I love a night sky. Especially ones that can be viewed away
from the light pollution of big cities. Often at our summer cabin we will gaze
at a bejewelled universe. Occasionally we will see a shooting star, sometimes a
passing satellite.
Last year in Cuba, while sitting in our garden after supper,
I chanced to see a spectacle I had never seen before. I did not know what I had
witnessed at first. It was, I gathered on reflexion, a large comet exploding as
it entered earth’s atmosphere. This was no ordinary star. It appeared like a
bright inverted comma in the sky for but an instant – a flash. It was large.
Much larger than what appears to be the size of the average star – indeed to
the eye it appeared to be about one quarter the size of a full moon in the
night sky. That was, no doubt, a once in a lifetime experience.
But this past February, while sitting again in our Cuba
garden after supper, I chanced to look up at the night sky. I saw a satellite
passing above me from southwest to northwest. Now occasionally one does see one
or two satellites in an evening. This particular evening, the satellite was
followed in the same orbit by a second, then a third, a fourth and my partner
and I counted in all 29 satellites passing in quick succession and following the
same orbit like target rubber ducks at one of the booths at a fall fair. This
was amazing, and I was thankful that I was not alone in seeing this
extraordinary event. Then oddly, eight more satellites passed in quick
succession, not in the same orbit, but randomly.
For the next six weeks I would occasionally look at the
night sky from our garden. Rarely did I see even one satellite. Once I saw two.
Most evenings I saw none. Now, I could be a conspiracy theorist. I am not. But I
do not understand how this satellite parade could happen randomly. Probably I
never will.
