I just got back from a family reunion over Thanksgiving. Among other things, I had a chance to sit down with my dad and talk about astronomy. He was the one who got me interested back when I was a little girl and he has always taken pride in my astronomy writing and career. He’s a sunspot watcher and has been for a long time. I didn’t know that until he showed me 11 years worth of drawings he had done at the telescope, tracking sunspots for nearly a whole solar min-max cycle. Pretty amazing and it took a lot of dedication for him to do that.

Not too many others in our family are interested in astronomy, although I have a couple of nieces who show some promise. I do my best to stoke what glimmerings of interest do show up, by answering their questions, telling them about upcoming celestial events, and so on. It’s my little bit to keep the love of the skies alive. Well, that and the planetarium stuff! And the books…

Anybody living north of, oh, say, Florida or Southern California in the United States and the Riviera and the Mediterranean shores in Europe can’t help but notice that the nights are getting longer and the days shorter and the air temperatures for stargazing just a whole lot colder! It’s more tempting to stay inside with a warm drink than it is to venture outside on a chilly night and do a little stargazing. I know it is for me. Yet, some of the most beautiful sights of the late autumn and winter skies are out there to be had if you can put aside the toasty comfort for a few minutes and step outside.

One night when I was in Phoenix visiting family I stepped out and looked up and there was Orion! THAT constellation always says “winter” to me (although for southern hemisphere readers, the big guy is a harbinger of summer). It was a little strange to see it on a balmy desert evening, and kind of funny how our minds associate things like temperature and season with a particular set of stars in the sky at a certain time. I always imagine that if we were on a starship or an L5 colony, things like seasons and even day-and-night distinctions wouldn’t apply. Do you suppose we’d even be interested in stargazing?