Arriving at Marco Polo airport in Northern Italy well after dark, we loaded our gear into a waiting water taxi and made our way through the canals of Venice. A waxing crescent moon was hovering over the western horizon as we made our way through the ancient city, which was very quiet and still. Heading into a foreign city under the cover of pre-dawn darkness is quite an experience, especially a city as unique as Venice.
We had come to Italy for my brother-in-law’s wedding, and stayed in a hotel about two blocks from Piazza San Marco, near the Grand Canal. The second night we were there I carried my Orion Short-Tube, along with a couple of bottles of Chianti, up to the terrace on the roof of our hotel with my wife and some of her family. We visited Luna, M13, the Horse and Rider, Mars, and many other objects. The weather was warm and the skies were still, although there seemed to be an extreme amount of air pollution, probably due in part to a nearby industrial complex. Even with the thick, opaque haze occluding the atmosphere it was still a most enjoyable evening.
On the night of the 31st we headed over to Piazza San Marco, and the almost full Moon was low in the sky, sitting over the eastern wing of the plaza. Musicians were playing wonderful melodies while entertaining patrons in several outdoor cafes, as many tourists from all over the world were milling about. After spending some time in one of the cafes enjoying the warm evening, I moved out to the center of the Piazza and again hauled out the Short-Tube and HD photo tripod. The industrial haze blocked out all but the brightest of stars in the sky. Using a 19mm Pan and Klee barlow the Moon was framed quite nicely, and even with the thick haze the lunar images were very sharp and steady.
This was less than 50 yards from where Galileo had first set up his homemade telescope and discovered the craters and mountains covering the moon, uncounted stars that could not be seen with the naked eye, and of course the Galilean satellites. Several tourists began to wander over to see the crazy American and his little telescope, and over the course of a few hours I had people from Italy, Australia, Germany, Japan, Spain, Israel, and what seemed like every country in the world wander over to gaze at our closest neighbor. “La Luna, mira la Luna! Esso multo bello!” exclaimed the wiry Italian man, who immediately wanted another look. No matter what language was spoken, I think that everyone felt the same. I wonder if the same level of excitement was generated when Galileo and his fellow observers had marveled at a similar view, four hundred years earlier.
The following week we left Venice for Tuscany, and stayed in a Villa on a ridge south of Florence. The Villa was constructed in 1409, and it almost seemed that the Villa and the surrounding countryside had been frozen in time. Rows and rows of Sangiovese grapes and olives covered both valleys on either side of the ridge, and the valley was full of evidence of life in a much simpler age.
The weather had clouded up before we left Venice, and the first night we arrived we were treated to a first-class Mediterranean thunderstorm. Even for a transplanted mid-westerner, it was quite impressive. A couple of nights later I wandered outside sometime after sunset, and was surprised to find that the clouds had completely disappeared and the sky was very clear and steady. Even with the Moon and Mars beginning to rise in the east, the sky was wonderfully dark and transparent- much better than Venice! I went inside and grabbed the scope, tripod, eyepieces, and barlow and headed up the road away from the Villa. I decided to venture down a path next to a vineyard, and set up my scope. The Moon and Mars were sitting just above the horizon in the east, so I began hunting objects to the west, beginning with M44. I had been sitting in the field for perhaps an hour, moving from object to object, and looked down to consult my DeepMap. As I looked around, I suddenly became aware of a large swarm of fireflies below me, working their way up to the top of the ridge. They shifted to the west, back to the east, and then as they shifted to the west again they crossed the road in front of me. Suddenly they were all around me! Bright, brilliant, phosphorescent green, they were moving in waves through the grapevines, thousands upon thousands of them, pausing and then pulsing with short bursts of energy. They stopped for a while; swarming and pulsing all around me- it was almost like being in the center of a fluorescent green meteor shower. For a while the show on the ground seemed much better than the show above me.
On the final leg of our journey, we left Italy for England, to visit my wife’s Aunt and Uncle on their 25-acre farm in rural Wales. By now both my wife and I were questioning the wisdom of our decision to travel abroad with three small children under the age of five, and we were looking forward to spending some time doing as little as possible. Our daytime activities in Wales included picking strawberries, bottle-feeding baby lambs, digging potatoes, chasing butterflies, and fly-fishing for brown trout on Uncle Dave’s pond.
During our weeklong stay I actually managed to find one clear night to get out with my scope, and even that was cut short by cloud cover. That’s not even including the fact that at this latitude, you have only three or four hours of darkness during the summer to work with in the first place. I believe I have a newfound respect for astronomers who have dealt with the conditions in this part of the world- Herschel, Rosse, and Moore come to mind. Their patience should be the stuff of legend.
When I finally got outdoors with my scope, I was taken aback at finding the Great Bear high overhead, even somewhat south of the zenith. It was a great opportunity to view the area around the northern celestial pole, and as I was working on a selection of objects to view I became aware of an animal moving along in front of the hedgerow above me, maybe 25 yards away. It was a large animal, and definitely moved with the elegance and mannerisms of a big cat. Even though I had gotten a fairly good look at the animal, it had also gotten quite dark and I started having doubts about the animal’s identity. Soon the clouds had again rolled in, and when I returned I mentioned the big cat that I thought I had seen to Uncle Dave.
Apparently, as Uncle Dave told it, several years ago there was a law passed in England that made it illegal to own or keep “exotic pets”, which had become quite popular. Instead of turning these animals into the authorities, as they were supposed to, many people decided to let them free- in Wales. Cheetahs, Pumas, Leopards, Lynx, you name it. Soon, some of the local farmers in that area were finding the remains of their sheep- twenty feet up in a tree. Gotta keep that in mind if I ever find myself sitting in a field at night in rural Wales again…….