Star gazing

I am a wanderer, a vagabond. One who loves to walk in deep forests, surrounded by tall trees and cool shadows. A stroll around the edges of a lake, immersing myself in the pristine beauty around, the crumpling sound of the fallen leaves and the crunch of the forest floor mesmerise me. On one such stroll, I met a friend who introduced me to the pleasures of bird-watching. A binocular in hand and I was in the colourful world of birds.

Then on a silent night, I trained my binoculars skyward to see the stars and lo and behold! my breath was taken away. I was seeing things that were out of this world—they were unlike anything I had seen till now.

The next day my curiosity led me to the library, I had to find out more on astronomy. The first book that I came across was by one David Levy. It was a thick book, completely illustrated with colourful sky-maps and photos of celestial wonders. I went through its pages, making notes of things to observe in the night-sky.

I also bought a sky-map for my latitude. It was made of cardboard and it allowed me to adjust timings of my observations. With a red-gelatine paper over my flashlight, I waited for the sun to go down. Holding the sky-map overhead and aligning the directions, the sky above now seemed a familiar terrain. I could identify the planets, constellations, stars and several other sky wonders. Countless nights were spent star-gazing and identifying the celestial objects and making notes. By then, I had already graduated to a spotting scope, which greatly magnified and widened my vision and gave a nice black contrast. Now, allow me to take you on a star-trek

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