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The Internet is amazing, not that I’m telling you anything you don’t already know. It’s just that I’m constantly reminded of it.

By posting a website — something that requires minimal resources and expertise — one is stepping onto a world stage and becoming available to anyone with access to the Internet. The “www” prefix says it all — truly a world wide web spanning our entire planet.

When I created and posted my Stargazer website in 2002, I knew, yet didn’t fully grasp, the scope of what I was doing. But in the past 7 years, I’ve heard from people all over the world.

Just within the past week, I received emails from people in two far away places — Eric and Tristan, a father and his teenage son who live in Johannesburg, South Africa, and Renas, a Kurdish Iraqi. They found my website and email address from Internet searches. And at their request, they now receive the free email version of this column along with others around the U.S. and the world.

Eric and Tristan first emailed me last year with a question about colliding galaxies — an inquiry that inspired a Stargazer column. They’re now asking about looking for communications from other life in the cosmos, and I see another column in their query. (I get many column ideas from readers’ so don’t hesitate to write.)

This father and teenage son exemplify another thing I love about amateur astronomy — it cuts across the generations, being an interest that can be shared by all ages.

Renas first contacted me in 2006, inquiring about my *Learning the Night Sky* book. A 22-year old just completing a degree in geology, he and some friends had recently organized the Amateur Astronomers Association of Kurdistan. In one email he sent a photo of the Iraqi National Observatory showing damage done, according to Renas, by Iranian and U.S. air strikes in earlier times—a sad reminder of the longstanding and tragic conflicts in Iraq.

In last week’s email Renas said he is coming to the U.S.— and specifically to Texas — for graduate study in geology. After spending the summer in Houston improving his English, he hopes to enter the University of Texas at Austin in the fall. So I may get to meet him and even take him out to our local astronomy club’s observatory. A small world indeed, and all thanks to the Internet.

• Sky Calendar.

* June 15 Mon.: The Moon is at 3rd quarter.

* 19 Fri. morning: Mars is the upper left of much brighter Venus with the crescent Moon further to their upper left, all low in the east before dawn.

* 21 Sun.: Summer solstice.

* 22 Mon.: The Moon is new.

* 29 Mon.: The Moon is at 1st quarter.

* July 2 Thu. noon: Midpoint of the year 2009.

* 3 Fri.: Earth is at aphelion, its farthest from the Sun in its elliptical orbit.

* 4 Sat. evening: Scorpius’ brightest star Antares is just to the left of the bright gibbous Moon.

•Naked-eye Planets. (The Sun, Moon, and planets rise in the east and set in the west due to Earth’s west-to-east rotation on its axis.) Evening: Saturn, high in the west, sets after midnight. Morning: Jupiter is the brightest object in the south; “morning star” Venus and much fainter Mars are low in the east; Mercury, lower in the east at dawn, is at its best June 18.

Stargazer appears every other week. Paul Derrick is an amateur astronomer who lives in Waco. Contact him at 918 N. 30th, Waco, 76707, (254) 753-6920 or paulderrickwaco@aol.com. See the Stargazer Web site at stargazerpaul.com.