travelswithalice

The biggest surprise of this trip has been the spectacular night sky over Tasmania. I have never seen stars so bright, so big, and so many!

I’d have come here earlier had I known that its clean air, combined with the low ambient light, makes this one of the best places in the world to marvel at the night sky.

I have yet to really study the skies against my star maps but it’s a cinch to spot Orion’s belt, Betelgeuse, and the Southern Cross, all of which I saw on our first evening in Hawley as we walked home from dinner.

I’m eager to see the aboriginal constellation, “The Emu in the Sky”.  And I have yet to see the Milky Way which must make quite a splash across these amazing skies.

In the meantime, I’m completely entranced by the first Blue Moon of March. It caught me unawares, arriving unannounced while we were at dinner.

And later in the week, on our return from Stanley: 

I know, Krissy was absolutely right. It’s no use trying to photograph the moon except with specialized equipment, not to mention expertise. However I just had to try. The urge to keep a record of something I may never see again couldn’t be denied.

This glorious waning gibbous moon is an enormous orange egg blazing bright in the east, climbing sideways up a star-strewn sky. And traveling alongside it is the glowing planet Jupiter. It’s impossible to miss as it outshines everything in the heavens, save the moon itself. It looks like a circle of distinct light points and doesn’t appear to twinkle, its light steady unlike that of the more distant stars. 

To completely mangle my Shakespeare: 

There are more dreamy things in heaven, Horatio, than on earth in sleepy Hawley.