Sleepwalking
1:33 AM's dim yellow numbers softly lit the room. "Huh, I wonder if the sky has cleared" I mumbled groggily to myself, stumbling out of bed.

It had!

There's something delightful about a well-practiced eccentricity. The phrase "man, I could do this in my sleep" applies especially well in these situations. Still only half awake, it seemed a good time to test out a new arrival in the growing arsenal of telescopes. I had actually built it for a friend, but it had returned after about a year when they weren't getting proper use of it. (Telescopes should collect starlight, not dust - that's a maxim 'round here and with my buddies.)

The summer Milky Way flowed high overhead, a soft glow of innumerable stars. And there, peeking out behind the tall pine tree, a cosmic lighthouse shone out along the shore of this celestial river. Saturn!

But, the pine tree was in the way. Lugging the telescope this way and that, playing the game of strategic angles and not waking the neighbor's dogs, I stole through my front yard like a total weirdo. It was great.

Finally, I had a shot! For the first time since the winter, Saturn swam into view in the eyepiece. Of all the things to observe in the universe, this ringed planet is unparalleled in its perennial you-have-got-to-be-kidding-me punch. Every time. Especially if one hasn't seen it in a while. (Or before. Showing this with "sidewalk astronomy" outreach has been a highlight of my life.)

So there I perched on the side of a small hill in my yard, the neighbor's dog still asleep, the telescope threatening to fall off the edge, my logical mind suggesting sleep would be helpful...and Saturn, a tiny dancer with a hula hoop, the palest yellow against a velvety sky, pirouetting in a timeless dance on the shore of the Milky Way, almost 800 million miles away.

Wow.

I drank my fill of this sight, put the scope back, and drifted off to sleep. High above my slumbering roof, the stars twinkled and Saturn spun 'round and 'round.