A rising Moon doesn\u2019t clear the houses across the street for hours after everyone else has finished oohing and ahhing over how big it looks.<\/span><\/p>\n To get a better view, I sometimes like to stroll to the top of a winding cul-du-sac a couple of blocks away.<\/span><\/p>\n If the lights there are low, the view across the river and far-off hills is spectacular.<\/span><\/p>\n It\u2019s like being in a planetarium, with stars everywhere, only it\u2019s the real thing.<\/span><\/p>\n Are you a beginner? Read our guide on how to stargaze<\/a>.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n Year after year, I\u2019ve walked there. I walked there with my wife when she was pregnant and calmed her there when she was in labour.<\/span><\/p>\n I walked with my daughters strapped to my chest (in one of those pouches, not with duct tape and bungee cords). <\/span><\/p>\n I\u2019ve relaxed and thought through problems there over and over as, little by little, the grey hair crept into the sides of my head and the days\u2019-old scruff around my chin. <\/span><\/p>\n Quietly in, quietly out. It\u2019s a private universe; an astronomical no-wake zone.<\/span><\/p>\n After a long day a few months ago, I stood gawking at the Summer Triangle.<\/span><\/p>\n A van pulled into a driveway and stopped. \u201cHey,\u201d the driver shouted with anger or defensiveness, \u201cWho are you? Why are you here? What\u2019s with that torch?\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m Scott.\u201d I pointed towards my neighbourhood and held out my hand. He didn\u2019t hold out his.<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cWhy are you here?\u201d he demanded again. <\/span><\/p>\n I pointed up, \u201cYou\u2019ve got a real gift here.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cWhat\u2026? Oh\u2026\u201d His posture softened. <\/span><\/p>\n I pointed at Saturn<\/a>, which was near the Moon that night, and traced the ecliptic<\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\n We star-hopped from Altair<\/a> in Aquila, to Deneb in Cygnus to Vega<\/a>, high overhead in Lyra.<\/span><\/p>\n We started talking: about the sky, about life, about time passing.<\/span><\/p>\n When he was a kid, he loved to look at the stars, he said, but as time went by, like so many of us for so many reasons, he just stopped.<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cI don\u2019t remember the last time I looked.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n We could see distance and time, intimately connected functions of each other, right in front of us.<\/span><\/p>\n The Moon is close, just a lightsecond and a half away. Saturn\u2019s 80 lightminutes off. <\/span><\/p>\n Then, things get very far, very fast. The light from Altair left 17 years ago, when his oldest son was a baby, he told me.<\/span><\/p>\n Vega\u2019s a bit farther, 25 lightyears. Deneb is among the most distant stars you can see with just your eye: its light left it over 2,000 years ago.<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cBut, what\u2019s that?\u201d he asked, pointing to a faint haze toward the horizon.<\/span><\/p>\n Just barely there, begging through the needless, wasteful, bright suburban lights, was the blur of the Milky Way, tens of thousands of lightyears away.<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cWow, I\u2019m glad I stopped,\u201d he said, grinning over his understatement, and holding out his hand.<\/span><\/p>\n I\u2019ll check it out again tomorrow.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n New friends and astronomy fans are everywhere. As he turned, I heard the door close behind him.<\/span><\/p>\n I saw the flood lights over his porch and driveway blink out.<\/span><\/p>\n This article originally appeared in the February 2019 issue of <\/strong><\/em>BBC Sky at Night Magazine<\/strong>.<\/strong><\/em><\/p><\/body><\/html>\n By Scott Levine Published: Sunday, 15 May 2022 at 12:00 am My neighbourhood is hilly and leafy, with wide stretches of the sky hidden behind rooftops and leafy branches. A rising Moon doesn\u2019t clear the houses across the street for hours after everyone else has finished oohing and ahhing over how big it looks. To […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":24,"featured_media":31760,"template":"","categories":[1],"acf":{"readingTimeMinutes":"4"},"uagb_featured_image_src":{"full":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/77\/2022\/05\/gazing-at-the-universe-is-a-treasure-that-brings-us-all-together.jpg",1200,800,false],"thumbnail":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/77\/2022\/05\/gazing-at-the-universe-is-a-treasure-that-brings-us-all-together-150x150.jpg",150,150,true],"medium":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/77\/2022\/05\/gazing-at-the-universe-is-a-treasure-that-brings-us-all-together-300x200.jpg",300,200,true],"medium_large":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/77\/2022\/05\/gazing-at-the-universe-is-a-treasure-that-brings-us-all-together-768x512.jpg",768,512,true],"large":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/77\/2022\/05\/gazing-at-the-universe-is-a-treasure-that-brings-us-all-together-1024x683.jpg",800,534,true],"1536x1536":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/77\/2022\/05\/gazing-at-the-universe-is-a-treasure-that-brings-us-all-together.jpg",1200,800,false],"2048x2048":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/77\/2022\/05\/gazing-at-the-universe-is-a-treasure-that-brings-us-all-together.jpg",1200,800,false]},"uagb_author_info":{"display_name":"importmanagerhub@sprylab.com","author_link":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcskyatnight\/author\/importmanagerhubsprylab-com\/"},"uagb_comment_info":0,"uagb_excerpt":"By Scott Levine Published: Sunday, 15 May 2022 at 12:00 am My neighbourhood is hilly and leafy, with wide stretches of the sky hidden behind rooftops and leafy branches. A rising Moon doesn\u2019t clear the houses across the street for hours after everyone else has finished oohing and ahhing over how big it looks. To…","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcskyatnight\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rss_feed\/31759"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcskyatnight\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rss_feed"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcskyatnight\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/rss_feed"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcskyatnight\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/24"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcskyatnight\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/31760"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcskyatnight\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=31759"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcskyatnight\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=31759"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"""\"](\""https:\/\/images.immediate.co.uk\/production\/volatile\/sites\/25\/2020\/01\/Stargazing-tips-ffe8d19.jpg?quality=90&resize=620%2C435"\" "\\"\"\"\\"\/")
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