February 10, 2002
ASTRONOMY - WHY WE DO IT
Democritus - 400 B.C.
"By convention there is colour, by convention sweetness, by convention bitterness, but in reality there are atoms and space."
Plato - "The Republic", Book VII, 529 - 400 B.C.
"For every one, as I think, must see that astronomy compels the soul
to look upwards and leads us from this world into another. "
Plato - Laws, Book XII, 967 - 400 B.C.
"......he who has not contemplated the mind of nature which is said
to exist in the stars, and gone through the previous training, and seen the
connection of music with these things, and harmonized them all with laws and
institutions, is not able to give a reason of such things as have a
reason."
Dante Alighieri - "Divine Comedy. Inferno", Canto XXXIV, 1310
"And thence we issued out, again to see the stars."
William Shakespeare - "A Midsummer Night's Dream" Act II, Sc. I, 1600
"And certain stars shot madly from their spheres"
John Milton - "Paradise Lost" - Book IV, 1665
"..now glow'd the firmament
With living sapphires; Hesperus, that led
The starry host, rode brightest, till the moon,
Rising in clouded majesty, at length
Apparent queen, unveil'd her peerless light,
And o'er the dark her silver mantle threw."
Henry David Thoreau - "Walden - or Life in the Woods", 1854
"The stars are the apexes of what wonderful triangles! What distant
and different beings in the various mansions of the universe are contemplating
the same one at the same moment! "
Oliver Wendell Holmes - "The Secret of the Stars", 1850-56
"And Science lifts her still unanswered cry:
'Are all these worlds, that speed their circling flight,
Dumb, vacant, soulless - baubles of the night?
……………………………………………..
Or rolls a sphere in each expanding zone
Crowned with a life as varied as our own?' "
Sarah Williams - "The Old Astronomer to his Pupil", ~1860
"I have loved the stars too fondly to be fearful of the night"
The Hon. Mrs. Ward - Preface to "The Telescope", 1870, with a dedication to William Parsons, the Earl of Rosse (1800-1867).
"Stars - each, perhaps a sun! Far, far away from the earth and its
troubles is the mind carried by such thoughts and remembrances."
Vincent Willem van Gogh - "Collected Correspondence", 1853-90
"For my part, I know nothing with any certainty, but the sight of the stars makes me dream…."
Robert Frost - "Steeple Bush" - "On making Certain Anything Has Happened" - 1947
I could be worse employed
Than as a watcher of the void,
Whose part should be to tell
What star if any fell.
Suppose some seed-pearl sun
Should be the only one;
Yet still I must report
Some cluster one star short.
I should justly hesitate
To frighten church or state
By announcing a star down
From, say, the Cross or Crown.
To make sure what star I missed
I should have to check on my list
Every star in sight.
It might take me all night.
P. Clay Sherrod - "A Complete Manual of Amateur Astronomy", 1981
"Astronomy is a unique science in that as we learn more and more,
the universe becomes even less known and more mysterious. In the theoretical
end of things, astronomy allows the average person to think as far away as the
mind will allow."
"Above us, the sparkling stars of the night skies stretch out like
thousands of diamonds suspended on the curtain of space. Unfolding through the
beauty and the mysteries of this seemingly endless expanse are patterns and
answers familiar to those willing to study them..."
"There is an affinity for the eternity of space experienced by all
mankind, a kind of motherhood in the stars to those who study space."
David H. Levy - "The Joy of Gazing", 1982, the Royal Astronomical Society of Canada, Montreal Centre
"..observing is an activity that can rapidly become your outlet to
relax, your means to commune with the universe, and a vital key to knowing
yourself."
"...a voyage on a magic carpet that takes you to other places and
other times. Even a casual look at the stars gives you a share in the company
of timelessness that they represent."
"Look through your telescope thoughtfully...., for it is more than
starlight that the mirror will reflect. Through the vastness of space and time
will return also a part of yourself."
Terence Dickinson - "Nightwatch" - 1983
"...the lure of backyard exploration of the universe: the chilling realization
that Earth is but a mote of dust adrift in the ocean of space. The fact that
Earth harbours creatures who are able to contemplate their place in the cosmic
scheme must make our dust speck a little special. But wondering who else is out
there only deepens the almost mystical enchantment of those remote celestial
orbs."
"For me it is communing with nature on a grand scale."
"The experience is both humbling and exhilarating."
Hans Vehrenberg - Preface to "Atlas of Deep Sky Splendors" - 1983
"It is a fundamental human instinct to collect, whether berries and
roots in the past or knowledge of the universe today. For several decades, my
favourite pastime has been to collect celestial objects on photographs. I will
never forget the many thousands of hours I have spent with my instruments,
working peacefully in my telescope shelter as I listened to good music and
dreamed about the infinity of the universe."
Roger N Clark - "Visual Astronomy of the Deep Sky" - 1990
"To stand beneath a dark crystal-clear moonless country sky is an
awe-inspiring experience. Those thousands of stars, many larger than our own
Sun, can make us feel small indeed. It seems possible to see to infinity,
though we cannot reach beyond arm's length. The beauty of the universe defies
description."
"....yet the heavens are subtle. Imagine that the fuzzy patch at the
threshold of visibility is really a trillion suns - a galaxy larger than our
own, in which our Sun is but a tiny speck. Incomprehensible; yet somehow we
try. Seeing that galaxy first-hand, even through a small telescope, is much
more inspiring than the large, beautiful photograph in the astronomy book back
indoors. Nothing can compare to viewing the universe directly."
