There I was, dreaming of The Southern Cross

I stepped outside, catching some chilled air as I checked on the chickens.  Frosty clear.  And it got me to thinking that I love our night skies.

Orion the Hunter graces our own sky, a hub around which to see those winter constellations when the low humidity lends a crispness to the slumbering world.  The thing that blows me away about Orion is the red giant star in its armpit, Betelguese (yep, pronounced beetle-juice) (seriously, like the movie).  It’s the largest thing in our night sky, size-wise and I just checked to find out its 430 light years away.  Now that’s a trip I’d like to take. 

Of course, the Horsehead Nebula is where in Orion’s direction I’d want to point my Zebulon-powered hyper-drive starship.  That place is fascinating because we all grew up seeing the fabulous hues of this stellar nursery.

Crux, the legendary Southern Cross in the deep southern skies, is where I’d want to point my sailboat.  You’ll never reach it but the journey toward Antarctica would be memorable, unless you fell off the edge of the world.  Crux is featured in modern folklore and music like CSN&Y.  Maybe one day Michele and I can head south, wake up with the sun and be at one with that sea.

Lastly, I just found this neat poem, check it out:

Of the Australian national flag, the Australian poet Banjo Paterson wrote in 1893:

The English flag may flutter and wave,

where the world wide oceans toss,

but the flag the Australian dies to save,

is the flag of the Southern Cross.