WEBVTT 1 00:00:04.160 --> 00:00:18.600 US Studios the star Map. Orion had been drawing maps 2 00:00:18.760 --> 00:00:22.879 since before he could remember, not maps of cities or 3 00:00:23.000 --> 00:00:27.079 roads or countries, the kind of maps that other people drew, 4 00:00:27.679 --> 00:00:32.159 with streets and borders and the names of places written 5 00:00:32.159 --> 00:00:36.880 in small, precise letters, and the distances marked in neat, 6 00:00:37.479 --> 00:00:42.200 careful numbers. His maps were different. His maps were of 7 00:00:42.240 --> 00:00:45.560 the sky. He had started when he was a very 8 00:00:45.600 --> 00:00:49.039 young boy, sitting on the porch of his grandmother's house 9 00:00:49.600 --> 00:00:53.320 in the fishing village of Port Meridian, a small cluster 10 00:00:53.399 --> 00:00:57.439 of white houses and narrow streets that clung to the 11 00:00:57.520 --> 00:01:02.039 rocky coast like barnacles on a hull. The village had 12 00:01:02.079 --> 00:01:06.159 no street lights, no traffic, no noise beyond the sound 13 00:01:06.239 --> 00:01:09.799 of the sea and the wind, and the occasional call 14 00:01:09.879 --> 00:01:13.120 of a night bird echoing across the water. And on 15 00:01:13.280 --> 00:01:16.400 clear nights, the sky above the village was as dark 16 00:01:16.560 --> 00:01:20.040 and as deep as any sky on Earth, every star 17 00:01:20.239 --> 00:01:24.519 visible from horizon to horizon, the Milky Way, a bright, 18 00:01:24.879 --> 00:01:28.799 luminous band that arched from the eastern hills to the 19 00:01:28.799 --> 00:01:33.359 western sea. His grandmother, Eudorah, had been the one to 20 00:01:33.439 --> 00:01:36.640 teach him the stars. She was a small woman with 21 00:01:36.760 --> 00:01:40.159 silver hair, and hands that were always moving, knitting or 22 00:01:40.159 --> 00:01:43.159 shelling beans, or pointing at the sky. And she had 23 00:01:43.200 --> 00:01:45.640 known the stars the way she knew the names of 24 00:01:45.680 --> 00:01:48.920 the fish that the boats brought in, the tides that 25 00:01:49.000 --> 00:01:52.359 govern the harbor, the winds that determined whether the morning 26 00:01:52.359 --> 00:01:55.439 would be calm or rough. She had learned the stars 27 00:01:55.439 --> 00:01:58.359 from her father, who had learned them from his father, 28 00:01:59.000 --> 00:02:01.640 and the knowledge had as down through the family, like 29 00:02:01.640 --> 00:02:06.120 a recipe or a song, each generation adding something new, 30 00:02:06.400 --> 00:02:10.039 each generation passing it on. The stars are a map, 31 00:02:10.240 --> 00:02:12.759 Eudora had told him when he was six years old, 32 00:02:12.919 --> 00:02:16.800 her hand on his shoulder, her face turned upward. Not 33 00:02:17.120 --> 00:02:20.360 just a pretty sight, a map. If you know how 34 00:02:20.400 --> 00:02:22.960 to read it, you can find your way anywhere in 35 00:02:23.000 --> 00:02:27.000 the world, day or night, storm or calm. The stars 36 00:02:27.039 --> 00:02:29.560 will always tell you where you are, if you know 37 00:02:29.639 --> 00:02:32.199 how to list. The village of Port Meridian was a 38 00:02:32.240 --> 00:02:36.400 place that existed between the sea and the sky. The 39 00:02:36.479 --> 00:02:40.240 houses were built of stone and painted white, and they 40 00:02:40.280 --> 00:02:43.919 clustered along the harbor like sheep in a fold, their 41 00:02:44.000 --> 00:02:49.159 roofs red or gray, their windows small and dark. The 42 00:02:49.199 --> 00:02:53.000 streets were narrow and winding, paved with cobblestones that had 43 00:02:53.039 --> 00:02:56.719 been worn smooth by generations of feet, and they led 44 00:02:56.759 --> 00:02:59.639 from the harbor up the hill to the church, and 45 00:02:59.680 --> 00:03:03.080 from the churched the lighthouse, and from the lighthouse to 46 00:03:03.120 --> 00:03:06.680 the fields, where the farmers grew potatoes and onions and 47 00:03:06.759 --> 00:03:09.680 the small sweet strawberries that the village was known for. 48 00:03:10.919 --> 00:03:14.599 The harbor was the heart of the village. Fishing boats 49 00:03:14.680 --> 00:03:18.159 rocked at their moorings, their masts pointing at the sky, 50 00:03:19.080 --> 00:03:23.360 their holes painted in bright colors, blue and green and yellow, 51 00:03:24.159 --> 00:03:26.879 and the smell of fish and salt and tar hung 52 00:03:26.919 --> 