Sky Watching

 When did I become fascinated with the sky? It's been so long I cannot begn to pinpoint the date. I "always" loved sunsets and then when I was barely a teen the 'space race' began and I started to look for and at the satellites, the ones humanity added to those a Higher Power had given us. Also the moon, the stars, and now and then a UFO. 

Then when I was briefly an Air Force Historian I was assigned a project to write a history of the Spacetrack program to date (c: 1975). About the same time my late hubby gave me my very first astronomical telescope. Between those two 'chance' events, I turned a much more serious eye to the sky. I will never forget the first time I found Saturn in that scope. I gasped at the beauty and felt a sharp pang of sadness--it looked so far away and so alone out there in the big dark sky. 

For a couple of years I looked at many things with the scope and marveled at the accuity of the Baker-Nunn cameras that were one of the main devices with which the growing number of--and possible threat from--man made satellites were followed, catalogued and observed. Colorado was too cold to be out in the winter but I became friends with the summer sky and its constellations and the varying tracks of the eight planets that each marched to their own drummer. I also began to regret my stubborn and foolish rejection of math and science during my schooling because there was so much of astronomy  I had trouble understanding. To this day that gap bothers me but lacking the groundwork to build from it is hard to delve deeper into the celestial mechanics and other scientific aspects.

Then in 1977 we moved to north central California where the summer nights were the nicest time of the day and the cold did not set in nearly as early. Never much of a TV fan, I preferred to be outdoors from dusk to bedtime. My husband felt the same way. Almost all summer, to include the late spring and long fall, we spent most evenings in the front yard sprawled on a tarp looking up. Summers were very dry there so rain or even clouds rarely interfered with the view. I grew acquainted with more stars and more constellations and watched the bright fast 'stars' of the satellites zip across the sky. We counted them. I think once or twice we saw as many 25-30 in a night. At times we saw meteors and maybe once or twice space debris coming in, blazing as it hit the atmosphere. Once a glimpse of the northern lights, oddly red, that no one else ever noted anywhere but I am sure that was what they were. 

Then in 1983 we came back to Arizona and moved our watching to the back yard at our home in  Whetstone, just north of Huachcua City.  There was little light pollution in the area and viewing was fine though now summer evenings could be interrupted with lightning which we also enjoyed watching until it got too close.  I had gotten frustrated with the small, basically kid-level telescopes and especially the never-quite-steady mounts and tripods but the real good ones were too costly. Then we made friends with a guy who had an 8" Celestron that had become to heavy for him and his bad back to manage. I traded him a couple of my late father's professional level cameras and got that scope.  

Wow, a whole new universe! Oddly the scope featured a Schmidt-Cassegrain lens system, the same style of magnification that was the centerpiece of the Baker-Nunns. That was compact, efficient and made the scope itself very short for the power it had. The tripod was solid and the mount an engineering  wonder. We did a lot of looking with that instrument to include several eclipses and a comet or two as well as the stars and planets. 

From Wickapedia, an explanation of the system: The Cassegrain reflector is a combination of a primary concave mirror and a secondary convex mirror, often used in optical telescopes and radio antennas, the main characteristic being that the optical path folds back onto itself, relative to the optical system's primary mirror entrance aperture. This design puts the focal point at a convenient location behind the primary mirror and the convex secondary adds a telephoto effect creating a much longer focal length in a mechanically short system.^[1]

That scope was set up and we had watched a partial moon eclipse the night before Jim fell ill with the beginning of his fatal heart attack in November 2003. In a day or two I wrapped a tarp over the scope and it sat there for some time before I finally took it down. I really have only set it up once or twice since. Somehow watching alone is not the same and I no longer lie out on the grass looking up at night for the same reason. It's been seventeen years now. 

I always intended to set the scope up in Alamogordo for the eight years I was there but the light pollution locally was too much and the scope was getting heavy for me, too. When we got ready to move to Arizona in the fall of 2019, I disassembled the whole tripod and mount. It is still heavy and awkward but packed and shipped easier. For the most part our skies here in J-6 ranches are dark and unobstructed and I do go out and look up some evenings for awhile. The head meteorologist on KGUN TV that we watch always mentions neat astronomical stuff that he recommends folks look for.  I once kind of glimpsed this summer's comet but the clouds and Tucson glow made it hard to find. 

in time I may put my big scope up once more--if I can remember how it all goes together. The electronic tracker is too old now to calibrate for the current sky but that would not be a major issue.  And it will be willed to one of my grandsons or even great grands if they show an interest as it is still a fine instrument. 

I will never tire of watching the sky, and the memories I have made over the years will certainly go to the last breath with me. If there was nothing to look at but the sky I could be almost contented. The wonders and beauty and breathtaking fierceness of it all, the vastness, the curiosity--it all draws me very strongly. I cannot afford it but I would love to be on that first or even a later space ship trip that may be available to the public in the fairly near future. I envy the astronauts for that chance to look back at our planet from some distant point.  One little green, blue and white ball, third out from Father Sun... yes, I am definitely solar-centric and sun-powered but I know even it is just one small speck of light in that vast infinity. Who else may be looking back from their distant world and wondering about this one? Maybe we will meet on the other side.