At last!

I've seen it! I've seen it! I've seen it! Yes! Yes! Yes!!

1.30 am, look north, draw a mental line from Capella to the Plough, reach out my right arm in front of me and clench my fist just below the middle of that line and there it should be right underneath the bottom of my fist - and take binoculars in case. But I didn't need that. I went out the door and looked north - there it was in plain view: Comet NEOWISE in all it's glory!

I'd never seen a comet properly before. All previous attempts had been thwarted by cloud or illness. Once at an observatory I had seen one through a telescope, but never with the naked eye, and never so spectacular. This time, after several early mornings before sunrise being greeted with wall to wall cloud or, even more frustratingly, just cloud in the north of the sky, suddenly there was a comet in front of me.

At the time of writing, that was three nights ago. The next night was cloudy, but last night it was there again. I awoke my wife and daughter, and we had a comet party at 1.30 am in the front garden. The sky was completely clear, the Milky Way was glistening above us, Saturn and Jupiter were out in the south and Mars in the East, and NEOWISE in the north. As we watched, a couple of bright shooting stars graced the sky with their presence. It was totally majestic.

What did it all mean? Possibly nothing. I don't believe in astrology. Anything or anyone that can predict my future without consulting God is highly suspect in terms of the source of that knowledge. Sometimes God provides signs in the sky, such as when Jesus was born, but often it's just to show off how inventive he is and to give us a free planetarium performance. God shares his handiwork with us to indicate who he is and to give us pleasure - and excitement in the case of a comet and two shooting stars! That was a great night - early morning - and I shall forever be grateful for the memory of it. Tonight was cloudy again.

Photograph: Lukáš Vaňátko (https://unsplash.com/@otohp_by_sakul?utm_source=wix-media-manager&utm_medium=referral)