[Raybot (Ray) (Ray)]

With a lot of the Eastern seaboard blanketed by cloud, I thought I'd share a recent news story about astronaut Michael Collins, who piloted the Apollo 11 command module alone while messrs Armstrong & Aldrin walked the moon for the first time. Hope it stirs the imagination enough to see you through the grey nights......

'You were a quarter of a million miles away from home though.

Yes, you’re a long way away but the thing that most impressed me about being in lunar orbit – particularly the times when I was by myself – was that every time I came round the backside of the Moon, I got to a window where I could watch the Earthrise and that was phenomenal. And in addition to that, I got to look at the universe out there with a very different perspective and a very different way than anyone had before.

What I found was that the number of stars was just so immense. In fact I couldn’t pick up individual stars, it was like a sheet of light. I found that fascinating because it changed my ideas about how we think about the Universe.'