recently i had one of my finest views of our own galaxy, looking into
that 'milky way'. this was just lying down with binoculars and
getting a wide view, rather than trying to capture bits in my st80
telescope.

it is true that any direction in the sky yields ever more stars but it
is at this densest part, looking along the plane of of our own galaxy,
that you can get an awesome feel for the scale of our galaxy, the way
you can see stars dimmer and dimmer and hints of stars still dimmer in
the distance, so that a gently light comes to us as if from a
background.

I know it's a regular view for astronomers, but now and then (well,
regularly!) it hits home again, this is all real, not items of human
abstraction in a star catalogue or a textbook, not something to just
look at and smile without meaning, but real - out there, each point a
blazing star and billions more unseen.

astronomy can't be "just a hobby", it's too profound!