00:03:30.479 in the air like a permanent cloud. The fishermen came 53 00:03:30.520 --> 00:03:33.680 and went with the tides, their schedules governed by the 54 00:03:33.680 --> 00:03:36.520 moon and the wind and the goalar rhythms of the sea. 55 00:03:37.400 --> 00:03:39.599 And they knew the sky the way they knew the water, 56 00:03:40.719 --> 00:03:43.120 because the sky and the water were the same thing 57 00:03:43.199 --> 00:03:47.199 to them, two halves of the same world. And the 58 00:03:47.199 --> 00:03:50.879 stars reflected in the harbor on calm mites, and the 59 00:03:50.879 --> 00:03:54.439 moon lit the waves, and the whole village existed in 60 00:03:54.479 --> 00:03:58.199 the space between under the sky and beside the sea. 61 00:03:59.039 --> 00:04:05.000 Orion had grown up in this space. His teachers at 62 00:04:05.039 --> 00:04:10.919 the village school had been patient with him, recognizing that 63 00:04:11.039 --> 00:04:15.199 his focus on the stars was not a distraction but 64 00:04:15.319 --> 00:04:20.680 a gift. His parents ran the small grocery shop on 65 00:04:20.759 --> 00:04:25.639 the harbor road, a narrow building with a green awning 66 00:04:26.120 --> 00:04:30.639 and a bell that rang when the door opened. And 67 00:04:30.720 --> 00:04:35.800 Orion had spent his childhood between the shop and the harbor, 68 00:04:36.360 --> 00:04:40.319 and the fields and the porch of eu Doorra's house, 69 00:04:41.040 --> 00:04:45.439 where the sky was always visible and the stars were 70 00:04:45.519 --> 00:04:51.160 always waiting. He had learned to read before he learned 71 00:04:51.360 --> 00:04:56.720 to tie his shoes, because Eudora taught him with star 72 00:04:56.959 --> 00:05:01.800 charts instead of picture books. And he had learned the 73 00:05:01.879 --> 00:05:09.120 constellations before he learned the multiplication tables, because the constellations 74 00:05:09.560 --> 00:05:15.160 were more interesting and more useful, he said, than any 75 00:05:15.279 --> 00:05:19.199 number could be. The village had a rhythm to it, 76 00:05:19.800 --> 00:05:23.680 a rhythm governed by the tides and the seasons and 77 00:05:23.720 --> 00:05:29.000 the sky. In the morning, the fishermen went out, their boats, 78 00:05:29.160 --> 00:05:33.959 cutting through the calm water, their nets trailing behind them 79 00:05:34.000 --> 00:05:39.319 like dark clouds beneath the surface. In the afternoon they 80 00:05:39.360 --> 00:05:44.160 came back, their boats heavy with fish, and the harbor 81 00:05:44.360 --> 00:05:48.319 came alive with the sounds of unloading, the slap of 82 00:05:48.399 --> 00:05:52.519 wet fish on wooden decks, the cry of the gulls 83 00:05:52.560 --> 00:05:57.279 that gathered to scavenge, the voices of the fishermen calling 84 00:05:57.319 --> 00:06:01.160 to each other across the water. In the evening, the 85 00:06:01.240 --> 00:06:05.920 village settled into quiet, the houses glowing with warm light, 86 00:06:06.839 --> 00:06:12.240 the streets emptying, the sky darkening, and the stars appearing, 87 00:06:12.439 --> 00:06:17.399 one by one, filling the sky from horizon to horizon, 88 00:06:18.399 --> 00:06:22.160 and the village existed in the space between the sea 89 00:06:22.519 --> 00:06:28.240 and the sky, under the stars, beside the water, in 90 00:06:28.279 --> 00:06:31.759 the quiet, patient rhythm of a place that had been 91 00:06:31.800 --> 00:06:36.240 there for centuries and would be there for centuries more. 92 00:06:37.319 --> 00:06:41.000 His teachers at the village school had been patient with him. 93 00:06:41.160 --> 00:06:44.959 They recognized that Orion was different, not better or worse, 94 00:06:45.079 --> 00:06:47.879 but different, with a focus and a passion that set 95 00:06:47.959 --> 00:06:51.519 him apart from the other children. While they studied arithmetic 96 00:06:51.600 --> 00:06:55.480 and grammar, Orion studied the sky, and while they wrote 97 00:06:55.600 --> 00:07:00.680 essays about their summer vacations, Orion wrote observations about them stars, 98 00:07:01.120 --> 00:07:04.360 filling his note books with sketches and measurements, and the 99 00:07:04.439 --> 00:07:09.279 stories Eudorra told him. His teacher, Missus Holloway, a kind 100 00:07:09.360 --> 00:07:12.160 woman with round glasses and a laugh that could be 101 00:07:12.199 --> 00:07:14.240 heard from one end of the school to the other, 102 