Have you ever seen the Milky Way

August 9-15: From meteors to the Milky Way. This is a great week for watching some faint treasures in the night sky, including the Milky Way and a good meteor shower. And on the brighter side, the crescent Moon passes some bright planets.

Have you ever seen the Milky Way? Of course you have. We are fortunate enough to live in a state where light pollution is not a problem, yet. I'm hoping that it never will become an issue, although developments in the country are popping up all over the place. For some reason, people think they need to light their houses up like New York City, when one of the beauties of living in the country is the darkness. You can't see the night sky without the darkness.
August is the month of the Perseid meteor showers. They should be really good this week. Why am I thinking about the sky? Well, Saturday I met a young lady who had come to North Dakota on a mission trip. She was in Fort Yates and her biggest thrill was seeing the Milky Way.
"I read about it in books," she said. "I can see the stars where I live, but I looked up and there it was, the Milky Way."
Amazing what we take for granted. I can see Orion, the Big Dipper, the Little Dipper, Venus, Mars and other select planets as they travel above us. Used to be I could see the Northern Lights on a regular basis also. I'm either not staying up late enough, or they have dimmed over the years because of, well, only God knows why I guess.
The days are shorter, the gardens are paying off and the stars guard over our nights. Something we can always count on.