Emotional Astronomy

[Catanonia]

I sometimes kick myself for shedding a Macho tear

It is awesome and puts things into perspective doesn't it.

[dobserver]

I want to wake up all the neighbours and say "You just gotta see this!"

Me too - I keep trying to show them stuff, but they ALL wear glasses and it never seems to work!

[stev74]

Thanks Andy what a great thread to read, you really captured something in your post!! I agree with you and all the others and probably couldn't put it any better. I think the only other thing that gives me more pleasure than looking through my scope is when the kids decide to join me. They are 9 and 10 and the joy is looking at the wonder on their faces and hearing the excitment in their voices when we look at Jupiter, Andromeda or any number of things. Those moments and the time spent is priceless!! :)

Cheers

[albedo0.39]

Great thread andy - and definately aligned with your thoughts. I always think of that phrase

"we.....are passing through history, but this...is history"

If more people took the time to realise just how totally insignificant our brief spark of time we call "life" is against the concept of the life of the world and the universe.. perhaps there would be a lot less conflict.

We are the microbes on ants and not more. We consider ourselves great, but the truly great thing, is (as you mention) to look up and wonder.

[John]

I've really enjoyed reading through this thread and I'm so pleased that I'm not the only one who has these feelings about this hobby

I do try and share it with others now and then and generally I get the same reaction as others have experienced - polite but rather superficial interest. The exception is children through - I'm talking about those in the 5 to 12 years age group I guess - they really seem to be able to "get it". Makes you wonder what happens to people between 12 and adulthood that sort of "brings the blinds down" for so many ........

John

[Astro Adj]

What a great thread. I really enjoyed reading everyones' thoughts on this, and couldn't agree more.

I find that I have a desire to share this hobby with as many people as possible, I feel priveledged to be able to look upon such wonders and sometimes feel that everyone should be able to share in the moment. I feel sad sometimes that really it is only a small pocket of people who are both willing and able to gaze at the wonder that is all around us.

I love the feeling of insignificance that comes from apprecating what we, as people, are in the grand scheme of things. That said, I can appreciate it is a frightening prospect for some people. It's easy to get caught up in our own lives, and dedicate all of our time to getting that bigger house / better job etc. Of course that is the way of the world, and I'm not about to suggest we all stop working in order to keep a 24hour vigil in a field somewhere...but at the same time I think it's nice to be brought back down to Earth once in a while.

Certainly the sharp weapons that nasty problems wield seem to be completely blunted by a good observing session!

[Beulah]

/\ Interesting post, Adrian. I actually know several people who won't study the night sky out of fear - for some reason the Universe terrifies them.

[kniclander]

no offence guys but how about spelling privileged like this -

P R I V I L E G E D

Dan

top speler

[crepitis]

When I get the chance to gaze at the night sky I often think back to when I was a child looking up at the stars when we were camping on the shore of Loch Goil in argyll , when my interest in Astronomy was born and I think how much time has passed in my own mortal terms and how little has changed, 40 years is a long time to me but doesnt even have a starting point in Astronomical terms.

[Macavity]

/\ Interesting post, Adrian. I actually know several people who won't study the night sky out of fear - for some reason the Universe terrifies them.

I must admit to occasional feelings of VERTIGO, while star-gazing at the zenith.

I find it pays to hang on to something... A telescope can come in handy.

[Lowstar]

I was outside the other night when i looked up for a moment to see if the clouds were clearing. I caught a fleeting glimpse of a bright star and it was gone again as the clouds raced overhead. If you consider the light has been travelling through space for thousands of years before it made it through a gap in the clouds for a split second before entering my pupil and finally hitting my retina:icon_eek:.....makes 6 numbers on a saturday night look "simples"!!!

[Beulah]

I must admit to occasional feelings of VERTIGO, while star-gazing at the zenith.

I find it pays to hang on to something... A telescope can come in handy.

That is often the description, when I ask people to describe exactly why they feel that way; similar to looking into a very deep pool or an ocean.

Cosmophobia is very real...

I think it is very difficult not to be awed by Space...for me, ever since I was a child, discovering it is exciting, thrilling and thoroughly awe inspiring.

[lulu57]

I look up and feel part of it: really very connected.

My existence is pretty improbable, so that makes me special, right?

How many other atoms out there have managed to achieve self-awareness?

It's a weird universe and I fit right in.

[TheThing]

Well said!

I often sit and ponder that the iron in our blood came from some exploding star sometime in the distant past.

[ashenlight]

I have really enjoyed this thread and I'm also really pleased and comforted to know that it's not just crazy little old me shedding a tear at the eyepiece at 2am

My other hobby is gardening, and I've always enjoyed being in tune with the planet's changing seasons. From winter to summer, the bird song changes, the behaviour of animals change, and different fruits and vegetables can be sown, tended to as they grow, or brought in to the kitchen at harvest. This cyclical nature of things has always kept me grounded, kept me sane, and when I need it... kept the outside world at bay. I can just escape, get in touch with the earth, feel the muddy ground between my fingers as I earth up potatoes or gently tease out the first Autumn carrots. I can just escape in knowing I am a part of it all. It makes me think of James Lovelock's Gaia concept.