00:07:14.639 --> 00:07:18.079 had learned to give Oriyan extra time for his star projects, 103 00:07:18.519 --> 00:07:21.319 and she had even let him present his observations to 104 00:07:21.399 --> 00:07:24.120 the class once a month, standing at the front of 105 00:07:24.120 --> 00:07:27.519 the room with his notebook and his drawings, explaining the 106 00:07:27.560 --> 00:07:31.240 constellations and the planets and the weather patterns he had 107 00:07:31.319 --> 00:07:35.120 learned from the sky. The other children had listened with 108 00:07:35.360 --> 00:07:42.240 varying degrees of interest. Some were fascinated, asking questions about 109 00:07:42.279 --> 00:07:48.040 the planets and the meteors and the Aurora borealis, and 110 00:07:48.160 --> 00:07:52.279 wanting to know if Orion had ever seen a shooting 111 00:07:52.360 --> 00:07:57.279 star up close, and whether the moon really had craters, 112 00:07:58.079 --> 00:08:03.000 and whether there were really alien on Mars. Others were bored, 113 00:08:03.920 --> 00:08:08.759 fidgeting in their seats looking out the window, waiting for 114 00:08:08.879 --> 00:08:12.560 Orion to finish so they could go back to their 115 00:08:12.600 --> 00:08:17.959 regular lessons. But Orion did not mind. He was not 116 00:08:18.160 --> 00:08:22.439 performing for them. He was sharing what he knew, and 117 00:08:22.560 --> 00:08:25.879 if some of them did not care, that was all right, 118 00:08:27.120 --> 00:08:31.360 because someday they might. Someday they might look up at 119 00:08:31.360 --> 00:08:35.799 the sky and remember what he said and feel the 120 00:08:35.840 --> 00:08:41.320 same wonder he felt, and that would be enough. Orion 121 00:08:41.519 --> 00:08:46.080 had not understood then he was six, and the stars 122 00:08:46.159 --> 00:08:49.720 were just bright dots in the dark, and he could 123 00:08:49.799 --> 00:08:53.000 not see how they could tell him anything about where 124 00:08:53.039 --> 00:08:58.399 he was. But Eudora had been patient, as she always was, 125 00:08:59.399 --> 00:09:04.480 and she had started with the simplest thing, Polaris, the 126 00:09:04.519 --> 00:09:09.080 north star. She showed him how to find it, using 127 00:09:09.120 --> 00:09:12.840 the pointer stars of the Big Dipper, how to trace 128 00:09:12.960 --> 00:09:16.960 the line from Marrak to Dupa and extended to the 129 00:09:17.000 --> 00:09:20.639 star at the end of the Little Dipper's handle. And 130 00:09:20.720 --> 00:09:24.480 she told him that Polaris was special because it did 131 00:09:24.519 --> 00:09:29.559 not move. Every other star in the sky turned in 132 00:09:29.639 --> 00:09:33.879 a slow circle around it, rising in the east and 133 00:09:34.000 --> 00:09:41.039 setting in the west. But Polaris stayed where it was, fixed, steady, 134 00:09:41.879 --> 00:09:46.440 the anchor of the sky. That star has guided sailors 135 00:09:46.480 --> 00:09:51.360 for thousands of years. Eudora said, when the clouds cover 136 00:09:51.480 --> 00:09:55.759 everything else, the sailors look for Polaris. As long as 137 00:09:55.759 --> 00:09:59.039 they can see it, they know where they are. As 138 00:09:59.120 --> 00:10:02.200 long as they can see they can find their way home. 139 00:10:03.080 --> 00:10:05.960 Orion had looked at Polaris and tried to see it 140 00:10:06.000 --> 00:10:10.600 the way Eudora described it as an anchor, a fixed point, 141 00:10:11.279 --> 00:10:15.000 a guide. It was not the brightest tar in the sky, 142 00:10:15.919 --> 00:10:20.279 not by far, but it was steady, and it was 143 00:10:20.360 --> 00:10:24.639 always there, and he felt something shift inside him when 144 00:10:24.679 --> 00:10:28.320 he understood that this small bright point had been helping 145 00:10:28.360 --> 00:10:32.440 people find their way home for thousands of years, and 146 00:10:32.480 --> 00:10:35.240 that it would continue to do so for thousands more, 147 00:10:35.960 --> 00:10:39.679 long after he and Eudora and everyone they knew were gone. 148 00:10:40.240 --> 00:10:44.840 That was the beginning from Polaris. Eudora taught him the 149 00:10:44.879 --> 00:10:49.000 constellations one by one, the way she had learned them 150 00:10:49.039 --> 00:10:53.679 from her father. She taught him Orion the Hunter, with 151 00:10:53.799 --> 00:10:56.960 his belt of three bright stars and his sword of 152 00:10:57.000 --> 00:11:01.679 fainter ones, and the Orion nebula and the sword a 153 00:11:01.720 --> 00:11:05.039 ghostly glow that she said was a nursery where new 154 00:11:05.120 --> 00:11:09.840 stars were being born. She taught him Cassiopeia, the Queen 155 00:11:10.399 --> 00:11:14.320 with her dob shaped crown, and the Great Bear and 156 00:11:14.360 --> 00:11:19.480 the Little Bear, the two constellations that housed Polaris. She 157 00:11:19.600 --> 00:11:23.879 taught him the summer triangle Vega and Deneb and Altaire, 158 00:11:24.679 --> 00:11:29.000 three bright stars that formed a triangle overhead on summer nights. 