Astronomy and managing sleep

[Guest]

On 15/07/2023 at 04:17, Paz said:

For the last year or so I've been mostly avoiding observing very late in the night having had a heart issue that has motivated me to change a few habits to try and be healthier. I've changed a number of other things lifestyle-wise but getting more sleep has had the most effect on if I feel right. As well as the physical effects of poor sleep, I think it has been a driver of why my memory is not great - often my other half will say "do you remember xyz...?", but often I won't remember it, and since I've been reading through my observing notes recently there's quite a lot I have observed that I don't remember.

A lack of enough sleep has been compounded by the usual other things such as working too hard and looking after the kids when they were younger etc, but I was wondering how do you find astronomy affects you in the short and long term in terms of disrupting sleeping patterns and do you have any tricks to minimise the impact?

Like you i have had to make some changes for heart issues.  Change one was sleep.  Prior to the incident all i needed was 4 to 5 hours sleep, now it is 6 hours.  When you get up at 0430 daily staying up much past 10pm just isnt a thing, neither is weekday observing.  During the fall and winter when it gets dark early i am able to get out for an hour or so.  If i know that i am going to have a clear night on the weekend i try not to wake up before 0600 but that doesn't usually work out since i have been waking up early all my life.  So on those good nights at some point during the day i grab a spot on the couch and try to grab a nap. 

[DaveS]

I'm lucky in that I'm a) retired, 2) an imager, and 3) have an automated obsy.

So I can set up an imaging sequence, check that it's running, and then turn in. I may wake up to shut down the obsy after the run, but I have woken up at 6.30 in winter to shut down, which I can do from my tablet without having to get out of bed.

Lazy? Yup 😂.

[Nigella Bryant]

I've moved pretty much to solar,  observing and imaging in three wavelengths. Always something different to see even during solar minimum. Now it's truly amazing and no sleepless night's.  I also do love observing the planet's when around a decent time and Venus during the daytime. 

[John]

I've been retired now for 12 years and since then late night time sessions have been much easier because I can sleep on for a bit longer in the mornings. By nature I'm happy to go to bed late but don't much relish early starts.

As long as I get 6-7 hours sleep in then I seem to feel OK mostly.

We get enough cloudy nights here that I can catch up on my sleep if I feel I'm falling short 😏

[windjammer]

Spectacular.  Tarantulas on the sun, who knew ?  Any more image details esp first image ?

SImon

[Paz]

10 hours ago, Fegato said:

Kudos to those of you that juggle astronomy with work, I couldn't have done that - I retired early, and only started  astronomy after this and a move to dark skies in Wales. Really I need a full 8 hours sleep, and I don't like the cold much either, so my initial observing phase was limited to winter evenings, and I often found it a struggle. I gradually moved to imaging, and have got to the stage where this is my focus and I have it fully automated (after initial set up - I have a wheel out rig, that I can cover for a few days if needed).  Having said that, I often don't sleep that well when the rig is in action outside, particularly after a late evening getting set up, although I'm getting better at it. 

Despite my focus on imaging, there is certainly something special about being out there in the dark observing - so when the nights draw in I try and get out with binoculars for at least half an hour or so when the skies are clear. I find this relaxing and enjoyable - no fighting equipment, no feeling I have to stay outside to make the most of having spent all that time setting up. 

Anyway, look after your health Paz and everyone else, that's the most important thing.

I think the single best thing anyone can do to enjoy this hobby is retire!... and the next best thing is to relocate somewhere with good skies!

I do the same thing with binoculars if I am short of time - take them out for very short sessions looking at easy objects or scouting out places I will be star hopping around the next time I am out with a scope.

[Paz]

3 hours ago, John said:

I've been retired now for 12 years and since then late night time sessions have been much easier because I can sleep on for a bit longer in the mornings. By nature I'm happy to go to bed late but don't much relish early starts.

