The first two pictures above are an approximate depiction of how I sometimes see the stars.
I have always been interested since I was in the astronomy club in junior school ☺
One night, when I was ten, me and my mum went with the school to go to an observatory and I remember seeing the moon and Saturn, close up through the telescope.
I always look up at the stars when I go out and this is sad for me but happy at the same time, I do appreciate that sometimes, most of the time I can still see them and make out the constellations.
When, I do see them differently, I don’t know what’s what.
Sometimes they are double vision blurry like the first picture, but most of the time when this happens they are like shiny chandelier droplets. Really pretty in its own way, like they are hanging down from space.
Years after that first visit. I went to an observatory and saw Orions nebula for the first time. After this it became my favourite constellation.
It looks exactly like the picture, which I always thought was enhanced in someway, but it was one of the most fascinating, beautiful things I’ve ever seen.
And when I see Orion, I look to the middle of the belt and imagine it as I saw it.
My son took a photograph of Orion at our house. It’s included above.
I want to see the milky way too. I’ve seen a vague view of it at the back of my house but will need somewhere very dark to see this properly.
I’ve seen Jupiter, the Moon, Orions Nebula, Saturn, Mars, eclipses and the Sun (with safety filter) through a telescope. Amazing and Beautiful.
So next year, when the warmer weather is here, I will go away and do that. It will be an emotional time for me because then it’s like something off that bucket list in my head, because I won’t write one down as I will probably think of them when it starts to happen. A bucket list seems a step too far for me to do at the moment.
I only feel that this has started over the last couple of years. So because this is changing already I need to see them as clearly as I can now so I remember.
Our sister galaxy, Andromeda, I have seen through binoculars, a grey blurry disc. I would like to see this again too. Before my own Andromeda masks it.