159 00:11:29.759 --> 00:11:33.600 And she taught him Scorpius with its red heart star, 160 00:11:33.799 --> 00:11:39.440 and Taris and Sagittarius, the archer whose bow pointed toward 161 00:11:39.519 --> 00:11:43.159 the center of the galaxy, where the stars were thickest 162 00:11:43.279 --> 00:11:46.960 and brightest, and the heart of the galaxy lay hidden 163 00:11:47.039 --> 00:11:51.679 behind clouds of dust and gas. And as she taught him, 164 00:11:52.000 --> 00:11:55.759 she told him stories, not the Greek myths that other 165 00:11:55.840 --> 00:12:00.960 people told, the stories of Orian the Hunter and Cassiopeia 166 00:12:01.080 --> 00:12:04.399 the Queen, and the bear who was once a princess. 167 00:12:05.360 --> 00:12:09.639 Eudora's stories were different. They were stories of the fishermen 168 00:12:09.720 --> 00:12:14.759 who its sailed by these stars generation after generation, and 169 00:12:14.879 --> 00:12:18.519 the way each constellation had been a landmark in their lives, 170 00:12:19.159 --> 00:12:23.039 a reference point, a way of saying, I am here, 171 00:12:23.879 --> 00:12:26.879 I know where I am, I know where I am going. 172 00:12:27.320 --> 00:12:31.399 The bake Dipper is the fisherman's clock, she told him 173 00:12:31.440 --> 00:12:36.399 one night, her voice soft in the dark. In the spring, 174 00:12:37.480 --> 00:12:41.120 it rises in the east after dark, and the fishermen 175 00:12:41.279 --> 00:12:44.039 know it is time to go out for the early catch. 176 00:12:45.399 --> 00:12:49.440 In the summer, it is high overhead at midnight, and 177 00:12:49.519 --> 00:12:54.360 the fisherman know the night is at its deepest. In 178 00:12:54.399 --> 00:12:58.360 the autumn, it sets in the west after dark, and 179 00:12:58.440 --> 00:13:01.759 the fishermen know the season is ending and it is 180 00:13:01.840 --> 00:13:05.919 time to bring the boats in. In the winter, it 181 00:13:05.960 --> 00:13:09.679 is below the horizon at night, and the fishermen stay 182 00:13:09.720 --> 00:13:14.679 home and mend their nets and wait for Spring. Orion 183 00:13:14.799 --> 00:13:18.519 had listened to these stories and memorized them, and he 184 00:13:18.559 --> 00:13:22.600 had added them to his own growing collection of star knowledge, 185 00:13:22.840 --> 00:13:25.159 writing them down in a note book he kept on 186 00:13:25.240 --> 00:13:29.840 his bedside table. The notebook was small, with a blue cover, 187 00:13:30.840 --> 00:13:34.679 and it was filled with his careful handwriting the names 188 00:13:34.720 --> 00:13:38.279 of stars and constellations, and the stories you Dora told him, 189 00:13:38.919 --> 00:13:43.039 and sometimes his own observations. Things he noticed when he 190 00:13:43.080 --> 00:13:45.080 lay in the grass at night and looked up at 191 00:13:45.080 --> 00:13:49.600 the sky, Things that Eudora had not told him, things 192 00:13:49.639 --> 00:13:53.360 he had discovered for himself. He discovered that Polaris was 193 00:13:53.480 --> 00:13:56.519 not exactly at the end of the little Dipper's handle, 194 00:13:57.279 --> 00:14:01.080 that it was slightly offset, and he measured the offset 195 00:14:01.279 --> 00:14:04.120 with his thumb held at arm's lamp and wrote it down. 196 00:14:04.919 --> 00:14:09.000 He discovered that the stars near the horizon twinkled more 197 00:14:09.039 --> 00:14:13.639 than the stars overhead, because their light passed through more atmosphere, 198 00:14:14.200 --> 00:14:17.399 and he measured the difference in brightness and wrote it down. 199 00:14:18.120 --> 00:14:21.159 He discovered that the Milky Way was brighter in some 200 00:14:21.320 --> 00:14:25.799 places than others, that it had dark rifts and bright knots, 201 00:14:26.720 --> 00:14:30.519 and he mapped these variations in his notebook, drawing the 202 00:14:30.559 --> 00:14:34.000 milky way as a river of light with darker channels 203 00:14:34.080 --> 00:14:37.519 running through it, and he annotated the drawing with notes 204 00:14:37.559 --> 00:14:40.480 about what he saw and when he saw it, and 205 00:14:40.559 --> 00:14:43.480 how it made him feel. By the time he was twelve, 206 00:14:43.559 --> 00:14:47.120 Orion's notebook had grown from a small, blue covered book 207 00:14:47.320 --> 00:14:50.840 to a stack of notebooks, each one labeled with a year, 208 00:14:51.679 --> 00:14:55.320 each one filled with his observations and drawings and stories. 