I'm looking out the window to the south and it's a beautiful, cold winter's night with a nearly-full moon. The Winter Hexagon is prominently visible despite the light from the moon and, beneath it, Sirius outshines the light pollution from a medium sized Fife town.
Right up above me in the vault of the heavens is a star called Capella which, Stellarium tells me, is 42.2 light years away. The light that I'm seeing from that star was emitted by it a few months after I was born in 1968.
That amazes me. I'm not sure if my amazement is because my Xmas holidays have just started and I'm a wee bit pished or because it is incomprehensible that something can be so far away but still visible.
What do you find amazement in?
