It only took a few minutes for the night sky to bring ease to the old sailor. The night sky was so dark here that the sky was dense with stars, and a streaking Milky Way made a cloudy near-vertical streak across the indigo sky. He looked to the highest, brightest star in the sky he could see, and pointed the telescope at it. The telescope was a refraction type, and reasonably powerful. It made the identification of the bright blue, flat star of Achernar fairly easy. Mikkel took out his pad of plain white paper, and drew the star at the top, and labeled it accordingly. Looking through the telescope again, he began to draw the other stars of the constellation Eridanus, the great river in the Southern sky. By freehand he attempted draw the major stars of the serpentine river to scale.<br/><br/>He then moved to Aquarius, pouring her water into Eridanus. He was just starting on the chart when he heard Rachel’s voice in the ladder well, and her footfalls on the steps. Quickly he tried to hide his amateur chart; nothing good could come of her discovering how much of an astronomy nerd he was.<br/><br/>“Ja,” he answered her. “Ja, I am up here. I am using the telescope. Do you need something?”