On Apr 3, 2008, at 1:28 PM, hugheshugo wrote:
I'm glad you don't think it's weird, I logged on again just to try
and justify it if you did. But I'll expand on it anyway now I'm
here ;-)
There's just something about looking through a telescope at the night
sky that really gets me. Looking at pictures in a book or on the net
just isn't the same as having the actual light thats travelled
billions of miles form an image in your mind. All the planets look
amazing, I know it's my mind adding special effects but it all seems
so serene and stately, always moving but always predictable and was
always there all the time waiting for us to discover it. It's a
gobsmackingly amazing place we live in and nobody knew til Gallileo
thought to look at the sky one night, inagine being the first to see
all that, what trip he must have had.
My favourite things to look at are galaxies, they're all so far away
that light left them before the human race even existed, and light
travels at 180,000 miles per second! over a year it really covers
some ground. The closest galaxy to us, Andromeda, is 2.9 million
light years away, it's the furthest thing that can be seen with the
naked eye. I like to think of a ray of light leaving there, when
proto-humans were still getting the hang of walking upright,
travelling across the void while we developed language, culture
civilisation and technology, finally flowing down my telescope and
streaming into my eyes, it's a beautiful sight, the combined light of
4000 million stars.
You can see objects so far away that mammals were just a twinkle in
Mother Natures eye when the light you see left them. It blows my
mind.
It's not weird is it? Of course not, it's wondrous.
Hear, hear. Well said.
But Saturday Night Fever is one of my favourite albums. That
probably is weird.
Now *that's* weird. (Just kidding!)
Sal
I share your wonder at the night sky, hugo. Here's one of my
favorite poems
(also made into a song) along those lines (no pun intended).
Winken, Blinken & Nod
Words by Eugene Fields
Music by Lucy Simon
Arr. by P.A. Kelly & R. Durrant
Winken, Blinken, and Nod one night
Sailed off in a wooden shoe—
Sailed off on a river of crystal light
Into a sea of dew.
“Where are you going, and what do you wish?”
The old moon asked the three.
“We have come to fish for the herring fish
That live in the beautiful sea.
Nets of silver and gold have we!”
Said Winken, Blinken, and Nod.
The old moon laughed and sang a song,
As they rocked in their wooden shoe,
And the wind that sped them all night long
Ruffled the waves of dew.
The little stars were the herring fish
That lived in the beautiful sea––
“Now cast your nets wherever you wish,
Never a-feared are we”;
So cried the stars to the fisherman three:
Winken, Blinken, and Nod.
All night long their nets they threw
To the stars in the twinkling foam,
Then down from the skies came the wooden shoe
Bringing the fisherman home.
‘Twas all so pretty a sail it seemed
As if it could not be,
And some folks thought ‘twas a dream they’d dreamed
Of sailing that beautiful sea—
But I shall name you the fishermen three:
Winken, Blinken, and Nod.
Winken and Blinken are two little eyes,
And Nod is the little head,
And the wooden shoe that sailed the skies
Is the wee one’s trundle-bed.
So close your eyes and dream the dreams
Of wonderful sights that be,
And you shall see all the beautiful things
As you rock in the misty sea,
Where the old shoe rocked the fisherman three:
Winken, Blinken, and Nod.
http://tinyurl.com/ypq9cm
