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Why Look Upward?
Why did not somebody teach me the
Constellations, and make me at home
In the starry heavens, which are
Always overhead, and which I don't
Half know to this day?
Thomas Carlyle
How many people ever bother to look upwards? Occasionally when a low-flying plane passes overhead, or while standing near a tall building, or even once in a rare while on a cool autumn evening outside of the city, we might momentarily direct our eyes away from the ground. It's never for long and always as a slight diversion from the real business at hand. Life is on the sidewalk in front of us, not someplace in the clouds or higher. Maybe-just maybe-one night you were on a camping trip or taking a walk in the country, away from the smog and bright city lights, and looked up at the night sky. Throughout the black sky you saw the twinkling stars, and if you were fortunate enough to be sharing this sight with a friend, probably commented to each other on what a beautiful night it was. Most likely that was the end of your skygazing for the evening. The purpose of this book is to explain why and how to look at the sky.
Behind the question of "how" to look at the sky lurks the danger of becoming so entranced by the technical details of skygazing (or just as bad, becoming so bored with them) that instead of being a bridge to the sky they become a block. This is roughly the equivalent of looking at sheet music of Bach's Brandeburg Concerti, becoming fascinated with the musical notation and forgetting about the sounds the lines and squiggles represent. Hopefully the advice and instructions detailed in the following chapters will lead you to a greater understanding of the sky. The goal of this understanding is not merely a scientific analysis of the sky, but also an aesthetic experience.
One of the unfortunate results of scientific and technological advancement is that while more and more is known about the Earth and the rest of the Universe, we find ourselves increasingly cut off from their beauty except in a dry, intellectual manner. Nowhere is this more apparent than in the art of skygazing. Our ancestors may have believed that the Sun revolved around the Earth, or that it rested upon the back of a tortoise perched on a giant elephant, but at least they knew the sky. They recognized the constellations and could name individual stars. They also noticed that some of the brighter stars that we now call planets did not have a fixed position in the sky, but were wanderers. Skygazers from a few centuries ago had some advantages over us, the prime one being a smogless sky and no disturbing bright city lights. Up until a few hundred years ago, anybody could sit outside of their house, gaze upwards and see several thousand stars. Most important of all, they had patience. The night sky is not a laser show with spectacular colors and sounds. It is a subtler form of entertainment that requires time to appreciate and is ultimately much more rewarding.
The most obvious reason for looking upward at the sky is that the sky is beautiful. It possesses a delicate kind of beauty that is all too easy to fail to perceive, and like a great work of art, repeated observations install not boredom but a great sense of brilliance. The beauty of the sky does not invite superficial glances, but long gazing. Each object in the sky has its own exquisite loveliness. Besides the stars, there are the planets, the Moon, shooting stars and comets. Sometimes I imagine the sky as a vast symphony orchestra. The myriad of stars is of course the string section. One can imagine the particularly bright ones as the bass. The Moon provides dramatic percussion while the flashing meteorites are like touches of brass. One evening I might just concentrate on the stars, or even a single constellation. At other times, the entire sky provides a glorious symphony.
Another aspect of skygazing is that it arouses a peculiar combination of feelings: humility and understanding. It is difficult not to feel a bit humble when staring out into the vastness of space. Even without knowing about the billions of miles between Earth and the nearest star, a skygazer can feel the enormity of the heavens. It is no wonder that so many important religious experiences took place in the desert under the open sky. Early skygazers could not possible imagine the distance between the stars, and perhaps neither can we, but neither can we be indifferent to them.
Juxtaposed to this feeling of smallness in the grandness of the cosmos, there is the understanding. The skygazer understands the movements of the stars, the planets and the Moon. They are not running about in a random pattern but advance along according to fixed rules. (I am not necessarily discussing the scientific laws discovered by Kepler and Newton, but the sense of order and harmony that was already observed tens of thousands of years ago.) Despite the enormous distance from star to star, to a skygazer the sky is a familiar and comfortable place. The feeling of understanding and familiarity coexists side by side with the sense of awe. Although one feeling may predominate at any time, they are always both there. One moment you may calmly observe the setting Moon and the next almost gasp at the vastness of the cosmos and the smallness of our Earth.
One definition of the word "gaze" is to "stare, as in wonder and expectancy", which perhaps is the best description of stargazing, because without both the wonder and expectancy, why bother looking upwards at all? The expectancy is there because the sky is not random. We know when Halley's Comet will next appear and also the time of the next lunar eclipse. Pegasus will be high overhead during the summer, just as Orion will be easily seen next winter. The following chapters will show what to expect from stargazing. Since we no longer need the stars to keep time with or the Moon as a calendar, what we are really looking for in the sky is the wonder. May this book point you to the heavens and help you find the wonder that is always above us.
August 2001