the pleasure and pain of astronomy - two very quick anecdotes

[stevetynant]

The Pain

Last night I came home from work with beautiful clear skies and even though I'd been out for a session the night before I planned to take my maps out, get a coffee and just spend an hour or so looking up to see what I could discover - stars were twinkling in the heavens- a few light sporadic clouds were high in the sky but nothing to worry about. Did a few chores around the house, had dinner - then in the middle of dinner a power cut - complete blackness everywhere. After getting everything sorted in the house- putting up candles which made the place look like something from a Dickens novel, rushed upstairs to get my gear - this was my chance to get into the front garden and view the Southern skies - no street lights, no security lights - fantastic- had to be quick surely it wouldn't last long (wrong it lasted to the early hours of the morning and woke us all up in a blaze of light where we'd not turned any switches off) - open the front door like a child on Christmas morning couldn't wait - Complete cloud out nothing to be seen but the faint Orange glow emanating from the SW and Cardiff arrrggghhhhhh.

The Pleasure

On Monday a friend of mine in work, who has been on to me for a while to take him out observing and I, finally took a chance and drove from work up into lower Mid Wales just outside Brecon for an evening - as we got closer I was on the verge of turning back as we drove through several fog banks but he was adamant he could still see the Plough above us in the darkness and as we'd already spent over an hour driving we just made our way onto the spot on the mountain where I usually go. Good call - the skies were fantastic - as I set up my scope and our eyes got adapted to the dark he just kept telling me how amazing it was and how he'd never realised there were so many stars in the sky. Three and a half hours flew by - he'd never had a look through a scope before and was blown away by Jupiter, Orion, Andromeda all the usual show stoppers that now I've started to talke for granted a little- we even found the crab nebula which was a faint smudge against even these dark skies which he was quite stunned by.

In the morning back in work I'd asked him if he had thawed out from the night before and he told me that even though he'd gone to bed just after midnight he didn't get to sleep until after 3 in the morning he just kept playing everything back in his head - trying to remember the sights and constellations that he'd never seen before. It kinda brought a lump to my throat - when you start taking things for granted because they have become familiar sometimes you've just gotta take a step back and try and imagine starting all over again and just marvel at whats up there.

Steve

[michael.h.f.wilkinson]

Great pair of anecdotes. Sums up the pleasure and pain very nicely

[KevUU]

Really nicely put always nice to give yourself space in a session to just go "wow" a bit

[Bart]

Nice , good story, I'd enjoy someone telling me they stayed up replaying things. It's the wonder of it all that captures us, isn't it??

Barry