My Wife and the Winter Galaxy (4410 characters)

I woke up in the middle of the night.

Looking next to me, my wife wasn't there.

There was a rustling sound from the direction of the west window, and when I asked,

"What's up?"

my wife replied,

"The moon."

I checked the clock; it was 1:30 AM.

I got up and went over to her.

"Look."

When I looked where she pointed, there was a moon, about half-full—.

It was low in the sky and looked yellow.

My wife was holding her favorite monocular.

A cute little thing that looks like a tiny telescope.

"Ugh, it's cold!"

I, who had been sleeping in a tank top, shivered.

"I'll lend you this of mine. I'm wearing plenty of layers underneath," she said, taking off the hoodie she was wearing and handing it to me.

I was surprised when I put it on.

"What is this? It's super warm!"

"It's a Pendleton boa hoodie. I bought it last winter."

"That's nice. Don't I have one?"

"Nope."

—Since I was wide awake, I decided to watch the moon with her.

I pulled out a large pair of Mizar binoculars from a sturdy box.

80mm aperture, 11x magnification. It was heavy and solid.

I set up the tripod, mounted them, and pointed the two eyes at the moon.

"Hmm. Nice. The craters are perfectly still and quiet."

"Nice, nice!"

My wife was looking at the same moon with her handheld monocular.

"The seeing is really good tonight, isn't it?" I said.

"Seeing?" my wife asked.

"The condition of the atmosphere," I replied concisely, then requested, "Try looking at some random star."

"I'm looking," said my wife.

"Is it twinkling?"

"It's not twinkling—"

"See? The fact that the stars aren't flickering means there's no turbulence in the atmosphere," I taught her with a condescending tone. Then, I had an idea.

"Want to try? Andromeda."

"Let's!" my wife agreed.

I checked the star chart I searched for on my tablet.

"At this time tonight—, the moon is right here," I pointed.

"Yeah, yeah."

"And then, if you look straight north like this—, go up a little bit—, this orange star is the junction. Let's find this orange one first!"

"Got it," my wife replied, pointing her favorite monocular at the night sky.

"Captain! I found it!"

My wife said immediately. She's good at finding things.

I heaved the binoculars over to look.

It's hard to swing around heavy binoculars. It was the right call to leave the first step of star-hunting to the small monocular.

"—Ah, this is it. The orange star at almost the same height as the moon. —It's a star in the Andromeda constellation."

"Huh."

"—And then, using this as a landmark, go just a little bit to the right—, did you go? Hmm, you see this white star, right?"

"I see it, I see it," said my wife, who was likely staring through her monocular.

"And then, from that white star, go about the same distance to the right again—, it should be there."

"What is?"

"The Andromeda Galaxy."

"Oh!" my wife said. "A sort of blurry star—?"

While confirming with the binoculars, I thought, (It really does just look like a blurry star.)

"This? Is this the Great Galaxy??"

"Yeah, that's it. Probably, yeah—"

I explored the area—, hmm, no mistake. Starting from the orange star and tracing the stars—, this, this is the Andromeda Galaxy.

Even with the high light-gathering power of the 80mm aperture, the spiral isn't visible—. You can only see the center glowing softly. But—,

"This is the Andromeda Galaxy!"

I invited my wife to the binoculars.

"Whoa, so this is it—," my wife said. "It looks brighter than when I saw it with mine!"

"Yeah. A galaxy about 2.3 million light-years away—"

"2.3 million light-years?"

"Yeah. A distance that takes about 2.3 million years at the speed of light—"

"—And that's our neighbor?"

"Yeah."

Gurgle. My stomach growled.

Thinking about the scale of the universe made me hungry.

"Let's take a break," I said, and turned on the room lights.

—We ate hot Inaniwa-style udon and also had some sweet bean paste.

"Feels like we're doing something bad, doesn't it?" my wife said.

"Yeah," I replied.

It's okay to have nights like that.

I checked note and wrote a reply to a comment from Mayu♪. 'Sorry for the late hour. I just saw Andromeda. Next up is Jupiter and Orion—' or something like that.

We brushed our teeth properly, turned off the lights again—, and started the second half of our stroll.

—Looking at the star chart, I said, "Jupiter should be coming down soon."

The balcony eaves blocked the view above.

"Isn't that it? Jupiter," my wife said, peering through her monocular.

Since Jupiter should be easily visible to the naked eye, it shouldn't be visible yet—.

"It's orange-ish. It's not twinkling," my wife added.

I borrowed my wife's scope and took a look.

It was indeed orange—, but. The reason it wasn't twinkling was because the seeing tonight was exceptionally good. This wasn't a planet, but a star—.

Comparing it with the star chart—, it was definitely a star in Taurus.

"It's Aldebaran, probably," I said, pointing at the star chart. "In a little while, a brighter orange star should appear above Aldebaran's orange. That's Jupiter. And then, if you go way over to the left from there—, Rigel should start to look whitish at about the same height—"

"Rigel?"

