What feelings are hidden inside watching the starry sky?

We live on a very beautiful planet, where many plant and animal species coexist that do everything possible to survive and adapt in a world where they have to face numerous challenges every day. But, if during the day we can see a great variety of colors and forms of life, at night the show continues, only this time the protagonist is the starry sky.

“The Starry Night” by Vincent Van Gogh is among the most notable paintings on this precise subject. This Vincent van Gogh night stars painting, widely regarded as his magnum opus, represents the view outside his sanatorium chamber window at night, even though it was painted from memory during the day. Starry Night skies are a dreamy depiction of the artist’s expansive view of Saint-Rémy-de-Provence from his asylum room.

Very rarely do we realize this, not surprisingly, it is easy to forget that there are other worlds out there where, perhaps, there is life. All those millions of bright dots that we sometimes see are actually stars, planets, comets and nebulae that existed millions of years ago.

Away from the city lights, the starry sky is a beautiful sight. Just by looking up we intuit the immensity of the Cosmos. Even with the naked eye, the night sky has a lot to offer us.

The clear nights of the new moon are the best to observe the starry sky. We can see more than 3,000 tiny bright dots. Most are twinkling stars. Among them, some points do not flash. They are planets. If we observe them for several nights, we will see that their position in the sky changes. The position of the stars also varies, but more slowly and is only observed over time, over the months.

The intensity with which we see each star shine is its apparent magnitude. The brighter it shines, the smaller its magnitude. The brightest star in the night sky is Sirius, with an apparent magnitude of -1.46. It is not to be confused with its actual luminosity or absolute magnitude.

If we have good eyesight, after a while we will begin to distinguish that not all stars appear white. There are also reddish, yellow and even bluish ones. The color of each star depends on its surface temperature. Blue ones are the hottest, followed by white, yellow, orange, and finally red.

The stunning white stripe across the sky is our galaxy, the Milky Way. It is called the Spine of the Night, and sometimes it draws a complete arc in the sky. Some nebulae can also be seen, as faint whitish spots.

The tranquility that is breathed is wonderful, and when the sky is clear and you can see a tiny part of the universe, it is an incredible experience. Surely those feelings and those sensations that all astronomy fans have, or simply sky observation, were also felt by the first astronomers.

Astronomy, by the way, is a very old science. All human civilizations have been and -probably- have been, have dedicated themselves to observing the skies