As long as I get 6-7 hours sleep in then I seem to feel OK mostly.

We get enough cloudy nights here that I can catch up on my sleep if I feel I'm falling short 😏

I have sometimes thought that our bad weather kind of protects us from overdoing it, I can imagine that soon enough it would be exhausting being out into the early hours night after night!

[Saganite]

26 minutes ago, Paz said:

I think the single best thing anyone can do to enjoy this hobby is retire!... and the next best thing is to relocate somewhere with good skies!

 

On the money Paz, on the money !

I retired  and moved from a large town into a village and changed my sky from Bortle 6 to Bortle 4 .  If only I could have done it sooner....

 

[Saganite]

2 hours ago, Paz said:

I have sometimes thought that our bad weather kind of protects us from overdoing it, I can imagine that soon enough it would be exhausting being out into the early hours night after night!

Having said what I said earlier in this thread, I recall that in that extremely hot spell last year I awoke after a couple of hours feeling too warm, looked out and saw that the sky was clear, so went down and set up in the garden, just after midnight. I spent the whole night until  dawn observing and at about 4 am, the atmosphere was so still I enjoyed the most unbelievable views of Jupiter, with so much detail it was like looking at a close up image from Nasa.  I stayed up and went to bed at the normal time, later that day, with no ill effects, so sometimes a little sleep can be enough.

Edited July 16, 2023 by Saganite

[scarp15]

1 hour ago, Paz said:

I think the single best thing anyone can do to enjoy this hobby is retire!... and the next best thing is to relocate somewhere with good skies!

I do the same thing with binoculars if I am short of time - take them out for very short sessions looking at easy objects or scouting out places I will be star hopping around the next time I am out with a scope.

Oh yes good plan! Then perhaps the next best thing is to just work a little less.  Since the pandemic, I'd had to re-organise my work pattern, which being self employed is varied and transient. However by circumstance rather than intent; I no longer work on a Friday, therefore only between a Monday and Thursday count as potential work days (and not every Monday either), which definitely helps a bit.  This being markedly so if planning for a dark sky trip. 

[Nigella Bryant]

7 hours ago, windjammer said:

Spectacular.  Tarantulas on the sun, who knew ?  Any more image details esp first image ?

SImon

The tarantulas on the sun were imaged with a 127mm acromatic with zwo 178mm camera and G-band filter. Processed with autostakker3, ImPPG and photoshop. The second with a lunt 60mm double stack using the same camera and software but with false colour added. 

[windjammer]

The G filter certainly did its stuff - I'll start saving up for one.  The detail - both images - is v impressive.  But I'm sleepy now!

[bish]

I must admit 10 years ago I would be out most clear nights until the early hours and get up for work. Now  even if there is a SN or comet I wait until the weekend if it meant having to wait out until the early hours. It is partly  because my wife has a physical job and is often exhausted  and I go to bed the same time so I don't disturb her. The sky here is so light polluted I don't go out that much anyway. At a star party I will stop up all night and nap in the day if it is clear.

[Franklin]

On 16/07/2023 at 16:20, Nigella Bryant said:

I've moved pretty much to solar, 

Your images never cease to amaze me and I would say that Baxter himself would be totally impressed and even a little jealous.

[woldsman]

Sleep is a worry - or would be if there were fewer cloudy nights. I have to limit Astro mainly to weekends or holidays. Retirement should help but as others note, the budget will take a hit. Astronomy and healthy sleep are hard to combine if you have work/family commitments and the consequences of poor sleep are serious,

[Paul M]

16 minutes ago, woldsman said:

Astronomy and healthy sleep are hard to combine if you have work/family commitments and the consequences of poor sleep are serious,

That's it in a nutshell.

I'm amongst the rather common group here, the lifelong astronomer that had a hiatus during peak family/work/life. Astronomy is just not compatible with young family and work the next day.

