Finding yourself awakened in the middle of the night is often a stressfull event for people, with worries of how to fall back to sleep, how tired they will be the next day, and the stillness of the night giving room for all their anxieties to run rampant. Then there are we lucky few that call ourselves amateur astronomers, and see such opportunities to get outside and catch a glimpse of the night sky that seasons to come will bring.
This is how I found myself at 4am outside with my pair of 15×70 Oberwerk binoculars in hand. Thew was a low (and I mean very low) cloud wafting past and obscuring the escarpment, and although it didn’t reach the ground, it was obviously no more than a couple of hundred feet high. Then a sudden break revealed that there was nothing above this low cloud, and a crystal clear sky showed through with a brilliant number of stars against a dark background. The entire Little Dipper stood out easily, so that should tell you how good the sky was. My binoculars roamed around the sky as breaks in the cloud presented first one constellation and then another to me. There was no order or sense to my tour of the sky; I was guided by the holes in the clouds and found myself looking north to the Double Cluster in Perseus, but no, the Andromeda Galaxy was obscured. Now overhead to Taurus, and the Pleiades never look better than through a good pair of binoculars. Mars looks so bright and is so high in the sky. Through the binos it appears in the same field as M35, that wonderful open cluster at Gemini’s foot. There’s Orion cutting through the fog, and even partially obscured the nebula still shows. The winter constellations are showing off their wealth of bright stars and as the fog thins in the east the path I am following leads to an extra star that would be found among the spring constellations just rising. The fog is still filtering it, and at first I don’t recognize it as Venus, but as the east clears it shines forth brighter than 4th magnitude, and my binoculars show a small crescent. It shows a similar phase as the Moon, which is not far from the head of Gemini, and which is showing a rich landscape that, as good as the binos are, makes me wish I had brought my scope out. A good part of the sky is clear now, and I move to find a view of the south and Orion again. Yes, here is a chance to see him without the filter of the fog and again I lift my binos to the sword. Of course I’ve seen it through these binos before, but perhaps because I saw the thinned out version through the clouds earlier I was now amazed at the extent of the nebulousity! Sitting amidst the stars of Orion’s sword, it seemed so large, with the wings going off the sides of the nebula were so clear. It’s wonderful what a pair of binoculars will show. Of couse I have had views through large scopes that show intricate detail and colour, but this has to be one of my favourite views of M42. A parting glance at the now completely clear sky shows the winter Milky Way cutting through many of these constellations
That’s it. A half hour of my time and a little fog to dance around, and back in bed after a wonderful observing experience. Well worth being tired the next day. And if anyone asks why I am so tired, well I’ve got stories to tell.