The Dark Night
I’ve always lived in a fairly residential area so even when I’m out of the city, I’m used to having street lights everywhere. Even when I’m out in the country or up the hills, I’m usually in a car with headlights before it’s totally dark. Anyway, I was visting my uncle in France a few years ago and he stays in this wee village in the south. One night I went for a walk and was only a few feet down the road out of the village before I’d left all street lights and it was pitch black. I could barely even see the sky. It was pretty surreal simply because I can’t remember a time when night was so dark I was more or less blind. It wasn’t long before the moon rose though, in a spectacular orange/red display of light.
That’s another thing - a full moon on a dark night is incredibly good source of light. I can now better appreciate how important moonlight was for our ancestors’ nocturnal activities. Wait, no - not that.
Comics & Blog Posts
November 11th, 2008 at 12:20 pm
haha the perfect background would be the Hubble Ultra Deep Field:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hubble_Ultra_Deep_Field
i suggest, if you’ve not heard of it, to read into it, simply amazing
November 14th, 2008 at 11:02 am
You have hit on one of my favourite parts of remote outback travel…… the nights of a billion stars overhead and nothing to be heard but the whisper of the occasional breeze and the skitters of the occasional nocturnal animal. Hmmmm…. time to go walkabout again!