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I could swear the only light sources on the whole block tonight are the crescent moon and my monitor. I sat outside on the back deck tonight and played ball with K2. Eventually he laid down at my feet to chew on the ball, so I sat there in the chair for awhile listening to people talking faintly a few houses down, probably out on their deck enjoying the night, too. Laughing. A distant dog barking now and then. A few shooting stars.

Someone up on the side of the mountain was flicking their porch light off… and then on… and then off… like morse code. A little black shadow darted through the yard, K2 jumped off the porch after it, but it was too fast for him and wiggled under the fence. He came back and laid down and we just sat out there for what had to be an hour or more. While I was checking out the sky I noticed a loosely defined stretch of something opaque and nondescript but very much there directly above me. So I opened the door, reached in and turned off the porch light, then came back out and looked up again. And I’ll be damned if I wasn’t looking straight up at the physical substance of the milky way.

I never realized how much light pollution we had even in the hills above Reno. But out here it’s black as black gets, and I really need a telescope and a few hundred uninterrupted hours.

Posted by tee in sense of place
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