Goodbye, Bruno — our Dog Star

This site is named astrohusky — for Bruno, my Siberian husky of thirteen years, my companion at the telescope through every cold, clear night. Today he left us. A goodbye, and a thank-you for the name.

This site is called astrohusky. Today I have to tell you why.

In 2013, a small, loud, impossibly fluffy husky puppy walked into our home and decided he was in charge. He was right. For the next thirteen years, Bruno ran the house, the yard, and most of all, me.

Bruno as a Siberian husky puppy, 2013 (photo: Wrede Fotografie)

He was a husky in every glorious, exhausting way — a mind entirely his own, an opinion about everything, and the voice to deliver it in full surround-sound. The woos. The howls. The long, indignant arguments about dinner being late. The best sound in the world was the one he made when I came through the door: that rising, talking “wooo-wooo” that meant — you’re back, finally, sit down, let me tell you about my day. I would give anything to be late for dinner one more time and hear it.

Young Bruno leaping up to greet Nirmal in a green field, 2014

He was an escape artist and a small-time thief. A husky doesn’t really run away from you — he runs ahead, certain you’ll want to come too. More than once that meant Bruno trotting off across the field with one of my tools in his mouth — a lens cap, a cable, a glove — glancing back to make sure I’d noticed. I always noticed.

Bruno lying beside a thoroughly shredded paper roll, looking unrepentant

Bruno on a walk, pausing to look back over his shoulder under a wide open sky

And on the cold, clear nights, he was my company. Astrophotography is mostly waiting in the dark and the cold — and Bruno, built for exactly that, would settle into the snow beside the mount while the camera gathered starlight, perfectly content, perfectly there. He didn’t care about galaxies. He cared about being next to me under the open sky. Every photo in this gallery was taken with him a few feet away.

That is why this place carries his name. The paw print in the logo is his. And the little gold star tucked beside it is Sirius — the brightest star in our whole sky, the one the ancients called the Dog Star. I didn’t plan that. It seems I built him into the logo long before I knew I’d need a place to keep him.

Older Bruno resting in the grass by a brick wall, looking at the camera

Bruno left us today, at thirteen. The house is far too quiet, and there’s a spot beside the telescope that will never be filled the same way again.

Bruno resting in the snow by the house in January 2026, one of his last winters

But the next time the night is cold and clear and I carry the gear outside, I know exactly where to look. Sirius will be there — low and bright and impossibly blue-white, the way he liked his nights. My shadow. My Dog Star. Right beside me, the way he always was.

Goodbye, Bruno. Thank you for the woos, the chaos, the stolen tools, and the thirteen years. Thank you for the name.

Wooo. 🐾