Don’t waste these Butler October nights. This is still one of the great times of the year for stargazing.

You can comfortably lie back on the ground and gaze upon the stars. The sky is dominated with autumn constellations like Pegasus and Andromeda, but in the west there are still some summer star patterns that are reluctant to leave the evening sky.

Best of all, you can start your astronomical adventures earlier in the evening and not deprive yourself of your beauty sleep, not that it will do yours truly any good.

It’s a great experience any time of the year to lie back under the stars, especially on a hilltop or somewhere in the middle of a really flat field.

Of course, if you can get away from at least some of the heavy city lighting, the celestial show is even more fabulous. You become one with the universe … OK, that’s stretching it a bit, but without a doubt lying back under the stars can sure give one a fresher perspective on things. Problems at work and school go away for awhile, absorbed in the starry skies!

With a little more relaxation you can imagine yourself on a spaceship traveling through the heavens. As a matter of fact, you are! Everybody and everything on this planet are aboard spaceship Earth, hurtling at tremendous speeds in all directions.

First off, spaceship Earth is always shifting around internally. In fact, all of the continents of the Earth are drifting, some up to eight inches a year. North America is drifting westward from Europe at the pace of two to three inches a year. And, of course, we have occasional earthquakes and volcanoes.

That’s nothing, though, compared to the movement the entire spaceship Earth experiences. Even though you can’t feel it, the Earth is spinning on its axis at a speed of faster than 1,000 mph. Good thing the Earth’s moon is our traveling companion in space, because without our lunar friend and its gravitational pull, the Earth would rotate three times faster than that. Instead of 24 hours, our day would be only eight hours! You’d think we’d get dizzy!

Evidence of Earth’s rotation is how the stars relentlessly move together in a mass toward the west, and also how they appear to spin around Polaris, a star shining above the Earth’s North Pole. Oh, and as long as I’ve brought up the North Pole, keep in mind that Earth’s axis between the north and south is also wobbling in a 26,000-year cycle.

We’ve only just begun though! Along with our 1,000 mph plus rotation speed, we’re cranking along in orbit around the sun at faster than 64,000 mph, or about 19 miles a second.

But you also have to get your brain around the reality that the entire solar system and the private star we call our sun are zipping along in a huge orbit around the center of our own spiral shaped Milky Way at faster than 600,000 mph. Better hope there’s not a galactic cop minding a speed trap in our home galaxy!

Now if that’s not enough motion for you as you lay on your back taking in the stars, astronomers now believe that our entire Milky Way galaxy is cruising through this part of the universe at faster than 1.3 million mph! Have you ever thought to yourself, “I’m going nowhere?” Nothing could be farther from the truth!

Mike Lynch is an amateur astronomer and professional broadcast meteorologist for WCCO Radio in Minneapolis and is author of the book, “Pennsylvania Starwatch,” available at bookstores and at his website www.lynchandthestars.com.