"The bottom-right corner of Orion's drum."

"Drum?"

"Orion is also called the 'Drum Star' by another name."

I explained using the star chart. "This, and this, and this, and this—, the shape connecting these four stars looks like a drum, so it's the Drum Star."

"Instead of a drum—," my wife said. "It looks like a smartphone, doesn't it?"

"True," I replied, and continued my explanation. "In the middle of the drum, where it narrows, there are horizontal stars, 1, 2, 3—. See? These look like the belt of the drum, right? And then, the navel part below that belt of three stars—, here, there are about three dots vertically, dot, dot, dot, right? Yeah, that's it. If you look closely at the middle dot—, it might start to look fuzzy—. That's the Orion Nebula—"

"The Great Nebula!"

"It's a friend of the Andromeda one from earlier."

"I want to see it!"

So, we decided to wait for Jupiter to come down.

My wife was swinging her monocular around, looking at the sky—.

I also decided to wait while gazing at the night sky with the binoculars—, and then! And then, and then!

"What on earth is this!??"

I let out a voice that sounded like Yusaku Matsuda from the old days.

"What's wrong?" my wife asked.

"It's a jumbled-up star!"

"Jumbled-up?"

It was incredibly beautiful.

"Probably—," I said, turning on the nebula and star cluster names on the star chart.

"It is—, the Pleiades star cluster!"

"Plea..."

"It's Subaru!"

"The Shinji Tanimura one—?"

"Yeah, yeah. 'Ware wa yuku—♪', that Subaru."

"Let me see!"

I gave up my turn at the binoculars.

"Wow!" my wife said. "Cute!"

Indeed. Its appearance, stuck perfectly to the night sky without a single flicker—, it was cute how tightly packed it was in a small area.

"They look like the Ga-chans!"

My wife was talking about our duck plushies at home.

"Let's name them the Duck Stars!"

"1, 2, 3, 4—, there are 4 on top, 5, 6, 7—, with the ones below, there are 7 big ones, and there's still so much sparkle all around them—!"

My wife seemed to really like Subaru.

"Sei Shonagon also said it, right? 'The stars, Subaru'—"

"Who's Sei Shonagon?" my wife asked.

"The 'winter is best at dawn' person."

"The 'dawn' person?"

"—She's a person from long ago."

While saying that, I was looking at the star chart, and it seems there's another star cluster to the upper left of the Pleiades—. The Hyades cluster—?

I said to my wife, who was peering through the monocular, "Hey, that Aldebaran from earlier—"

"The orange one?"

"Yeah, yeah."

"The fake Jupiter one?"

"—Hmm, no, well, yeah, that orange star."

"Yeah. I can see it now."

"Around it—"

"Ah!" my wife said.

"Can you see it?"

"I can see it, I can see it! If I look closely, I can see it! What is this?? There are so many! Amazing! It's wider than Subaru! Stars are scattered over a wide area like a jewelry box was overturned—, so many, so many!"

"The Hyades cluster—," I said, pointing the binoculars."That's what they call it—, whoa!"

It was an amazing view. I could see countless stars that weren't even twinkling, scattered densely over a wide area.

"Try looking through the binoculars."

My wife leaned in to the eyepiece—. And then, "Wow! What is this! It's amaaazing!"

I saw it for the first time in my life, too.

Subaru was cute and cozy, while this one was proudly and gorgeously dense.

What a beautiful night.

"Because I saw the moon—, that's thanks to that, right!"

That's true. "You've got a good nose for this!"

—After that, Jupiter came down, and using that as a guide, we enjoyed the navel of the Drum Star we had studied on the star chart, the Orion Nebula.

It looked brighter than the Andromeda Galaxy, but even with binoculars, I couldn't clearly see the unique petal-like gas shapes. The Great Nebula drifted vaguely, like cigarette smoke.

"I want to see Subaru one more time," my wife said, and looked through the binoculars, said "Whew," then looked through the monocular and said "Ah."

The time was 5:00 AM. It was truly a three-and-a-half-hour stroll through the starry sky.

"Let's sleep. And let's sleep in," I said, and "I'll turn off the alarm," my wife replied.

How free we are!

"I feel energized after seeing the stars," my wife said.

"That's good to hear," I said.

I took off the boa hoodie, went back to my tank top, and climbed into the futon where Ga-chan was as warm as a baked sweet potato—.

I pulled Ga-chan close, darkened the room again with the remote, and said, "Good night."

"That was fun," my wife said.

The end.

※It is said that an occultation event where the moon hides Subaru can be observed from around 3:00 AM to 5:00 AM on the night of December 14, 2024.
https://www.astroarts.co.jp/article/hl/a/13309_ph241214
The direction is west-northwest. If it's clear, I definitely intend to watch it!