The night sky has always been a great source of fascination, beauty
and wonder for me. As a child I collected picture cards of the
stellar constellations and thereby found myself connecting to the imagination
and mythology and of our ancestors of long ago - who, it would seem, also had
their share of "issues", obsessions and fearful imaginings!

The planets too, are of course also full of magic, symbolism and archetypal
resonances.

As my de-cluttering journey has progressed over the past 2 years
(see http://www.CHEAL.org/msearch?query=clutter) I have found myself with a
little more "space" to "look beyond the immediate" and re-connect with our
magnificent celestial heritage.

..and what better way of getting our egocentric burdens, hurts,
worries and cravings into a calmer, more blissful perspective than a
bit of uplifting, heavenward gazing to balance our human tendency towards
downward, navel-gazing?

At least, it seems to work that way for me, and my heavenward
contemplation has now been greatly boosted by discovering a website
that provides remarkable hi-tech identification, information and even
animations about all those celestial objects... what are they, where
have they come from and where are they heading?

The "Sky View Café" website http://www.skyviewcafe.com/index.php
lets you use your web browser to see which stars and planets will be
out tonight (or any night, past or future) in the sky above your home
town (or anywhere else in the world).

You can find out Moon phases and Sunrise times, checkout an
astronomical events calendar and there are many other features.

Photographs of celestial objects and night-sky areas
----------------------------------------------------
The website also displays photographic sky imagery from NASA
satellites.

No pain, no gain!
-----------------
The website is so sophisticated in what it can show, that it does
take a bit of getting familiar with. You will probably also have to
download Java software from http://java.com/en/download/index.jsp to
augment your web browser so that it can handle and display the
remarkable diagrams and photos from "Sky View Cafe".

If, like me, you find yourself wondering what the "celestial horizon" is, I can
tell you that it is a projection onto the sky of the equator - a great circle
parallel to the horizon, the center of which is the center of
the Earth

Wishing you a heavenly uplift of your spirits in this Festive Season!

Mike