On Astronomy and Stargazing

Background

For years, one of the hobbies that has really defined my life is astronomy and stargazing. I have a nice telescope and I love spending time alone in the dark, straining to see what is out there. I've got a really nice set of eyepieces, I've worked to keep my mirror clean, I've flocked the inside of the tube, I've added a computer fan for temprature equalizaiton, and more. Suffice it to say, I love trying to see wee little faint fuzzy things in the sky.

Like many of my hobbies, this one waxes and wanes with the passage of time. Even when it's in its waning phase, if I can get myself out there, I have a blast. Which sounds weird. Because who wants to stand out in the middle of the night, in the dark, to go struggle to see little flecks of light.

For a good while, I spent a lot of time working on teaching myself to sketch at the eyepiece. I have a dobsonian telescope that cannot track anything and the sky moves shockingly fast (15 degrees per hour doesn't sound like much, but that's one degree every four minutes!), so the only way to document what I see is with a pencil and paper. And I'm not at all an artist. And lots of things in the night sky are clusters of hundreds of distinct stars. But, I've produced some passably OK sketches and also learned that spending the time to slow down and really scrutinize what I'm seeing taught me to be a much better observer.

A sketch of the type Ia supernova SN2022hrs in NGC 4647

I also have done some fun things like variables star observations, calculating the distance to NGC 4647 based off my estimate of SN2022hrs (I was within about 15% using no fancy equipment other than the 'ol MK1 eyeball without putting in any effort to actually time the peak properly!), and managed to track down some absurdly distant quasars (my record is S5 1803+78 an absurd 6.4 Gly away, during a flare-up).

Today

Despite all that, I find myself currently in a waning period for astronomy. I'm not really sure why. All I've done lately is one outreach event for my coworkers, which they seemed to enjoy. I missed most of the glorious winter observation period. Here, summertime observing is hard: it doesn't get dark until late; even sitting perfectly still, it's impossible to not get sweaty; swarms of mosquitoes; katydids calling so loudly my ears ring when I go back inside; and enough moisture in the air to ruin the transparency and exacerbate the light pollution from the city. Winter, on the other hand, is refreshingly cool, I don't have to stay up too late, and often brings with it extremely good transparency that dampens the light pollution somewhat. Spring can be tough: early spring/late winter, there's so much pollen in the air it's bad for both my lungs and my telescope. The often erratic weather swings often make the skies quiver and quake. And, worst of all, the objects that are best-placed in the sky for observing are things that suffer the worst from light pollution!

For some reason, I really struggled to drag myself outside at night these past few months. And it's not like I've been doing anything better that stargazing, instead. I guess something wasn't quite feeling right, for some reason. Or maybe I just felt like ruminating about things outside of my control was better for me. The few times I did try and get out, the sky rapidly clouded over after only an hour or two, even though that wasn't forecast.

As I write this, I'm sitting, staring at my telescope, wondering if I should try to go outside tonight. It's fairly clear, but the transparency is rather mediocre. While it's rather pleasant right now, because of the storm last night, it's going to be brutally humid once it cools off a little bit more. And I'm almost certainly going to have issues with dew. The sky looks like the kind of sky that will begin to cloud over shortly after it gets dark.

I think maybe I'll go tomorrow, but I'm also going to a birthday party. Maybe later this week. Who knows.

I'd like to get out again, sometime, but for now, I guess my telescope will continue to live inside.

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