The Rites of Spring

By John Reed

Now that spring has arrived, and with it warmer weather, I'm dusting off the 10" newtonian and preparing for warmer nights and springtime constellations.  By 10 o'clock Ursa Major, Canes Venatici, Coma Berenices, Leo and most of Virgo have risen high enough to observe.  Astronomically speaking spring holds a special interest for me: it's the galaxy season and the above constellations are galaxy filled.  The galactic pole crosses the meridian at about 1:30 in the morning this time of year, giving earthly viewers a chance to peer directly out of the obscuring plane of our galaxy and into intergalactic space.

I have spent several satisfying spring nights peering through the eyepiece at some incredibly faint and distant eddy of light from the darkness of Fly Gap Mountain.  Somehow galaxies hold a special fascination for me.  I think this may be due to a number of reasons: they are very challenging objects to find and observe; they are never quite the same from one to another; and most of all they are very, very far away.

Galaxies are so distant that our own Milkyway Galaxy seems small in comparison to these distances.  This is incredible when one considers that it takes a beam of light (that could circumnavigate the globe over seven times in one second) a 100,000 years to cross it from side to side.  Yet the Milkyway is like a small leaf floating on a huge, dark lake, with other leaves floating and spinning, spaced roughly several feet apart across the flaccid surface.  This leaf mottled surface extends to a dim, misty horizon.  It is astonishing that amateur telescopes can see galaxies at all!  Apparently it takes more than intergalactic distances to completely dim out a swirl made of a billion suns.

Sometimes when I think of these distances I feel very lonely, as my planet is but an atom in that leaf and I am even less.  The universe and all its cosmological mysteries can weigh heavy on a single sole and unfortunately amateur astronomy tends to be a solitary hobby.  That's why I'm grateful to belong to a club.  At least one may feel insignificant and lonely with others and thereby feel less so.

I hope this new spring season contains some crystal clear nights as I surely plan to gaze once again at those lonely beacons that shine from the vast, deep night above.  I know it will.  I know I will.