Researching into stargazing at an emotional level

[mikeDnight]

2 hours ago, F15Rules said:

 but I realised I wouldn't get out and set up properly for c 20mins..so I just went to watch more TV!

I think I've detected the problem Dave. It's your set-up. What you need is a high end grab and go in the 100mm range that can be set up in a matter of two or three minutes. I run a Takahashi rescue for unloved or retired Takahashi telescopes and could always find a place for your FS128, free of charge to such an outstandingly fine fellow as yourself, if its becoming a burden. 

[badhex]

Hello and welcome to SGL - great thread. I don't have much to add that has not already been said, but I do want to reiterate a couple of keys points that others have made.

The last few years have been personally quite difficult for me from a mental health perspective, and certainly I have identified that stargazing is one of the things which helps with that. The zen-like feeling of a quiet night, being disconnected from everything and engaging directly with light which has travelled untold distances to be captured by my telescope and dance on my eye is unlike anything else. Even in a bustling capital city with night time noise and light pollution, it's still possible - even easy - to shut all that out when concentrating purely on the skies. 

The other key point made very eloquently by @SuburbanMak  and others is the feeling of scale and where one fits into that. On the one hand, the universe is so vast that it helps to put our individual problems and life challenges into perspective; on the other, we can think about how incredibly fortuitous it is that each individual - or even life as a whole - exists as they do, how many chance events had to happen in a certain way.

My favourite summary of this feeling is Carl Sagan's "Pale Blue Dot" - specifically the passage in which he describes earth from the viewpoint of the Voyager 1 spacecraft, captured in an image he encouraged the NASA team to take. If you haven't read/heard this, I highly encourage you to. There are some YouTube videos with him narrating that excerpt which are lovely, but here is the text version:

https://www.planetary.org/worlds/pale-blue-dot

[SuburbanMak]

On 30/01/2022 at 16:30, Zermelo said:

Yes, this can turn a late night into a very late night.
If a session has gone well, you can come in at 1 a.m. still buzzing, re-check some objects to see if you really did get them, check in on the forum to see who else has been out, still not ready for bed ...

 

Yes! I Find this too - another hour or two can easily skip by that way. 

[JamieQ]

On 29/01/2022 at 12:47, SuburbanMak said:

Post-session Euphoria

An interesting aspect I haven't realised up until now. 

 

On 29/01/2022 at 12:47, SuburbanMak said:

When we look at the 60 million year old fossilised light reaching us from a galaxy that’s not even where we’re looking anymore, the vast majority of the mass, the stuff, that we’re seeing is essentially dead, without consciousness.

Knowing such facts clearly enhances your experience and impresses the mind—perhaps education is a component to enhancing the experience of stargazing for others less versed in the subject.

 

On 30/01/2022 at 12:18, F15Rules said:

Oh, yes..in no particular order..

Might set up be one? Would the labour of having to bring out equipment be enough to stop you some nights?

 

On 30/01/2022 at 15:49, PeterW said:

A friend found the following product, not sure how it would help?

https://www.bathandbodyworks.com/p/stargazing-meditation-body-lotion-026129470.html

Very unexpected! But interesting that it is a product. I wonder what stargazing smells like...

 

Thank you all again for your input! I'm hearing some really great and inspiring stories, and they're already showing influence in my project. I still have a long way to go, but I will be sure to keep this community updated with how it turns out in the coming months.

[mikeDnight]

When I was in my late teens, I'd look forward all week to Friday night, as Friday night was when I went to a fellow observers observatory. Derek was my mentor of sorts. He was a variable star observer, and his observatory was nothing grander than a small garden shed which housed a pair of Swift 16 X 70 pier mounted binoculars. I'd usually arrive around 7.30pm, spend several hours finding messier objects and various other targets of interest, interspersing sessions with coffee breaks. Usually I'd arrive home between 1am and 2am, then try and sneak back out again with my 12 X 60 binoculars on their tall home made wooden fork mount and tripod without disturbing my parents. Once set up on the back patio I would try and find every object that Derek had previously shown me that night. The thrill of success was intoxicating. Back in 1980 every Messier object that dared to rise above my local horizon was easy pickings for my 60mm binoculars and my young eyes. My confidence as an observer rapidly grew and I felt like I was part of a privileged class of very special people - the Stargazers.  I prefer the term Stargazer to amateur astronomer, as in my case I rarely do anything with a scientific purpose; I'm just here for the fun ride. Comets were my thing for the first 20 years of my hobby, and I would follow and plot the path of each one that came within the range of whatever instrument I had at the time in my Norton's Star Atlas. Then almost overnight my interests changed. For someone who avoided the Moon and had little interest in the planet's, my astro polarity flipped. I can't be certain what the cause of the change was, but I've now spent more years observing the planet's and our Moon than I did comets and fuzzywuzzies, but with equal zeal and enthusiasm. Double stars could so easily be my  passion for the next 20 years if I let them get hold of me, and if I'm lucky enough to stay the distance. I'm 60 in three days!  But I love this hobby with just as much passion as i did when I started out.  Couldnt imaging anything better as a lifetime hobby.

