Stars have always fascinated me—as well as they have the rest of humanity, I’d venture to say.
Growing up in the very much smog-free northern Sweden countryside, each cloud-free winter evening (and winter lasted months and months and months up there) gave me a wonderful view of the crystal sky, sometimes adorned with and accompanied by (for they do make a sound, you know) the northern lights.
At one point—I was probably twelve or so at the time—I was going to become an astronomer, but dreams then were a dime a dozen, and that particular one lasted barely longer than it took the white ink to dry on my abortive blue-papered star chart. I had little patience those days, or was it persistence I lacked? Yes, persistence more likely.
And then you wind up in Los Angeles for a quarter of a century and you forget that there is a night sky.
And then you move to northern Idaho, and you find it all over again.
Here, then, I’ll add my thoughts on stars, planets, the universe, as they may occur to me and insist on being written down.
Ulf Wolf