One of the steady annoyances I get from the anti-scientific side of the classical renewal is silly remarks about how the romance of the night sky is destroyed by telescopes.
Good grief.
It’s true, there’s something special about looking at the night sky when you can lie back and watch the majesty of the Milky Way and actually sense the infinity of the sky. Not because it actually is infinite; it is not. But because there is no visible parallax, the impression of infinity is inescapable and it is part of the way that the heavens declare the glory of God; they draw us to reflect on the infinite call that does lie within us.
What a pity that relatively few people can see this kind of sky; fogs and smogs and just ordinary clouds often hide this majestic scene, as do buildings and even forests.
It’s a good reason to visit the dry and even the desert lands of this country – just to get a lovely dark sky.
Meantime, however, the telescope has its own stories to tell, its images that are not available without the enhanced vision of our best technology. One of the 2011 images from Hubble is this lovely nebula from some distant corner of our own Milky Way.
Visions of angels visions in the heavens
It’s a star-forming region, a place where new stars are forming as we speak. There are many such, the most famous being the one on the sword of Orion. But this one, called Sharpless 2-106 is about 2,000 light years away, which is to say that the image we now on camera is a record of a light display that was unfolding 2,000 years ago. In this image, the young stars and the light of their birth are recorded as golden light, and the central figure with its background of red rays and trailing ribbons is the consequence of neighborhood dust. There are other images online in which the figure is turned 90º and the golden portion is blue, the usual coloration for young stars. These are more dramatic, but not available for blogs.
It’s the end of the season, the visit of the Magi. I wish you a blessed New Year.
