This summer has been an especially crazy season for me, with weekends jammed-packed with visitors, festivals, weddings, reunions, and the like. I haven’t had the chance to get away from the city at all, so my connection to astronomy has mostly been through work and the Discovery and Science channels. But this past weekend, my friends and I planned a canoe trip in southern Missouri, and it was going to be my chance to reconnect with the night sky.
If you get away from the city lights, the summer Milky Way dominates the August sky. John Chumack photo
Living in the city and not being a regular observer, sometimes I overlook the awe-inspiring nature of the stars. Too often, I peer beyond the muted sky from my apartment in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, and instead focus on the science that goes on behind the scenes. But it’s those moments when I return to a dark sky that remind me that although the physics and chemistry of our universe is awesome, sometimes just a simple look up can be just as magnificent.