Celestial Time Machine

This is an August 8th, 2018 snapshot of the night sky over Southern Utah. It's important to nail down the date & time because the time-delay of light from the planets varies, as they orbit the sun. But, for the stars, this look into the past is very consistent. The starlight from Spica, for instance, reaching the eyes of some ancient human, was 250 years old, the same age it would be for someone observing it tonight.

And, that's the crazy thing about the stars. They aren't as they appear! Years have gone by since the light left the surface of the star, by the time you see it! In some cases thousands of years. There are even a few very faint, fuzzy objects, that you might catch, on a very dark night, in a sky far from city lights, that are millions of years in the past! For instance, the Andromeda Galaxy [not included on the map].