Discuss: Ladder to the Pleiades

This is lovely, just lovely.  Thank you Hannah (and Michael).

Dear Hannah,

I felt as if I was there starwatching with you and your Dad.

If I had had a little girl, I would have named her Hannah.  But alas, I had three sons.  Soooo I have a little black dog named Hannah, my most favorite name.  My other dog is Sophie.  Hannah is black and Sophie is white.  All three of my children are boys, all grown now; otherwise, I would have named my little girl Hannah.

Your Dad is a wonderful storyteller!  Keep on bugging him about whatever it is you want to do!

My very best wishes to you and your family!

Isabel

Hannah:

Your fascination with the stars will be one of the best pieces of your life. I always try to sleep outside on the night of the peak of the Perseids. It was too rainy this year (but I still looked).

You are young enough to see the next Leonid meteor storm which will occur in mid-November, around 2035. Drag your dad and everyone you know outside for this one. In 2002, I could not count past six seconds before the next meteor would streak across the sky.

Who knows? You might be on your way to fame as a brilliant astronomer. Or you might just go your way with a lifelong love of the skies. Either way, I’m impressed.

—Josie

Let the children be our teachers…
“If the stars should appear one night in a thousand years, how would men believe and adore, and preserve for many generations the remembrance of the city of God which had been shown! But every night come out these envoys of beauty, and light the universe with their admonishing smile.”
Ralph Waldo Emerson in Nature

Hannah and Michael,

I can only tell you that my own daughter, Michelle, rekindled a passion for watching meteor showers when she was a teenager. We stayed up all night, watching into the blackness of our backyard in Las Vegas (too bright now with new city lights), but at the time facing away from the neon lights of the Las Vegas Strip.

We marveled at fireballs, streaks of brilliant colors, oooohhhed and ahhhed until dawn. Our children are the greatest stars in our constellations of life. Mary

Dear Michael, Hannah, and family,

I can’t provide you with a ladder to the Pleiades, but I have a picture of the Pleiades, that I borrowed, that will make you feel like you’re standing on the last rung.  Any closer and you would get burned. There are many more pictures where this one came from, so Dad, and Mom, when the clouds are hanging low, show Hannah the yellow brick road to the stars. Start at : http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap010506.html.

best wishes,
clay moldenhauer
August 14,2008
fivelements.net

I great story. Maybe an astronaut or astronomer in the making.
Bruce

What a touching story. I would like to make a long response about the joys of discovery but I’m so fatigued from working so much….