“Sun, moon, and starry sky early summer evenings, when the first stars come out, the warm glow of sunset still stains the rim of the western sky. Sometimes, the moon is also visible, a pale white slice, while the sun tarries. Just think — all the celestial lights are present at the same time! These are moments of wonder — see them and remember.”
— Vera Nazarian, Armenian-Russian American writer.
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It was a filler class—a last-minute pick because I was three hours short of graduation at East Texas State University. Years ago. But it fit my schedule and allowed me to graduate. “ESC1361 Astronomy.”
That decision left me with a love for everything celestial. A deeper appreciation and an insatiable curiosity about the wonder we call “the heavens.” The classroom hours were anything but easy, but “the labs” were a blast. “Classes” in the dark of East Texas nights in a field somewhere outside of Commerce. Observing stars, planets, constellations, and more.
Fast-forward about 25 years to Texas Hill Country starry nights. The back porch at our house just above the Medina River near Pipe Creek, where evening conversations and cooking outside with my kids were a thing.
“The stars are beautiful,” said daughter Robin, then about 15-16 years old. “They are,” I agreed. “It’s hard to believe that night sky universe just goes on forever. Without end.”
Silence prevailed as I watched the stars twinkle as Robin processed what I had just said.
“What do you mean,” she asked?
“The sky, the heavens, space,” I replied with a shrug. “It’s infinite – never ends.”
More silence.
“Dad, it has to end somewhere.”
“Nope.”
“How can that be,” she asked, her voice rising.
“OK, let’s say there is a stop sign a couple billion light years past planet Pluto,” I tested her. “What is beyond that sign? There is no such thing as nothing in space.”
“Mind boggling,” Robin said slowly.
“It’s like time,” I compared. “There never has been a time before time. Time has always been.”
“Awe Dad, come on. This is too much for one night,” Robin exclaimed. “It’s hurting my brain.”
Fast-forward once more to last Thursday night. When I was contemplating turning in for the evening, but one last check of messages revealed several about Northern Lights. Solar storms creating an aurora typically seen in high-latitude regions but rarely visible in Texas. Happening over Texas at that very moment.
A scan of the sky from my front porch revealed nothing—zilch. “Good,” I thought. I’m ready for bed anyway.” I checked my phone one more time and found images posted from Shelby County with, “You can’t see them with the naked eye. But they show up in photos.”
OK, I’m a lifelong photographer. And never had I ever captured a picture of something I couldn’t see. The universe is infinite, and time has infinitely, well … been time. But you can’t take a photo of something you can’t see. To prove my theory, I marched back outside, pointed my cell phone camera toward the east and above the streetlights, and pulled the trigger with a smirk.
“Unbelievable,” I muttered aloud when I saw it on the screen. Red, blue, and green tinted arches blending into a solid black sky. I looked back at the night sky in disbelief. Yep, it was black. Several more experimental photos of “darkness” yielded an array of colors that I could not see otherwise. I was super excited. After sending images to a friend to celebrate my findings, we were on the edge of town ten minutes later, looking for fewer lights, fewer trees, and better results.
The findings might have been more conclusive about better results, but the phenomenon was the same. Aim at a black patch of sky, snap a photo, and … voila! Beautiful views of celestial sightings on my camera.
It was breathtaking to capture pictures of “the northern lights a-runnin’ wild,” to borrow from Johnny Horton’s classic 1960s song.
Standing under an East Texas night’s blanket of darkness collecting images last week, I remembered nights in Northeast Texas long ago. Peering through a telescope into an endless universe of heavenly bodies for college credit.
And I also thought about my daughter’s attempts to comprehend the infinity of space and time. Like her, this night was almost too much for one night; it was hurting my brain.
Plus, pictures of celestial occurrences in an infinite universe that I could not see but could easily photograph. Truly “moments of wonder — to see and remember.”
—Leon Aldridge
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Aldridge columns are featured in these publications: The Mount Pleasant Tribune, the Rosenberg Fort Bend Herald, the Taylor Press, the Alpine Avalanche, the Fort Stockton Pioneer, the Elgin Courier, The Monitor in Naples, and Motor Sports Magazine.
© Leon Aldridge and A Story Worth Telling 2024. Excerpts and links may be used, provided full and clear credit is given to Leon Aldridge and ‘A Story Worth Telling’ with appropriate and specific directions to the original content.
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