The Ghost of A Peculiar Star

The Earthling was out so many nights in her November, studying me. Beside me, Jupiter and Venus blaze along the ecliptic.

This month, the Earthling smiled as she photographed the Pac-Man nebula. She remembered how, when playing a game as a child, the ghosts chased her through a labyrinth as she chomped and chomped those little balls of light that look just like my photons.

And, as always, she watches me. To her, I’m still a child like she was when she played Pac-Man. She sees me as I was millions of years ago, a faint star just in my life’s infancy. If she could see me now, she’d witness how I once raged with fierce energy, pulling fire from my core to shine ever brighter.

Through all those years she’ll never see, she won’t know the battles that have raged on my surface and from the oceans of plasma deep within. She’ll never know the ghosts that chased me or see how I dimmed when those in my orbit passed in front of me.

But I can see that in all the Earthlings, even in my little Earthling. I watch as all Earthlings grow brighter each year. I sometimes witness them dim because those in orbits around them pull and push on them. And I watch as the Earthlings remember their power and shine again and again.

Sometimes my Earthling examines her past and dreams of ghost futures. If only these Earthlings could learn to stop seeing themselves as they were decades ago. They can’t hear the messages I send them when they’re locked in the past. They blind to the blessings shining before them.

Pac-Man Nebula. Photograph by Elizabeth Quinlan.

RGB triband for stars
Ha/Oiii
Sii/Hb
15h 35m

William Optics FLT 120 refractor telescope ZWOasi 2600mc Pro Duo Camera.