209 00:14:56.399 --> 00:14:58.960 He had a system for recording what he saw, a 210 00:14:59.039 --> 00:15:03.159 shorthand that combined sketches and symbols and abbreviations, and he 211 00:15:03.159 --> 00:15:06.320 could flip through the pages and relive any night he chose. 212 00:15:07.000 --> 00:15:09.799 The night he saw his first meteor shower, the night 213 00:15:09.879 --> 00:15:13.480 he found the Andromeda Galaxy with his own eyes, a faint, 214 00:15:13.600 --> 00:15:16.919 fuzzy patch near the constellation Andromeda, two and a half 215 00:15:17.039 --> 00:15:21.240 million light years away. The night the Aurora Borealis appeared 216 00:15:21.279 --> 00:15:24.399 on the northern horizon, a curtain of green and purple 217 00:15:24.480 --> 00:15:27.399 light that danced across the sky for an hour and 218 00:15:27.480 --> 00:15:31.279 then vanished, leaving behind a darkness that felt deeper and 219 00:15:31.399 --> 00:15:35.120 more complete than any darkness he had ever known. But 220 00:15:35.159 --> 00:15:38.080 the notebooks were not enough. Orion wanted to draw the 221 00:15:38.120 --> 00:15:41.240 stars the way Eudora had described them as a map, 222 00:15:41.519 --> 00:15:46.039 a single, complete map of the entire sky, every constellation, 223 00:15:46.639 --> 00:15:51.320 every bright star, every object he'd observed. He wanted to 224 00:15:51.360 --> 00:15:54.440 create something that someone else could use the way Eudora 225 00:15:54.519 --> 00:15:59.200 had used the stars as a guide, a reference, a 226 00:15:59.240 --> 00:16:02.440 way of finding their way in the world. He started 227 00:16:02.440 --> 00:16:05.559 on a winter night, when the sky was clear and 228 00:16:05.759 --> 00:16:10.600 cold and the stars were at their brightest. He spread 229 00:16:10.639 --> 00:16:13.759 a large sheet of paper on the kitchen table, a 230 00:16:13.799 --> 00:16:15.960 sheet he had bought at the art supply shop in 231 00:16:16.000 --> 00:16:19.919 the next town, and he placed his note books beside it, 232 00:16:20.759 --> 00:16:23.559 open to the pages he needed. He had a set 233 00:16:23.600 --> 00:16:27.600 of drawing pencils ranging from hard to soft, and a 234 00:16:27.600 --> 00:16:31.919 compass for drawing circles, and a ruler for drawing straight lines, 235 00:16:32.480 --> 00:16:37.320 and a protractor for measuring angles. He began with Polaris, 236 00:16:38.000 --> 00:16:41.720 as Eudora had begun with him. He placed a small, 237 00:16:41.799 --> 00:16:44.960 precise dot in the center of the paper and labeled 238 00:16:44.960 --> 00:16:49.279 it Polaris. Then he drew the little dipper around it, 239 00:16:49.919 --> 00:16:53.399 the handle curving away to the left, the bowl tilting 240 00:16:53.480 --> 00:16:56.720 slightly to the right, and he marked each star with 241 00:16:56.759 --> 00:17:02.639 a dot and connected them with thin dashus lines. He 242 00:17:02.679 --> 00:17:06.720 measured the position of each star relative to Polaris using 243 00:17:06.759 --> 00:17:10.039 his thumb held at arm's length, and he drew them 244 00:17:10.079 --> 00:17:14.119 at the correct angles and distances, consulting his note books 245 00:17:14.119 --> 00:17:16.960 to make sure he had it right. From the little Dipper, 246 00:17:17.160 --> 00:17:20.759 he moved to the Great Bear, larger and brighter, its 247 00:17:20.799 --> 00:17:24.799 handle curving down toward the horizon. He drew the seven 248 00:17:24.880 --> 00:17:29.319 stars of the dipper, the pointer stars Marrichac and dupet, 249 00:17:29.920 --> 00:17:33.319 and the imaginary line they made to Polaris, and he 250 00:17:33.400 --> 00:17:37.680 labeled each star with its name and its approximate magnitude, 251 00:17:38.119 --> 00:17:42.279 its brightness relative to the other stars. He drew the 252 00:17:42.319 --> 00:17:45.720 faint stars of the Bear's body, the ones that were 253 00:17:45.799 --> 00:17:48.839 harder to see from his village, but that he had 254 00:17:48.880 --> 00:17:53.079 observed on clear nights when the air was dry and still, 255 00:17:53.480 --> 00:17:57.559 and he connected them with dotted lines to complete the constellation. 