Ahead was an opening in the trees, and the memory of what I saw in it still brings a lump to my throat after all these years. The opening was full of stars. As I got closer, I saw the dark silhouette of a dozen or so people huddled over their telescopes against the backdrop of the brilliant glow of the Milky way in the constellation Sagittarius, the Archer. Sagittarius looks more like a teapot than an archer, and that's how most stargazers recognize it these days. But even that image doesn't work for most members of the latest generations.
Tea comes in bags now.
Not too many people use teapots anymore. They are astronomical objects like star clusters and gaseous nebulae that are out beyond our solar system. Sagittarius is in the direction of the center of the galaxy where the Milky Way is densest with stars and the hydrogen gas they are formed out of. In binoculars it is a small, round fuzzy spot. In my telescope, it exploded into a ball of countless small stars.