"On a clear night, from the proper vantage, watching constellations emerge over Cherry Springs is like watching a freshly exposed photograph sink into a bath of developer, slowly becoming known to the eye. Pam pointed the telescope towards Jupiter, which had risen over the east end of the field. The four largest moons of Jupiter – Io, Europa, Ganymede and Callisto – were clearly visible through the lens. Galileo discovered these moons in 1610, in the skies above Padua. They were the first celestial bodies proven to be orbiting something other than Earth. With my face still pressed into the telescope, I gasped.  The US at night, 2012. Photograph: Planet Observer/Getty Images/Universal Images Group Pam laughed. “Usually when people look through the telescope, I point out the big ‘wow’ items, like the planets, Saturn and Jupiter, some of the clusters,” she said. “Everybody looks at them and goes, ‘Oh, my God.’ They go, ‘Is that real?’”