So i returned to the fold about 10 years ago as our son became a young adult and the pace of life slowed. I bought a new scope and all that. But only 3 or 4 years in the MD declared that we were to become foster carers. 

It's unlikely I'll retire before state pension age, about 8 years off for me, and we are timing our inmate's, agewise, to be ready for flying the nest about that same time... The struggle, the renewed struggle, to find astronomy time continues like it's 1999 allover again... 🤪

[jjohnson3803]

On 17/07/2023 at 15:57, woldsman said:

Retirement should help but as others note, the budget will take a hit. 

Which is one reason why I'm still working, although I find myself thinking more and more of chucking it (work) for good. 

 

[Nigella Bryant]

On 17/07/2023 at 21:44, Franklin said:

Your images never cease to amaze me and I would say that Baxter himself would be totally impressed and even a little jealous.

Thanks Franklin, don't mean to high jack the post, just showing what can be done during the day and no sleepless night's, lol.

[John]

17 minutes ago, Nigella Bryant said:

Thanks Franklin, don't mean to high jack the post, just showing what can be done during the day and no sleepless night's, lol.

A lot more targets available at night though 😁

[Nigella Bryant]

15 hours ago, John said:

A lot more targets available at night though 😁

True, but you get tired, lol. Also the sun our nearest star is the most observable dynamic thing in the sky that we can observe up close and personal. Every day there is something different even during times of minimum activity. Granulation, pores, spot's, active regions, prominence, coronal mass ejections, flares, filaments. Can be observed in different wavelengths observing the different layers of it's plasma, etc, etc. 

[StarDuke82]

I’ve never been much of a sleeper ever since I was a child, I would be up till 3-4 am in the morning sleep maybe 2-3 hours and be awake all day. It continues to this very day I am lucky if I get 4 hours of sleep a night. But I usually go out observing from sunset until about 11pm go inside take a nap for 2 hours then wake up again and view my early morning targets and go back inside at sunrise and take another nap for 2 or 3 hours or sometimes go straight into editing images and don’t take a nap until lunch. Sometimes when I do this I get so exhausted and have such eye strain that I can’t go out observing the following night and have to a night of rest. When I am that tired floaters and blurry vision makes it difficult if not impossible to see through a eyepiece. 

[Pete Presland]

Very interesting reading all the comments, i have certainly noticed some changes in recent years to my rection to lack of sleep. 

I am more prone to suffer Migraine Aurora attacks when i have had a lack of sleep, particularly if it has been a couple of nights/mornings in a row. 

Retirement or semi-retirement at 57 is something is something i think about constantly.  

[Ouroboros]

I read somewhere recently that early risers are less likely to suffer from depression than night owls who sleep in.  I was wondering whether amateur astronomers as a group might defy that finding. They always seem to me to be a fairly buoyant, cheerful lot, yet a lot stay up late when the opportunity arises. 

[ScouseSpaceCadet]

On 28/07/2023 at 06:33, Pete Presland said:

Very interesting reading all the comments, i have certainly noticed some changes in recent years to my rection to lack of sleep. 

I am more prone to suffer Migraine Aurora attacks when i have had a lack of sleep, particularly if it has been a couple of nights/mornings in a row. 

Retirement or semi-retirement at 57 is something is something i think about constantly.  

Working less certainly helps! Aged 55 I've dropped to 30 hours over 4 days. Work the numbers and do it if you can. Life is too short.

Edited August 3, 2023 by ScouseSpaceCadet

[Sabalias]

Really interesting thread, thank you for starting it OP.

I'm still in full time (day) work and like to get a full night's sleep whatever the day of the week. As a result my rig gets put to bed in May and doesn't come out again until late August; also, my imaging times are short but get longer as the year progresses (automated but no observatory here so I'm not willing to leave all that expensive kit outside). I'm knocking on the door of early retirement and an aspiration is to move to a quieter part of the country (eventually) where I hope to build a secure set up so that I can leave my sessions running overnight.

Stu