The Christmas Star

Tonight, we went out to look at the “Christmas Star,” which was supposed to be a conjunction of Saturn and Jupiter on their orbits around the sun, coming so close together that they looked like one bright star in the sky. I guess some scientist somewhere decided that this provided scientific evidence to explain the phenomenon of the star in the Biblical Christmas story. Their orbital paths being so different, this conjunction only takes place every 600 years or so. Needless to say, it’s not something we’re likely to see again.

So, we packed up some celestial binoculars that we bought off the internet, snacks, drinks, cameras, and the baby; and we headed to Sanger, TX, hoping to get far enough away from the lights of the city to get a nice, dark view. We found an open spot near the marina of Ray Roberts Park, and spent the next hour figuring out how to set up all of the equipment. Note to self, we should probably have practiced with the equipment beforehand, so we weren’t doing that on the fly when it mattered. Oh well, it all worked out fine.

Forty-five minutes after sunset, two bright lights appeared in the sky right where the sun had been moments before. One was slightly brighter and bigger than the other. There was a noticeable distance between them, so I wasn’t sure it was the correct celestial bodies. But my wife assured me that was it, and seeing a faint smudge of a ring around one of the planets confirmed that it was indeed Saturn. While cool, I was a little disappointed that it wasn’t this blindly-bright star in the sky, with the two planets so close together that they looked like one star, as I’d been led to believe.

And what was Troy doing while all of this stargazing was going on? He was sitting in the car, eating chips and leaving little orange fingerprints on everything. No interest in anything going on above him. I guess he doesn’t want to waste time wishing on stars for the future when he can enjoy the moment now.