-year-old child was bored, so I gave up and went back inside. The other night, a good ways distant from the light pollution of Austin, I was casually looking at the same spot in the sky when the Milky Way suddenly came into view.
Does anybody know where I can buy a good telescope? I want to experience what it's like to be gazing at the sky when the milky way suddenly comes into view. If I'm lucky, I might get to see a comet wave at me as it goes by. I'm even willing to put up with my five year old dog pissing on my leg because he's bored and wants to go home.
Limey eyes or Cactus Prior no doubt might find much to fault my attempt at sounding English, but after reading Susanna Clarke for the second time I had to let my inner Englishman out. Okay, maybe there was a little Thomas Hardy in there left from High School days... Perhaps I'll start reading some John Keats next.