256 00:17:58.480 --> 00:18:04.240 He worked slowly, carefully, the pencil slowly moving across the paper, 257 00:18:04.359 --> 00:18:08.039 with a soft rhythmic sound that was the only noise 258 00:18:08.079 --> 00:18:11.960 in the kitchen, besides the hum of the refrigerator and 259 00:18:12.000 --> 00:18:15.279 the occasional creak of the house settling in the cold. 260 00:18:15.640 --> 00:18:20.440 The hours passed, and the constellations shifted, as they always did, 261 00:18:20.839 --> 00:18:26.279 rotating slowly around polaris the axis of the sky. Orion 262 00:18:26.480 --> 00:18:29.960 checked his drawings against the real sky, looking out the 263 00:18:30.000 --> 00:18:34.319 window every few minutes, comparing the position of each star 264 00:18:34.480 --> 00:18:40.319 on the paper with its position in the sky, making adjustments, erasing, 265 00:18:40.440 --> 00:18:44.680 and re drawing, working with the patient precision of some 266 00:18:44.799 --> 00:18:48.480 one who knows that accuracy is the most important quality 267 00:18:48.640 --> 00:18:51.720 a map can have. A map that is wrong is 268 00:18:51.839 --> 00:18:55.200 worse than no map at all, Eudora had told him, 269 00:18:55.440 --> 00:18:59.000 because a wrong map leads you astray, and a person 270 00:18:59.000 --> 00:19:02.599 who follows a wrong map is more lost than a 271 00:19:02.640 --> 00:19:06.279 person who has no map at all. The night deepened 272 00:19:06.319 --> 00:19:10.559 around him, The night deepened around him, and the kitchen 273 00:19:10.599 --> 00:19:14.920 grew quieter and stiller. And Orion worked by the light 274 00:19:15.000 --> 00:19:18.519 of a single lamp, its warm glow falling on the 275 00:19:18.559 --> 00:19:22.519 paper in the notebooks, and his hands, which moved with 276 00:19:22.599 --> 00:19:26.200 the steady, deliberate precision of someone who knows that what 277 00:19:26.319 --> 00:19:29.960 he is doing matters, that this is not just a drawing, 278 00:19:30.200 --> 00:19:34.559 but a record, a map, a thing that will outlast him. 279 00:19:35.200 --> 00:19:39.480 He began with great Orion, first the constellation that shared 280 00:19:39.480 --> 00:19:43.079 his name. He had always felt a special connection to 281 00:19:43.160 --> 00:19:47.480 this constellation, not because of the name, which his parents 282 00:19:47.480 --> 00:19:49.759 had given him for reasons that had nothing to do 283 00:19:49.839 --> 00:19:53.799 with stars, but because of the way it looked, bold 284 00:19:53.799 --> 00:19:57.799 and unmistakable, the three bright stars of the belt in 285 00:19:57.880 --> 00:20:02.920 a straight line, the sword below the Nebula glowing faintly 286 00:20:02.960 --> 00:20:07.200 in the sword's middle. He drew the constellation large, spanning 287 00:20:07.200 --> 00:20:09.759 a good portion of the paper, and he drew the 288 00:20:09.799 --> 00:20:13.319 Nebula as a faint, swirling cloud of light, the way 289 00:20:13.359 --> 00:20:16.880 it looked through his binoculars on a clear night. He 290 00:20:16.960 --> 00:20:22.440 drew Cassiopeia, the w shaped queen, and Signus the swan 291 00:20:22.920 --> 00:20:26.799 with its long neck and wide wings, and Lyra, the 292 00:20:26.839 --> 00:20:30.960 small constellation that held Vega, one of the brightest stars 293 00:20:31.000 --> 00:20:35.480 in the sky. He drew Aquilla the Eagle, and the 294 00:20:35.480 --> 00:20:40.640 summer triangle that connected Viga, nedeb and Altaire. And he 295 00:20:40.759 --> 00:20:43.880 drew the Milky Way running through all of them, a 296 00:20:44.000 --> 00:20:46.440 river of light that flowed from one end of the 297 00:20:46.440 --> 00:20:50.920 sky to the other, dotted with dark rifts and bright knots, 298 00:20:51.720 --> 00:20:54.359 just as he had seen it through his binoculars. He 299 00:20:54.519 --> 00:21:00.640 drew Scorpious and Sagittarius low on the southern horizon. And 300 00:21:00.720 --> 00:21:04.680 he drew the Zodiac, the band of constellations that the 301 00:21:04.759 --> 00:21:09.000 Sun and planets