Doing It Over Again
After 55 years of observing I occasionally wonder what I would do if suddenly I was 10 again in this modern world of amateur astronomy. Yes, as I said in an earlier post, I'd probably still grind a mirror and build my own first telescope. But something else too, something barely thought of in 1955, I'd get involved in the International Dark Sky program.
This Isn't just selfishness, being stuck in Melbourne with an AP refractor and too old to lug it to a dark site. I was brought up in a little town just outside of Toronto. We didn't even have street lights and the glow of Toronto on the eastern horizon was no big deal back then. I was 5 years old when my parents brought me home one moonless winter night and I casually looked up as I walked in.
I don't have to describe to anyone at this forum what a night sky looks like from a dark site when seeing and transparency are at their peak. Moreover, like many young people I had eyes like a hawk, a fact subsequently confirmed a few years later when I split the famous double-double in Lyra looking straight at it, no averted vision! On that night I was probably seeing stars to magnitude 6.5. That was it. My parents had to drag me into the house and I was hooked for life.
I was lucky. Now, with light pollution swamping the planet, I seriously wonder whether I'd be writing to this forum now if I hadn't been born in the country. The stars would not have had a chance to astonish and astound the imagination and curiosity of a youngster. That's almost a tragedy. Quite apart from the aesthetics of it, astronomy gives one a certain perspective on things which few other subjects can.
Which is why I'm horrified when I see those photos of earth from space showing the night side bathed in huge splotches of white. So much money being wasted to destroy one of the profound experiences a human can have. And so I'd join a dark-sky organisation somewhere and do a little more than send a cheque every year, which is what I do now. So much to lose. So much to gain.
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