The Night Sky Saga, part 1: Starting From Scratch

I wish I could ask you to close your eyes with me, but you're reading this, so that is not quite feasible.

Thus, please do your best to use your imagination without closing your eyes. :)

Now, imagine with me that what you see with those eyes is all you know about the sky.  Try to forget what you know about those little pinpoints of light and the photons that race across space, just to interact with your eyes.  Really, just forget about it, for a little while.

Knowledge temporarily erased?  Good.

Picture this: you are lying in the middle of a wide open field, at night, with no moon in the sky.  It is perfectly clear, and you absentmindedly gaze above you as you lie on your back, folded hands cradling your head.  There is nothing in your vision at all but sky, and it is full of stars, no trees in the corners of your vision.  Your field of view is completely filled by the awesome beauty that is our night sky.  Take a minute to bask in the night lights, letting the star-studded expanse wash over you.  (Ok, you can shut your eyes for a minute, but open them back up so you can keep reading!)

In this imaginary world, you sleep under the stars every night; they are your roof, your ceiling.  Think about how well you know the ceiling over your own bed, here and now, because you lie awake staring at it every night.  If you had always slept under this stellar ceiling, you would know it like you know all of the ins and outs of your own ceiling.  There, where you know nothing other than the sky, the stars are there to comfort you, your constant companions from sunset to sunrise.

One night, something strikes you as very odd: you realize that a few spots on your ceiling don't seem to be in their correct places.  After a few more nights, you are sure that it wasn't just your imagination - there are a few spots that are most definitely not in the same place they were initially.  Frightened and curious, you start to draw some shapes that you see, so you can keep a record of what's happening in the Great Above.

Many, many nights pass, with you faithfully watching and recording.  You begin to see the arc along which those wandering points move, which also happens to be the arc along which the Sun moves during the day.  Over time, the arc shifts its position up on the sky, ever so gradually, until it eventually reaches a peak and begins to move back the way it came, to where you first started paying attention.  All the while, those little spots continue their strange dance across the sky.

After even more careful observing, you find that some of the shifting spots move regularly, predictably, while a couple of them make a strange loop-de-loop.  It's so peculiar to you!  The curiosity now rivals the fear, and you begin grasping at anything to understand the ceiling better.

Of course, you first muse about what causes this strange motion.  You think perhaps a god or some superior creature orchestrates the motion of these Wanderers, as you've come to call the lights on your ceiling. Over the years and generations, you and your children and your children's children spin tales about the gods who control everything you see around you, and you trace out patterns in the ceiling lights which do not shift; these all develop into a rich array of characters which shape the fortunes of all. (LOTR reference!)

Next time, we'll progress a little more in our knowledge of the sky, but for now, when you go outside, try to remember to look up and imagine!

Next week, same place, same day: part 2 of The Night Sky Saga.