followed across the sky, and he drew 302 00:21:09.039 --> 00:21:14.079 the planets as they appeared on that particular night, Jupiter 303 00:21:14.240 --> 00:21:19.359 bright and steady near the western horizon, Saturn pale and 304 00:21:19.480 --> 00:21:24.640 golden higher up, Mars a small ruddy spark near the 305 00:21:24.680 --> 00:21:30.599 eastern hills. He drew Cassiopia next, the w shaped queen, 306 00:21:31.440 --> 00:21:35.839 her five stars forming a distinctive pattern that was easy 307 00:21:35.880 --> 00:21:40.599 to recognize and hard to forget. Eudora had told him 308 00:21:40.640 --> 00:21:44.720 the story of Cassiopia, the queen who boasted of her 309 00:21:44.720 --> 00:21:48.519 beauty and was punished by being placed in the sky, 310 00:21:48.559 --> 00:21:53.240 forced to circle the north Pole forever, sometimes upside down, 311 00:21:53.880 --> 00:21:59.680 sometimes right side up, never at rest. But Orion's grandmother 312 00:21:59.759 --> 00:22:04.200 had told a different story, a story about a fisherman's 313 00:22:04.240 --> 00:22:08.759 wife who watched the sky every night while her husband 314 00:22:08.880 --> 00:22:12.240 was at sea, and who was so faithful in her 315 00:22:12.279 --> 00:22:16.240 watching that the gods placed her among the stars as 316 00:22:16.279 --> 00:22:20.599 a reward. Her w shape a symbol of the watchful 317 00:22:20.680 --> 00:22:26.359 eyes that never closed. He drew Sickness, the swan flying 318 00:22:26.440 --> 00:22:31.400 along the Milky Way, its wings spread wide, its long 319 00:22:31.519 --> 00:22:38.240 neck reaching toward the western horizon. The swan's brightest star, Dneb, 320 00:22:38.599 --> 00:22:41.440 was one of the most distant stars visible to the 321 00:22:41.519 --> 00:22:45.359 naked eye, and Orion had observed it many times through 322 00:22:45.400 --> 00:22:50.079 his binoculars, noting how it shone with a fierce, steady 323 00:22:50.160 --> 00:22:55.200 light that seemed to come from very far away, as 324 00:22:55.240 --> 00:22:59.720 if the star were calling across the void, saying I 325 00:22:59.799 --> 00:23:05.599 am here, I have always been here, I will always 326 00:23:06.240 --> 00:23:12.319 be here. He drew Lyra, small and delicate, with its 327 00:23:12.400 --> 00:23:16.799 brightest star Vega, which was one of the first stars 328 00:23:16.839 --> 00:23:20.240 to appear at twilight and one of the last to 329 00:23:20.359 --> 00:23:25.039 disappear at dawn, and which Eudora called the evening Star, 330 00:23:25.759 --> 00:23:29.039 not to be confused with Venus, which was a planet, 331 00:23:29.799 --> 00:23:33.920 not a star at all, but which served the same purpose, 332 00:23:34.960 --> 00:23:38.160 a bright point of light that marked the transition from 333 00:23:38.240 --> 00:23:41.720 day to night, from the world of the living to 334 00:23:41.839 --> 00:23:44.920 the world of the stars. He drew a quilla of 335 00:23:44.920 --> 00:23:49.640 the Eagle with its brightest star Altair. And he drew 336 00:23:49.680 --> 00:23:54.799 the Summer Triangle that connected Vega, Deneb and Altair, a 337 00:23:54.839 --> 00:23:59.440 great luminous triangle that dominated the summer sky and served 338 00:23:59.480 --> 00:24:04.160 as a land for navigating the constellations around it. Inside 339 00:24:04.200 --> 00:24:07.920 the triangle, the Milky Way ran bright and wide. And 340 00:24:08.000 --> 00:24:11.640 Orian drew it with care, noting the dark rifts and 341 00:24:11.759 --> 00:24:15.880 bright knots, the variations in brightness that he had observed 342 00:24:16.000 --> 00:24:20.119 through his binoculars, and he annotated the drawing with notes 343 00:24:20.240 --> 00:24:23.440 about the best times to observe each feature and the 344 00:24:23.480 --> 00:24:27.960 conditions that made it visible. He worked through the night, 345 00:24:28.720 --> 00:24:32.640 pausing only to stretch his cramped fingers and to refill 346 00:24:32.680 --> 00:24:37.759 his tea. The house was silent, the village was silent, 347 00:24:38.640 --> 00:24:42.839 the sea murmured beyond the rocks, and Oriyan drew the 348 00:24:42.880 --> 00:24:48.720 stars one by one, patient and precise, matching the pattern 349 00:24:48.799 --> 00:24:52.119 on the paper to the pattern in the sky, which 350 00:24:52.160 --> 00:24:55.359 he could see through the kitchen window whenever he looked up. 351 00:24:55.680 --> 