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New Hobby: Practical Astronomy
Jan. 22nd, 2010 05:44 pmYou know, quite apart from any science, the idea of diamond seas on Neptune is just totally brilliant.
I’ve picked up a couple of books on stargazing. I’m terrific at armchair astronomy—I could tell you about binary star systems, how to get a supernova, the probable ages and classifications of various stars, and how black holes fuck up EVERYTHING.
But damned if I can find more than three constellations in the sky.* Hell, I only just recently realized just how the phase of the moon correlates to where it is in the sky at any given time. I couldn’t tell you Venus from an airplane.
And it occurred to me recently that, since I tend to stay awake all night anyway, astronomy’s a perfect hobby.
So I’m studying sky maps, waiting for the sky to clear up,** and looking up astronomical clubs or societies in Salt Lake. I’m also probably going to check out the Bad Astronomer’s guide to telescopes, see if I can’t find a good one.
It’s one way to get me out of the bat cave.
*Four, if you count the Southern Cross, but that hasn’t come up much since I got back from below the equator.
**At least it’s just cloud cover now. We had an inversion here for two weeks, and good god it was awful—I really hate looking down at a valley that’s invisible under a puddle of smog. And it was creepy at night, when you’d see this backlit cloud below you.
I’ve picked up a couple of books on stargazing. I’m terrific at armchair astronomy—I could tell you about binary star systems, how to get a supernova, the probable ages and classifications of various stars, and how black holes fuck up EVERYTHING.
But damned if I can find more than three constellations in the sky.* Hell, I only just recently realized just how the phase of the moon correlates to where it is in the sky at any given time. I couldn’t tell you Venus from an airplane.
And it occurred to me recently that, since I tend to stay awake all night anyway, astronomy’s a perfect hobby.
So I’m studying sky maps, waiting for the sky to clear up,** and looking up astronomical clubs or societies in Salt Lake. I’m also probably going to check out the Bad Astronomer’s guide to telescopes, see if I can’t find a good one.
It’s one way to get me out of the bat cave.
*Four, if you count the Southern Cross, but that hasn’t come up much since I got back from below the equator.
**At least it’s just cloud cover now. We had an inversion here for two weeks, and good god it was awful—I really hate looking down at a valley that’s invisible under a puddle of smog. And it was creepy at night, when you’d see this backlit cloud below you.
