Traveling beyond

Tonight, I stepped beyond the city lights. We’re on a trip through western Texas, having replaced the dim glow that we call “urban night” with perhaps the darkest skies in the United States. Amid a cold, red glow at the top of a mountain bathed in moonlight as bright as day through my usual sunglasses, night watchmen of the skies lent us a look through their portals to the cosmos, a half dozen telescopes.

I saw a stellar nursery beneath Orion’s belt, its clouds blown outward by far-off charged winds of just-born stars (thousands of years ago, that is). I saw the haze of a galaxy larger than our Moon in the sky, Andromeda, normally invisible in its dimness. I saw the rust-striped white disk of Jupiter, like a tiger’s belly viewed through a drinking straw, its light even a half hour old. And a crater of our own Moon, its central peak catching the light of the monthly sunrise like our own mountains grasp the end of twilight.

It was a change of perspective, for sure. It was also a reminder that there is a night beyond the night that most of us know, if we only go looking for it.

191 Notes/ Hide

  1. callstheadventurescience reblogged this from jtotheizzoe
  2. ohjoshe reblogged this from jtotheizzoe
  3. smev0909 reblogged this from jtotheizzoe
  4. considerthecosmos reblogged this from wildlydistorted
  5. nukaquantumshake reblogged this from jtotheizzoe and added:
    I’d kill to write like this guy.
  6. wildlydistorted reblogged this from jtotheizzoe
  7. yogurtpockets said: Beautiful & beautifully written! Thanks so much for sharing!
  8. yogurtpockets reblogged this from jtotheizzoe
  9. jvdbooks reblogged this from jtotheizzoe
  10. verabai reblogged this from jtotheizzoe
  11. cacationu2 reblogged this from jtotheizzoe
  12. collapsiblepants reblogged this from jtotheizzoe and added:
    world, mine is Fort Davis...observatory at night.
  13. cryptopsy reblogged this from jtotheizzoe
  14. chels said: Love the personal storytelling. Do more of this, Joe. :)
  15. pearbrained reblogged this from jtotheizzoe
  16. gohomekiki reblogged this from jtotheizzoe and added:
    West Texas is amazing...didn’t make it to one...McDonald...
  17. indelibleimprint reblogged this from jtotheizzoe and added:
    this is happening.

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