First Love
Perhaps it was sometime in the early 1960s when the centerfold of a magazine grabbed my eyes and sparked my imagination. Yes, there were plenty of heavenly bodies, and I wasn't quite 10, so I wasn't able to comprehend the stunning beauty I was seeing. Yet it was that monthly map of the night sky, right smack in the middle of Sky & Telescope magazine, that showed the stars, constellations, and the positions of the planets and Moon, that helped to ignite an undying passion. The stunning view of the crescent Moon, brilliant Venus and the star Regulus above a tower as seen from Glenshaw, Pa., Sept. 19, 2025. Photo by Phil Bridenbach. Certainly, that love still abounds today in my heart and mind. As the years and decades passed, I observed so many astronomical visions -- the rings of Saturn, two total eclipses of the Sun, comets, galaxies and nebulae, conjunctions and more -- but what I saw in the light of the growing dawn this morning, Sept. 19, 2025, was astounding. Breathtaki...