I’ve always been interested in the sky. Looking upwards as a young kid sent my mind wandering with all sorts of unanswerable questions. What’s up there? What’s the bright shape that looks like a pan? (and not a plough as it would turn out).

Now however, I am able to answer many of those questions that would have baffled my mind a few years ago. Last night though, accompanied by the perfect conditions showing the bright Milky Way and its millions of stars, my mind wanted to skip back to that childhood.

Sometimes I guess it’s just better, after learning the difference between globular and open, elliptical and spiral, to just sit back and wonder. Our minds can get so caught up in ‘bagging’ the Messiers or spending all night hunting a mag.12 galaxy, that we can sometimes forget what we are actually looking at.

Anyway, that’s how I feel, and from now on I’m going to make sure that each session I make time just to look.

Rich