Two stars in the handle of an inverted dipper of four stars in the cup, plus another: the seven stars of the Pleiades. I’ve never been able to look straight at them and see them all clearly before. Going outside near Otorohanga in New Zealand near midnight, the Milky Way was also visible as layer upon layer of stars, from the blue white points of Sirius and Procyon like mature glowworm larvae to constellation-drawing stars to sand grains and silt, all the way to the southern cross.

The brightest skyglow occured when Venus was about to set in the west and went behind a cloud.

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