No, this entry isn’t about a round of Diplomacy where Spain conquers the Ottoman Empire, although taking the day after a big holiday meal with family to play games is not a bad thing. It’s more about the things you see as you’re sitting out on the front patio of your folks’ place after that holiday dinner, staring at the sky. I did that yesterday, as the nieces and nephews scattered themselves around the house playing chess and word games and generally being nieces and nephews, and some of the adults were talking and laughing in the kitchen and family room, and some of the rest of us were outside chatting.

So, from the front patio I could see the planet Mars, and then after awhile — as it got darker — the stars started popping out one by one. As we sat and talked, the sky got darker and the planes taking off and landing at the airport were forming their own constellation patterns against the backdrop. And I was thinking that as much as I love doing planetarium work and how unique the theaters are, it just doesn’t compare to the ambiance of being under the real sky. They’re two different ways of getting a feel for the star patterns, and what’s up, but one is not the other. And that’s not so bad, really. There’s a time when you want to be under the real stars and there’s a time when you want to be under the dome. Sort of like playing a game of baseball in real life or playing fantasy baseball online.

The size of the sky and the smell of woodsmoke drifting from someone’s fireplace nearby, and the sounds of the kids playing, and the glittering, showy entrance of the stars in ones and twos provided a fine backdrop for a pleasant holiday scene I won’t soon forget.

The image below kind of evokes that feeling — it’s not my image, but one I found when I was surfing around looking for images of the desert a few weeks back. Scott had the luck to be under a clear desert sky one night and took advantage of it to capture the beauty of the stars. Linked to from: Scott Tucker’s Dark-Sky Images Page.