We waited till 9: 30pm before we drove back out into the
park. Bryce Canyon was quiet now, not that it was loud today but now, and
there was no one else. We drove carefully, worrying that a mule deer might be on the
road, passing the park entrance, the visitor center and making our way to sunrise point.
When we turned off the headlights we were left in complete
darkness, it took my eyes the time of walking to the cliff to adjust; even then
the headllamp stunted my sight. I set the camera up on a rocky edge, angled
with the help of a smaller stone and stepped back. Click.
I painted the canyon with the light of my headlamp, tracing
the contours of the hoodoos and the snowy slopes. I illumined the tree branches
one by one, then, at last I stood back and turned off the lights. Dad got tired
and cold and went back down the trail to the car.
It took another minute before I could see the definition of
the canyon for myself. Above me the sky was riddled with pinholes, delicately lighting my landscape. I looked for the big Dipper, couldn’t find it. I did see
Orion though… and for the first time in my life I saw more than his belt.
Clearly connected were his legs, his bow and his head. I have looked for this
so many times, on so many rooftops and so many campfires… but never saw it like
this. I looked again for the big dipper, still couldn’t see it. There were too
many distractions. Connecting the dots was memorizing.
Eye glued to his telescope, I can only imagine how the
father of astronomy would feel to know that this was my first time seeing
Orion, or that many people never have. I wonder what the sky would have looked
like in his backyard, or 5 minutes out of town. It took me 3300km to see the
stars like this. I doubt that is what it took him.
Lying on my back, i can see more stars than sky. I
look out over the canyon again and can make out multiple layers of hoodoos
and desert formations on the horizon. My camera must be getting this by now. I
check the time, it should have been about 20 minutes by now… Click.
To see the sky and not the stars must seem sacrilegious to
those who have that opportunity daily. To have access to such an unworldly
depth and possibility would change a lot of people’s minds about a lot of
things we do. But I suppose even Galileo was criticized for thinking outside the
box.
Buenos Noches.
After 2360 seconds, this is what the camera saw. |
“Galileo's
originality as a scientist lay in his method of inquiry. First he reduced
problems to a simple set of terms on the basis of everyday experience and
common-sense logic. Then he analyzed and resolved them according to simple
mathematical descriptions.”(http://www.lucidcafe.com/library/96feb/galileo.html)
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