The Big Dipper is back. It reappeared a week or so ago. I was walking home from the bus in downtown New City around 12:30 a.m., and there it was, spectacularly clear,
I had been searching for it for months.
Over the summer, it was a constant companion in my walk home, turning an otherwise boring trudge into an art show. I discovered it that spring.
When summer became fall, the sky clouded over, and I lost track of the constellation. Even when a clear sky re-emerged, and there were plenty of clear nights over the winter, I couldn’t find it.
I looked online and discovered that the Big Dipper moves around the sky as the seasons change. I thought that it might have fallen too low on the horizon for me to see or moved into an area where the trees were high and the foliage dense.
When it showed up this week, it was to my right and behind me, in the northeastern sky. When last I had seen it, it was to my right and but almost directly in front of me, northwest or north-northwest.
My night connection with the cosmos was restored.
I had been searching for it for months.
Over the summer, it was a constant companion in my walk home, turning an otherwise boring trudge into an art show. I discovered it that spring.
When summer became fall, the sky clouded over, and I lost track of the constellation. Even when a clear sky re-emerged, and there were plenty of clear nights over the winter, I couldn’t find it.
I looked online and discovered that the Big Dipper moves around the sky as the seasons change. I thought that it might have fallen too low on the horizon for me to see or moved into an area where the trees were high and the foliage dense.
When it showed up this week, it was to my right and behind me, in the northeastern sky. When last I had seen it, it was to my right and but almost directly in front of me, northwest or north-northwest.
My night connection with the cosmos was restored.
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