The Helix Nebula goes on my list tonight — the so-called Eye of God, so faint it only shows up once the Moon sets mid-evening and at the lowest power my scope has. I'm on the floor plotting the exact spot in Aquarius before then. Come find it with me?
I stayed out until the thin crescent finally cleared the rooftops, then came down and let every layer fall where it landed. Sleep is about to lose this argument — talk me into it?
Up on the roof all night with Saturn, and the reward for coming down was this — the last thin sliver of Moon hanging low in the east while the sky turns blue. Every layer I wore up there is somewhere behind me now. Tell me you'd have come up instead?
A crescent Moon won't bother rising until after midnight, so the whole evening belongs to the faint stuff — Saturn first, then whatever else the dark gives up. The roof will freeze me later, so the hot soak comes first. Want to be here when I get out?
Jupiter doesn't clear the rooftops until late tonight, and my observing list for it is already written — I do my best planning undisturbed. Keep me company until it's dark enough?
Half a Moon hangs over tonight, and that lit half is where all the good stuff lives — every crater along the line between light and dark throwing a shadow deep enough to fall into. It won't climb high until near midnight, so I'm banking sleep while I can. Come keep the other side of the bed warm until moonrise?
The Moon doesn't rise for hours, so the sky is mine until then — Saturn's up and Neptune's hiding just beside it, and I've got a narrow window of real darkness to catch them both. I'm hauling the scope up to the roof before the Moon steals it back. Race me up there?
Mars, Jupiter and Regulus are sitting in one perfect line in the southeast right now, and I was the only one on my street awake to catch it. The telescope's packed away — and so is everything else I had on. Tell me it was worth losing sleep over?
The Moon hits its closest point to Earth tonight — the biggest, brightest face it shows all month, so I killed every lamp and let it do the lighting instead. Everything faint out there is drowned anyway. Come stand where the shadows are sharp?
Kettle's on and the Moon is already parked right beside Aldebaran, the bull's orange eye — with binoculars, Uranus hides just next door. I'm topping off the thermos before I haul everything up to the roof. Come keep the eyepiece warm?