James Mullaney, Sky&Tel March 1990
"Metaphysical aspects of star gazing - its potential as a vehicle
for therapeutic relaxation, meditation, and spiritual contact with the awesome
creative power manifests in all of nature but is pinnacled in the stars."
"The telescope is not just another gadget or material possession,
but a magical gift to humankind - a window on creation, a time machine, a
spaceship of the mind that enables us to roam the universe in a way that is
surely the next best thing to being out there."
James Mullaney, Sky&Tel March 1990 (cont.)
"The light we see coming from celestial objects brings us into
direct personal contact with remote parts of the universe as the photons end
their long journeys across space and time on our retina."
"....the almost "out of body" experiences by those deeply
immersed in the majesty of the night sky."
He quotes others:
Paul Couteau, French double star astronomer.
"Astronomy is typically a monastic activity: it provides food for
meditation and strengthens spirituality."
Terence Dickinson.
"To me, telescope viewing is primarily an aesthetic experience - a
private journey in time and space."
Tom Lorenzin, North Carolina amateur and author.
"The pleasures of amateur astronomy are deeply personal. The feeling
of being alone in the universe on a starlit night, cruising on the wings of
polished glass, flitting in seconds from a point millions of kilometers away to
one millions of parsecs distant......is euphoric."
Edward Everett, at the dedication of the Dudley Observatory in Albany, N.Y.
"The great object of all knowledge is to enlarge and purify the
soul, to fill the mind with noble contemplations, and to furnish a refined
pleasure."
David H. Levy - "The Sky: a User's Guide", 1991
"Our fondness for the stars has touched our souls. We all share the
feeling of discovery, whether the object we have found is new to all or new
only to us. The thrill penetrates our being, as we try to describe .... how we
have been changed by the universe sharing a secret with us."
Walt Whitman's 'When I heard the learn'd Astronomer' takes to task the lecturer who recited `the facts and figures' leaving the listener `tired and sick' - he left the room and
"In the mystical moist night air, Looked up in perfect silence at
the stars"
Ralph Hodgson, `Song of Honour', 1913
"I stood and stared, the sky was lit,
The sky was stars all over it,
I stood, I knew not why,
Without a wish, without a will,
I stood upon that silent hill
And stared into the sky until
My eyes were blind with stars and still
I stared into the sky."
Otto Rushe Piechowski - Sky&Tel, Feb. 1993
"For most of us stargazing remains a soothing balm and intellectual
uplift - even if it isn't cutting edge science. It satisfies human needs.
Sometimes out of embarrassment, we might shroud these deeper yearnings with scientific
talk. But we shouldn't need such `covers'. If our romantic encounters with
stars reach some psychological, emotional, or spiritual level, so be it."
John Percy - RASC talk April 16, 1993
"A sense of shared exploration and discovery."
"How small our body - how large our mind", 'an older quotation
adapted by removing a reference to gender.'
Christopher Dornan - Carleton University - Book review in Globe & Mail May 15, 1993
"... it's the exploratory power of science that gives it its wonder.
The stars, for example, become infinitely more breathtaking, not less so, once
one learns what they are."
Richard Dawkins – “River Out of Eden”, Harper Collins, 1995
“The universe we observe has precisely the properties we should expect if
there is, at bottom, no design, no purpose, no evil, no good, nothing but
blind, pitiless indifference. As that
unhappy poet E. E. Housman put it
For nature, heartless, witless
nature,
Will neither
care nor know
What stranger’s feet may
find the meadow
And trespass
there and go,
Nor ask amid the dews of
morning
If they are
mine or no.
Ursula Goodenough, "Sacred Depths of Nature", Oxford University Press, 1998
"…I lie on my back under the stars and the unseen galaxies and let
their enormity wash over me. I assimilate the vastness of the distances, the
impermanence, the fact of it all. I go all the way out, and then I go all the
way down, to the fact of photons without mass and gauge bosons that become
massless at high temperatures. I take in the abstractions about forces and
symmetries and they caress me like Gregorian chants because the words are so
haunting.
Mystery generates wonder, and wonder generates
awe. The gasp can terrify or the gasp can emancipate."
ASTRONOMY - PHENOMENA
Within our solar system:
The Sun
9 Planets and their satellites (34 of them), or moons of planets.
Thousands of Asteroids
Thousands of Comets
Billions of Meteorites or shooting stars.
Within our galaxy:
Stars - brightness, size, colour, spectral class, temperature, age, distance.
- optical, physical, visual and spectroscopic binaries, triples.
- Open or galactic star clusters.
- Globular star clusters
- periodic variables:
Cephids.
Long period red giants.
Semi-regular and irregular variables.
"RR Lyrae" - cluster variables.
"RV Tauri" pulsating giants.
Beta Canis Majoris - brilliant B1-B3.
Dwarf Cephids.
- eruptive variables:
Novae.
Recurrent novae.
Supernovae.
Dwarf novae.
Flare stars.
R Corona Borealis stars.
Nova-like stars.
- eclipsing variables:
Algol systems.
Lyrid systems.
Dwarf eclipsing systems.
Ellipsoidal variables.
Dust clouds.
Diffuse Nebulae or glowing gas clouds.
Planetary nebulae.
Novae remanents.
Outside our galaxy:
Other galaxies.
Spirals
Ellipticals
Irregulars
Clusters of galaxies.
Quasars.
Where we are:
The sense of distance - AU, light year, parsec.
The sense of time - billions of years
The sense of how it all came together - Cosmology.
JMS