Wonders of the Winter Sky

January's dark sky delights

Dear Ones,

If you’re like me, you might feel your shoulders tensing up and rising toward your ears as you read and hear so much disheartening news and as uncertainty swirls around us on so many fronts, impacting our communities, whether or not we’re touched directly.

I know the grief and trauma wildfire caused in our extended family as the community we called home for 25 years was ravaged by wildfire in the summer of 2020. Now, as heirs to two destroyed homes, we’re still wrangling with insurance for payments on personal property, and that’s without even trying to rebuild. I can’t even begin to imagine the scale and scope of the devastation in Los Angeles County, where I also have roots, and the long hard journeys that are just beginning for the survivors.

Right now, I’m a writer without words. I’m not finding comfort or calm in journaling, or writing poetry, tired of my own fretting and whining. I don’t even want to hear the sound of my own voice in my head praying — it feels as though I’ve said it all before. The list of woes could be infinite, and so I look for blessings.

My daily balm is just outside my windows, when the weather is clear, which thankfully, it has been (unusually so lately). Migratory ducks by day, and constellations by night, offering beauty and solace and hope.

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Have you ever felt like the night sky in winter is somehow different than in the summer? I have, especially these past 7 years living with a wall of windows looking out onto water, mountains, and dark skies beyond. The stars seem brighter and closer, nebulas and clusters visible in clear weather that I can see in the early morning without even craning my neck skyward.

Stars, including Sirius, Betelgeuse, the Pleiades, and Jupiter, reflect in the bay outside my window January 27, 205 2:30 a.m.

As much as I love making images of the night sky, my knowledge of astronomy is extremely limited, so I thought my experience was a factor of the cold weather, or even my imagination, until this afternoon when I sussed out the scientific explanation. And it only took a minute and a half on youtube. You, too, can be in the know if you aren’t already.

It turns out that in winter we’re looking at the stars in our own cosmic backyard so to speak, and in the summer we’re looking through the dust and gas and light of cosmic cities far away. I love the swirling twirling drama of the milky way and the fun of sleuthing out its location during “milky way season”. And I also appreciate the gift of the less flashy neighbors who shine steadily without fanfare during the cold and quiet months the milky way core dips below the horizon and out of view.

Venus, Saturn, Jupiter, and Mars all made appearances in the night sky this month.

After the photographing itself, comes the editing, which for me is a deep dive into “the present moment” — sometimes I listen to music or an audiobook, but usually, it’s just me, and maybe a cat, on the couch, quietly delving into an image, studying it closely, and enhancing the exposure, contrast, and hues to bring out the details, marveling at so much that remains hidden from our human eyes, and reminding me that there’s so much more to life than our created systems and structures.

I particularly enjoying creating star trail images, a series of long exposures taken over 20 minutes to several hours, a reminder that we are indeed spinning in space, our tiny blue dot, this unlikely outpost teeming with life, ancient and new. May it endure despite us.

Wishing you all peaceful moments under the night sky.