Bubble watching

The stars were bright in the night sky last night. How did I know this? Because Bools, my spaniel, wanted to go to the loo in the middle of the night, and as I waited for him to do what he needed to do, I had time to look up at the night sky.

Now for a long time I have seen sort of patterns in bubbles. It started when I used to lay front down in a bubble bath, and because the bubbles were very close to my face I started noticing that each small bubble had a pattern in it, which I found quite fascinating. I asked other people if they could see anything similar, and they just looked at me as if I was off my head. 

For as long as I can remember I have seen a sort of rain effect in the air, which hardly comes straight downwards but mostly goes at a downward slant this way and that. And sometimes I have seen what looks like a small spot of light flying through the air in an arc.

But the most intriguing is the bubbles because I do not see very well at close range, and yet I can see the patterns and colours in bubbles. I also see some small round transparent circles when I am looking at the bubbles, but they are part of my own eyes because they shift and move as my eyes shift and move. 

Back to last night. As I looked up at the dark sky one star in particular caught my attention. Now when I look at sunlight reflected on a surface, the ray of light upon the object creates an effect similar to the bubbles, although the patterns might be slightly different. And the glistening effect of the sun beam at its destination shoots out a sort of explosion of light which is not harsh or solid like a blob would be, but looks like a sort of multi faceted star, which is not a good description at all, but is the best I can give you. 

So I was looking at this one star in particular, and it was sort of twinkling, and then it became lots of different bits twinkling, and then at the top of the star I noticed colour, just little bits, but the star was definitely wearing a coloured hat. And today, when I have looked closely at sunlight on things, the little shafts of light are not only still patterned, but have now developed the colours of the spectrum, all together, in one little drop of light. Wow! 

So I had a search on Wikipedia ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Electromagnetic-Spectrum.svg), and found out that I the colours I am seeing in one individual spot of sunlight are the entire colours of the spectrum in one hit, although there was not much red. Yellow, turquoise, electric blue, purple, they were all there, and very brilliant and pure they were too. 

And the odd thing is that that star up in the sky was showing the exact same behaviour of light as did the very close sun beams I had a look at today. Actually it was the top of my glasses I was looking at, my glasses being half way down my nose because I was doing some knitting and they had slipped down, and as I was looking at our chickens hovering around I had a look at the sun shining on the top of my glasses, and that is when I noticed the colour spectrum. So why did I see part of the colour spectrum up on that star, when my eyesight should not have allowed me to do so. 

The Universe is a wonderful place if we can only stop and have a look, but I really would like someone else to share with me the magic of seeing patterns in bubbles, and the colour spectrum in sunlight. I would also like someone to tell me what I am actually seeing, and why I am seeing it, and also why I have now developed an ability to see the colour spectrum when my eye sight is not so good as it used to be. 

As I say, the Universe is an intriguing place to explore, even if it is playing with bubbles in the bath, or being captivated by colours in a star and on glasses!