Edited February 1, 2022 by mikeDnight

[PeterW]

I agree that ones choice of targets and equipment change with the years. I had had aperture for years and thought binoculars were for “amateurs”, not so now!

I haven’t yet been attracted  to double stars, maybe it’s an acquired taste… like whisky?

Peter

[cajen2]

8 hours ago, PeterW said:

I haven’t yet been attracted  to double stars, maybe it’s an acquired taste… like whisky?

Peter

I seem to have acquired a taste for both.....😆

[mikeDnight]

14 hours ago, PeterW said:

I agree that ones choice of targets and equipment change with the years. I had had aperture for years and thought binoculars were for “amateurs”, not so now!

I haven’t yet been attracted  to double stars, maybe it’s an acquired taste… like whisky?

Peter

I acquired a liking for whisky quite a while ago, purely for medicinal purposes of course. If I think i might be a chance of getting  a sore throat I'll have a whisky, and I don't get a sore throat. And if I have a sore throat I'll have a whiskey or two and nolonger care about the sore throat. It's a miracle substance!

I think I've always had a love for binoculars and wide field scopes. Strangely the aperture bug never really bit me. I think that was because of the book Starlight Nights, The Adventures of a Stargazer, where the author Leslie Peltier used relatively small aperture refractors for most of his life and did great things with them. I suppose that book made me content with my lot.

As for double stars, I think its the beauty of the contrasting colours that appeal. Measuring position angles and separations may also be both fun and addictive too, but I imagine it could get costly as I'd probably want to reacquire another 6" Tak. 

[jjohnson3803]

Although I was interested in science when I was about 10 years old, it was the aesthetics of astronomy that hooked me - colors, patterns, brightness of different stars - and then more deeply after seeing color pics of objects like nebulae and galaxies.  I loved the natural beauty long before I got my undergraduate degree in astronomy and studied things like stellar evolution and galactic structure.    Luckily, I grew up in an area which had minimal light pollution at the time, so I actually could see hundreds of stars naked eye.

Same thing applied when I had marine aquariums - my smattering knowledge of marine biology is minuscule compared to my appreciation for the colors and forms of fish and corals.

As I get older, I'm coming somewhat full circle- I still study astronomy textbooks and papers on arxiv.org, but I find I can be quite content just stepping outside and looking at the stars.  I feel a connection of some kind there, although I wouldn't really know how to describe or quantify it.

[Paz]

I'm a visual observer and although I never do purely naked eye observing I will often in a session stand by my scope and just look up and think.

I'm not as interested in the aesthetics of a nice view as I am interested in thinking about what I am looking at - the huge distances, sizes, speeds, forces, temperatures and all the weird things that happen up there that we don't understand.

It is a thought provoking experience - having time on your own in the dark and the silence (and also, unfortunately, the freezing cold which I hate!) , wondering what I am looking at, wondering if anyone else on the planet (or any other planet) is also looking at the same objects I'm looking at, seeing a place you know you can never go to, it makes me realise how inconsequential and yet lucky we are in the scheme of things and how important it is to make the most of the brief opportunities we have. Soon enough we'll be a silent memory and soon enough after that there will likely be no way of knowing we ever existed and the universe will go on.

[ScouseSpaceCadet]

I can only echo the thoughts of previous posters.

The night sky brings with it a huge fascination and with it many questions to ponder. For instance, where do we come from? Where are we going? Is there life out there? Is there a life of sorts after this one?

Astronomy may be the only hobby that straddles science, philosophy & spirituality as although so many questions have been answered, many more remain and often, discoveries lead to new questions.

Looking up somehow makes one realise they're miniscule, an infinitesimal piece of something unfathomably grand.

There is beauty in the universe and the more one learns, the more beautiful and amazing the objects observed become. 

I've yet to discover another practical pursuit that stimulates the mind while simultaneously being a hugely relaxing and contemplative experience.

Camping at a dark site just taking in the breathtaking view aided by simple binoculars and a comfy chair, really does clear a clouded mind. Often in my urban yard, I will take a break from telescopic observing, relax back in the chair and simply look up at the sky. Even in a city there is peace to be found.

 

 

Edited February 10, 2022 by ScouseSpaceCadet