A cold, dark, quiet night. The peaceful quietness of the dark excluding the occasional airplane and car that passed by with their bright headlights on. Stars speckle the sky like glitter on your hands and fingers, the peaceful cold nights of the winter months in Minnesota is indeed something, even living in a place 30 miles from the state capital and subject to light pollution, I still can see some faint constellations, nebulae, and star clusters. A telescope on the cold ground, binoculars in hand, looking for a planet or a preferred galaxy. I didn’t think this would be one of the most relaxing pastimes I would have ever. When I thought of space, I usually thought aliens, the solar system, the death trap of reality where things can kill you seemingly instantly. It all changed when I began researching science projects of space; my whole perspective changed on what stereotypical outer space is.

As the days go by, space seemed to grab onto me; I have hooked to the weird things of space like it is a drug, I just wanted to learn more. When the nights are clear, the temperature is not like Antarctica in the middle of a winter night, when everything is quiet when the sun is setting. I used to sit on the ground and look up and ponder what is there to see and imagine that there could be out there. I remember one time I was at my grandparent’s one night most likely staying the night, I had gotten my first pair of binoculars and I was outside on the warm summer night looking through it finding anything that could be interesting when I spotted something that seemed weird, a grey smudge in the sky. Barely can make out the surface features of what I thought was the Moon till I realized the Moon wasn’t even in the direction I was looking. I didn’t find out what it was roughly two years ago I found I had found Miranda, one of Uranus’s Moons. After this, I asked my dad for my first telescope.
My first telescope allowed me to see the night like never before. I could see things so much better and more evident, my love for space grew even more as I looked at stars, nebula, and even attempting to find planets, though I couldn’t see many planets till later on. My first nebula was discovered recently; the sun was setting as the glittering stars peeked out and shined brilliantly. I was focused on the Orion Constellation, more importantly, south of Orion’s Belt. I pointed my telescope at a group stars that make up Orion’s sword, and I found the most beautiful thing, Orion’s nebula. It seemed so distant and small, it was blurry, but it was easy to make out where it was to nearby stars, it was like a gray blob sitting there peacefully watching over its smaller neighboring stars and smaller nebulae. I was amazed and loss of words, the feeling of finding something you were looking for something for so long and then finding it was the best feeling anyone can have. I began looking for more things to discover and see. One star after another truly fascinated me; I soon found my first double star system in the Big Dipper, or Great Bear, constellation. The sheer beauty of the stars so close to one another and shining so much, it had me look at it night after night. After a few months, I received a new telescope with better viewing power. I soon spotted my first planets, Jupiter and Venus, I thought they were stars, very bright stars, but my star map proved wrong in fact they are Venus and Jupiter, I never been so fond of space since then.
My love space keeps going. I read about it, talk about it, share stories, and sometimes write about it. My dreams for my future of space is to one day just get to see the Milky Way it self. Seeing it rise over a quiet dark horizon in the rural parts of Minnesota or wherever I will be living at the time, little light pollution, clear starry night, no full moon. The only light I wish to see is the stars speckleing the sky and the bands of the Milky Way curving over the horizon. A true sight to behold indeed. As every day and night passes, I wait for the next perfect moment to go back out and gaze up at the stars of our universe, on one quiet night.