This translate so well into astronomy, for me. The cyclical nature of constellations rising and falling with the changing seasons brings with it comfort and reassurance that no matter how hard things are, things do move forward and move on. Once I see Vega rising above the houses, I know the warmer evenings of Summer are on the way. My first early morning viewing of Orion, earlier this week, signaled in me the anticipation of frosty, foggy autumn mornings and the impending excitement of the festive season. Not to mention the long, crisp winter night skies. The feeling of connectedness is at its highest when I'm at the eyepiece, gazing at a globular cluster, a galaxy, an open cluster, or just browsing the Milky Way. It's all been here before me and will be here after, when I'm long gone. No matter how tough my day has been, what is going on.. I find comfort in knowing that M45 is still there, or my favourite globular will rise in the East. Some people find it really scary when they hear something about the Cosmos.. how big it is, how vast and how far beyond the capabilities of human understanding. For me, that is the most comforting thing. It's bigger than me and I find respite in knowing that I am small in comparison - as are my problems. It's the escapism that I love and the feeling of being connected to the infinite. It touches me on a very deep level, in a way that I can barely comprehend - although I know now that alot of you feel exactly the same

[TheThing]

Yep, what Amanda said! Well put.

[Astro_Baby]

For me - even when scopeless - its a kind of communing with the infinite. Looking up and wondering and seeing, in a very real sense, the hand of God.

We are all made of star stuff is how I see it - we are looking at where we came from and where we shall go eventually. Small wisps of nebula gas - giving us back the answers to our questions.

The sky is also a thread to our ancestors. Most of whats up there would have been around when the dinosaurs where here, when small mammals started to evolve and when we started to walk on the African savannahs.

[albedo0.39]

Nice one Amanda - wouldn't it be the trip of a lifetime to see our sun.... parked in a spaceship just on the edge of the M42 Nebula !

[ashenlight]

now you're talking

[Tim]

Great thread. I often gasp out loud at things that appear in the eyepiece, in dark skies, or through my camera. Anybody that isn't moved, or awe-inspired must have a severe emotional dysfunction I should think.

When we were at Kelling, after the main crowd had left, a few of us had gathered around one of the large dobsonians, and were sharing views of faint objects nobody had seen before. Steve (Albedo0.39)'s missus made a comment about not knowing who was who, and the reply came back, yes, "Astronomy is a great leveller".

It struck me especially at that time, in the group of us, there could have been black or white, fat or skinny, intelligent or ignorant, tall or short, rich or poor, beautiful or ugly, male or female, disabled or able bodied, old or young, good or bad. You just couldnt tell in the pitch black. But there in the dark, under the same stars, the same sky, the same Universe, we were all the same, just people.

What a great hobby! And what a shame people cant mentally turn out the lights for a while. It really helps one to see things clearly.

TJ

[ashenlight]

funny how things become clearer in the dark isn't it? even though we are looking at complex objects, incomprehensibly far away... it's the simplicity of the connection that grabs me. It all becomes so clear, that everything is one and the same, when I'm in the dark looking at objects that once seemed so distant from me.

...I need a sit down.

[albedo0.39]

Top comment TJ - although watching all those folks with ever-so-sexy dim LED's blinking near their scopes and tent (with luminous pegs) along with telecopes you needed ladders to get to, I did feel a tiny bit ignorant

[Rob]

This is why I do it!.. you can detach from everything else... perfect in these hard times

[Saturn1]

Great thread,

I myself have only just begun on the journey of finding what glorious beauty & inspiration lies at the end of a telscope or binos.

It always fills me with wonder to see the great, deep blue/black open skies (when they are there). All the problems of life just pale into insignifigance in the grand scheme of things. To try to explain it to someone other than our little fraternity of friends is not an easy task. I have tried on numerous occassions to explain what it is I see out there to my partner. Yes I see stars, & galaxies, & nebulae etc. But to me, I also see the places that one day hopefully man will go, & not be confined by the forces of grabvity & his own mind. "To boldly go, where no ONE, has gone before" I seem to remember someone saying.

The peace & quiet, the solitude, & the sense of belonging to something far more than we, at this moment in time, still cannot fully comprehend. The feeling & knowing that we all belong to something far more than our little blue planet.

If only all of our minds were as infinate as that which we all can see through our magic little tubes.

[RobH]

Me too Andy.

You put it beautifully.

I find that there's a sort of silence of the soul that comes over me when I'm in the quiet, under the starry skies.

As have many others, I've spent many years in this...I was going to say 'hobby', but it's much more than that.

I've been seriously into imaging since the end of 2006, but have had 40 years of learning the sky as a visual observer before that, and know how far many things are away.

Just occasionally, I look at the sky and it suddenly becomes 3D for me.

The feeling is fantastic

Carol, the infinite and microscopic at the same time sums the feeling up perfectly.

Clear skies to you all.

Rob