An Amateur Astronomers A-Z

[Gfamily]

A for Astronomy – A hobby with which people can enjoy the night sky, the moon, planets and stars. A hobby that can be done for free, but rarely is.

B for Betelgeuse – A star that threatened to do something really interesting for a while, but didn’t

C for Comet C/2019 Y4 – A comet that threatened to be really impressive for a while, but probably won’t

D for Dark Skies – A condition that we would love to enjoy, as we’re having a few clear nights, with fewer planes in the sky, but we’re all stuck at home, so we can’t go and find these dark skies.

E for Evenings – stretching longer and longer as we move towards the Summer.

F for Fornax – a constellation that’s near, umm somewhere. I think I knew something interesting about it – didn’t one of the Hubble Deep Field images come from Fornax? Anyway, not visible from here.

G for Galileo – one of the first people recorded as having used a telescope to look at the night sky.  As it ended up in his House Arrest, clearly it didn’t work out well for him either, but we have something in common.

H for Herschel – the first professional female astronomer, famed for discovering many comets. Also her brother and nephew, who worked on a catalogue of objects; obsessives can make it their mission to see all of them.

I for InfraRed – a part of the electromagnetic spectrum (discovered by William H) for which you need to travel to high altitude or into space to use for astronomy – well, maybe next year!

J for Jupiter – the king of the planets; it’s currently visible in the early morning light, so a great alternative to your insomnia.

K for Kepler – Borrowed someone else’s theory and used someone else’s data. One of the first modern scientists.

L for Light – the most precious gift sent from astronomical objects to us observers across billions of miles. It gets lonely though, because it doesn’t hesitate to join up with lots and lots of our human made light when traversing the last 60 km or so.

M for Magnification – the thing that most non-astronomers think is important, Oooh! x625

N for Night-time – when we practice our dark arts; they say practice makes perfect – well, we’re still practicing.

O for Occultation – a phenomenon when one object obscures the light from another, for example, when a planet or asteroid blocks the light from a star.  Most often occurs with clouds.

P for Pluto – used to be a God, then a Planet, then a cartoon dog, and then (controversially) not a Planet any more. We used to have proper controversies in Astronomy: the nature of the spiral nebulas, the Big Bang vs Steady State, proper controversies. So maybe P is for Proper controversy instead.

Q for Questar – a brand of telescope for people who don’t know the meaning of “Oh, isn’t that quite expensive for a hobby?” No, that does NOT mean people like us; we can justify every penny we’ve spent on Astronomy.

R for Refractor – the best type of telescope (runs off to get popcorn)

S for Stars – strangely, it’s almost the case that the least interesting thing in amateur astronomy is a single star – we love them in the plural and will spend a fortune on GOTO systems so we can see them in binaries, asterisms, open clusters, globular clusters and galaxies, but a single star by itself – just a dot.

T for telescope – a device for taking light that has travelled free across millions of kilometres and compressing it into an image that we can then inspect with a magnifying lens. Like an insect on a pin.

U for Uranus – prime evidence for us astronomers' sense of humour

V for Venus – generally the answer to the question “what’s that really bright star I can see in the evening, is it the Pole Star?”

W for Cassiopeia – don’t argue.

X for X-Ray – it always comes down to either X-Ray or xylophone, and although Sir Patrick played a xylophone we don’t use them in Astronomy.

Y for Year – the time period based on the Earth’s orbit around the Sun. Quite straight forward,  which is why we have Sidereal Year, Tropical Year, Anomalistic Year, Heliacal Year, Julian Year, Gregorian Year, Sothic Year, and several others.

Z for Zodiac – the astrologers’ 12 star signs through which the sun passes through the year. We’ve moved on now, so we now have 13 constellations through which the sun passes in a year. So clearly we’re better, like that bit from Spinal Tap.

Edited April 10, 2020 by Gfamily

[Swoop1]

All you have to do now is get Big Bird and The Count to relay this to the smalls on Sesame Street.

[banjaxed]

Thank you for a very entertaining read.