When you Wish Upon a Star

Some of my favorite memories from childhood are about star gazing. During the summer, we would spend most nights sleeping out on the trampoline. I remember staring at the stars, looking for meteors, watching satellites*, and finally drifting off to sleep. The stars in New Mexico were the best and brightest I’ve ever seen. We would take little drives out on country roads in the middle of the night to catch a glimpse of meteor showers or just to see the stars better. My dad tried to teach me constellations and star names. I’m sad to say I only remember a few now. I do remember how to find the Andromeda Galaxy, which is the only galaxy that can be seen with the naked eye. I think it must have made a big impression on me that I could see another galaxy.

My dad took some amazing pictures of  the stars where he kept the shutter open and  it made a star trails. The looked something like this picture. I wanted to try that tonight. The stars around here are pretty scarce due to the light pollution. It didn’t work, likely because I was impatient and stopped it after only 50 minutes. It probably needs three hours or so to get the desired effect. It would probably help to have some brighter stars. I did like how the above picture turned out which is of the moon and Jupiter.  

 

 

*Veering of topic, this reminded me that in New Mexico, there was stealth bombers that flew over our town all the time. Perhaps from one of the many air force bases in New Mexico. For a military air craft loving family like us, it was awesome. I’ve even heard a sonic boom once from one of these jets. They are so fast, by the time you hear one of flying over, it’s almost too late to see it. So when we would sleep out on the trampoline and be watching the sky anyway, you could see one flying over. The cool thing is that they don’t have any lights. You just see a silent dark V shape flying over and when it’s almost reached the other horizon you finally hear it.

 

 Man! This post and the post about wearing only running shoes is making me feel really, um, unfeminine? Not very girly? I suppose I do have “masculine” interests and tendencies: I’m a dog person, I’d rather watch a bad Sci Fi movie over the best chick flick movie, I pick comfort and practicality over fashion and cuteness, I like to sing Alto and sometimes even Tenor, I have an awesome sense of direction, and I can parallel park (sometimes). It’s a good thing Colin is ultra mega masculine and abhors anything girly.

So, to show that I am a woman and that I do girly things, here is a list of what is feminine about me:

(I’m sure there are “offensive” stereotypes in this, but since it is coming from a girl, it’s okay, right?)

 

1. I made rolls from scratch today. I love cooking and baking.

2. I always did well in math until I took Calculus, and due to my femaleness, I could not wrap my brain around it. I worked so hard in those classes but I got a B- and a C+. Colin did very little studying for that class and got an A’s. Darn my lack of spatial ability!

3. I cry all the time for commercials, news articles, movies and TV shows that are even remotely emotion provoking.

4. I lied; I can’t really parallel park.

5. I wear earrings occasionally.

That’s all I can think of right now. I need to get some chocolate. Believe or not, this post was supposed to just be about star trail photography. Somehow I ended up telling you all about my childhood, stealth bombers, and my masculine and feminine tendencies. Hey! There’s another female tendency; I talk too much.