00:24:59.960 Orion had a small telescope, a refractor with a three 352 00:25:00.119 --> 00:25:04.160 inch lens, and he used it on clear nights to 353 00:25:04.240 --> 00:25:08.359 observe objects that were too faint for the naked eye. 354 00:25:08.680 --> 00:25:12.880 He had observed the Orion nebula through it, the faint, 355 00:25:13.160 --> 00:25:16.960 swirling cloud of gas and dust where new stars were 356 00:25:17.000 --> 00:25:22.440 being born. And he had observed the Andromeda Galaxy, a faint, 357 00:25:22.680 --> 00:25:26.680 fuzzy patch of light that was actually an attire galaxy 358 00:25:27.039 --> 00:25:31.640 containing hundreds of billions of stars. And he had observed 359 00:25:31.720 --> 00:25:35.559 the rings of Saturn, which were visible through his telescope 360 00:25:35.839 --> 00:25:40.440 as a thin bright line across the planet's disc, and 361 00:25:40.480 --> 00:25:44.640 which made him feel every time he saw them as 362 00:25:44.680 --> 00:25:48.960 if he were looking at something private, something the universe 363 00:25:49.319 --> 00:25:53.119 had not meant for human eyes, but had allowed him 364 00:25:53.160 --> 00:25:58.759 to see anyway. He had observed double stars, stars that 365 00:25:58.880 --> 00:26:02.079 appeared to be single to the naked eye, but that 366 00:26:02.240 --> 00:26:07.119 split into two when viewed through the telescope, two points 367 00:26:07.160 --> 00:26:11.079 of light orbiting each other in a slow, eternal dance. 368 00:26:12.039 --> 00:26:17.359 He had observed star clusters, groups of hundreds or thousands 369 00:26:17.400 --> 00:26:21.279 of stars that had formed together and remained bound by 370 00:26:21.319 --> 00:26:27.200 their mutual gravity. And he had observed variable stars, stars 371 00:26:27.279 --> 00:26:33.519 that changed their brightness over time, pulsing like slow, steady hearts. 372 00:26:34.400 --> 00:26:37.680 And he had recorded all of these observations in his 373 00:26:37.839 --> 00:26:43.400 note books, with dates and times and descriptions and sketches, 374 00:26:44.240 --> 00:26:47.319 building up a record of the sky that was both 375 00:26:47.519 --> 00:26:54.359 scientific and personal, both precise and poetic. The telescope had 376 00:26:54.400 --> 00:26:57.680 been a gift from Eudora, given to him on his 377 00:26:57.880 --> 00:27:02.839 tenth birthday, wrapped in brown paper and tied with string, 378 00:27:04.319 --> 00:27:06.880 And when he had opened it and seen what it was, 379 00:27:07.599 --> 00:27:10.759 he had looked at Eudora and she had looked at him, 380 00:27:11.200 --> 00:27:15.279 and she had said, now you can see what I 381 00:27:15.319 --> 00:27:18.680 have been trying to show you all these years. And 382 00:27:18.759 --> 00:27:22.559 Orion had carried the telescope to the porch and set 383 00:27:22.599 --> 00:27:26.160 it up and pointed it at the sky, and the 384 00:27:26.200 --> 00:27:30.440 first thing he saw through it was the moon, close 385 00:27:30.960 --> 00:27:37.119 and detailed and beautiful, every crater and mountain and valley 386 00:27:37.680 --> 00:27:43.119 visible in sharp relief. And he had gasped, and Eudora 387 00:27:43.400 --> 00:27:47.440 had laughed. And that was the night he decided to 388 00:27:47.559 --> 00:27:51.480 draw the stars, to create a map that would help 389 00:27:51.519 --> 00:27:56.640 others see what he saw. By dawn, the map was 390 00:27:56.720 --> 00:28:03.400 half finished. The northern sky was complete, every constellation drawn 391 00:28:03.680 --> 00:28:09.519 and labeled, every bright star marked, the Milky Way flowing 392 00:28:09.599 --> 00:28:14.559 through the middle like a luminous river. Orion stood back 393 00:28:14.599 --> 00:28:16.960 and looked at it and felt something he could not 394 00:28:17.160 --> 00:28:22.160 quite name, a mixture of pride and humility, the feeling 395 00:28:22.279 --> 00:28:25.920 of having created something that was both his and not his, 396 00:28:27.240 --> 00:28:30.279 something that was based on the work of thousands of 397 00:28:30.400 --> 00:28:35.119 years of stargazers, from the first human who looked up 398 00:28:35.240 --> 00:28:39.960 and named a constellation, to Eudora who had taught him 399 00:28:40.000 --> 00:28:44.319 to see, to him who was now drawing what he 400 00:28:44.359 --> 00:28:48.039 had learned onto paper. He slept for a few hours, 401 00:28:48.519 --> 00:28:52.480