Two weeks of cloud and rain and even a few storms. No opportunity for peering into the universe until Saturday night, when I put out my wee smart scope to capture something, well, astronomically distant.
This faint smudge is the Sculptor Pinwheel Galaxy (NGC 300, Caldwell 70). I’m sure with more time on target I can improve the definition of the image, but that’s not the point. This galaxy is 6 million light years away and those photons that hit my sensor started their journey to my backyard long before our species existed.
How many planets are in that image? How much life? How much intelligent life? Are there creatures there who are looking back at the Milky Way wondering the same thing?
These are grand questions to contemplate. I cannot offer any answer. But I do feel more of a part of the cosmos when my mind turns to them.