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Essay on Amateur Astronomy



 
 
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  #1  
Old June 2nd 04, 05:21 AM
Brian
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Default Essay on Amateur Astronomy

Hey everyone.

I wrote an essay for my english class here at the University of Washington.
It's about amateur astronomy.

If any of you are exceedingly board and want to read 13 pages, feel free to
follow the link.

http://students.washington.edu/bsteph

Then under "Walker Percy," click "Final." It is a Word document (*.doc).

Feel free to reply to this post about all the things you disagree with
I'm sure there will be plenty.

-Brian


  #2  
Old June 2nd 04, 05:31 AM
Brian
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Default Essay on Amateur Astronomy

Ahh I forgot to mention something...

....this assignment was supposed to be kind of a compare/contrast with one of
Walker Percy's essay, called "The Loss of the Creature."

Yu will see a few areas that discuss his essay. It is NOT necessary,
however, to read Percy's before hand in order to understand my own. So just
dive in


  #3  
Old June 2nd 04, 01:22 PM
gswork
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Default Essay on Amateur Astronomy

"Brian" wrote in message ...
Hey everyone.

I wrote an essay for my english class here at the University of Washington.
It's about amateur astronomy.

If any of you are exceedingly board and want to read 13 pages, feel free to
follow the link.

http://students.washington.edu/bsteph

Then under "Walker Percy," click "Final." It is a Word document (*.doc).

Feel free to reply to this post about all the things you disagree with
I'm sure there will be plenty.

-Brian


I thought it quite interesting.

I'm not sure how the induction to amatuer astronomy costs a person's
indidualism though, and certainly not any more than any other grouping
of people.

Drawing out the dangers of viewing astronomy as a 'consumer hobby' in
which 'trendy gear' and social status takes precedence over the actual
enriching stimulatuion of observing. :

This is true in any hobby. In mountain bikers there will plenty who
go on and on about their bikes not their rides, for instance. It's
quite reasonable for any hobbyist to talk about the material equipment
that allows him/her to more fully engage the hobby but there is a
point where the actual astronomy can become secondary to the gear, and
the supposed status it might afford the owner.

The prose of your piece was somewhat emotive and didn't, in my
opinion, reflect the actuality but rather a 'poetic' pessimism.

For instance the characterisation of star maps as ruinous to a young
person's sense of exploration is a point worth discussing, but i would
argue that the young kid may think they're discovering when they're
actually repeating discoveries - as long as it's understood thats ok,
but a youngster's belief that they're doing something new then finding
out that what they saw was all catalogued centuries ago can be
disheartening because they had a false premise. Tracing what has been
catalogued can be a joyful journey of *personal* discovery, and one
based on actuality not flights of fancy. as long as the kid isn't
tutored in an overbearing fashion to look at this or that it'll go
fine with a star map.

The fact that something is already known, catalogued, photographed by
the space telescope and so on, should not be hidden to try and
artificially enhance the feeling of 'discovery' but be part of the
whole enjoyment and fascination of astronomy. To purposely evade
knowledge in order to, as you put it, "so I could claim the fuzzy
patch as my own" is, i'm sorry to have to say, a little pathetic.
I've read many books on the planets, including Jupiter, seen close up
pics of it's moons and so on - and i really like to see the four big
moons as little dots through my modest telescope. Knowing enhances my
enjoyment.

I do sometimes wonder, when i read someone report of their night's
viewing "i bagged M42, then jupiter then Andromeda...etc etc", whether
that person is just a trainspotter more interested in ticking off a
'bingo' list than looking at the trains, so to speak.

It's like museums that give kids 'clues' and a list to tick off,
supposedly to help them get more out of the visit - in practice they
just rush around ticking or scribbling stuff and seeing very little.

So on the whole, and you asked for feedback, i found your essay raised
some very good points but then dwelled on a rather naive self
indulgence the narrowness of which, in my opinion, will detract from
your enjoyment of astronomy as a life long interest. You're right
about the negativity in obsessing about equipment (astronomy as
consumerism), you're wrong (IMO!) about the role of facts, science and
indeed piccies from space, these all enhance the experience for me and
i hope they will for you too.
  #4  
Old June 2nd 04, 05:37 PM
Richard
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Default Essay on Amateur Astronomy

"Brian" wrote in message ...
Ahh I forgot to mention something...

...this assignment was supposed to be kind of a compare/contrast with one of
Walker Percy's essay, called "The Loss of the Creature."

Yu will see a few areas that discuss his essay. It is NOT necessary,
however, to read Percy's before hand in order to understand my own. So just
dive in


Not bad. One thing though; Change the name of Jupiter's red spot
to "Great Red Spot."
-Rich
  #5  
Old June 2nd 04, 06:47 PM
ndm
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Default Essay on Amateur Astronomy

Really a good essay... maybe it would appear in an astronomy
magazine...
But one thing, what about the electronic telescopes? they are
destroying all the passion for search...i think they are worst than
the sky maps or photographs for a child.
Here is my solution to all: getting involved in the teaching of our
hobby to kids. Could be posible, make star parties only for kids or
really first time stargazers.

greetings.


On Tue, 1 Jun 2004 21:21:05 -0700, "Brian" wrote:

Hey everyone.

I wrote an essay for my english class here at the University of Washington.
It's about amateur astronomy.

If any of you are exceedingly board and want to read 13 pages, feel free to
follow the link.

http://students.washington.edu/bsteph

Then under "Walker Percy," click "Final." It is a Word document (*.doc).

Feel free to reply to this post about all the things you disagree with
I'm sure there will be plenty.

-Brian


  #6  
Old June 2nd 04, 07:46 PM
Jon Isaacs
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Default Essay on Amateur Astronomy

But one thing, what about the electronic telescopes? they are
destroying all the passion for search..


My thinking:

One either has the "passion for the search" or one doesn't. For those that do,
they can choose a scope that suits their needs.

And for those whose passion(s) lay elsewhere, they can choose scopes and mounts
that are suited to their needs.

I am generally one of those who might be considered to "have a passion for the
search."

But when I trying to image some faint object from my light polluted back yard
and my eyes are not well adapted because I have been looking at the laptop
screen, well, GOTO might well be a welcome addition...

While I am not generally a big fan of GOTO, I think it opens the hobby to a
great many more people.

And in my view, that is a good thing. One does not have to be a hardcore
ATMer/Starhopper to truly enjoy viewing the night sky with a telescope.

jon


  #7  
Old June 3rd 04, 01:44 AM
Paul Lawler
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Default Essay on Amateur Astronomy

"John Steinberg" wrote in message
...

Thus ends this installment of 'Why GOTO rocks." Next weeks installment
will introduce the abacus v. electronic calculator debate into the
equation.


Not to throw a wrench into your analogy, but you do know that the most
skilled abacus users can add and subtract faster with an abacus than the
most skilled electronic calculator users can with a 10 key, right?

Now where did I leave my slide rule? g


  #8  
Old June 3rd 04, 02:16 AM
Paul Lawler
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Default Essay on Amateur Astronomy

"John Steinberg" wrote in message
...
Paul Lawler wrote:

Not to throw a wrench into your analogy, but you do know that the most
skilled abacus users can add and subtract faster with an abacus than the
most skilled electronic calculator users can with a 10 key, right?


Picks up wrench, uses it to unscrew neck bolts and deposits loose
change inside cranium

Pure gossip. Besides, even if true, I'll race any abacus expert alive
to the square root of 897,092,107.543.


of course... I very carefully said "add" and "subtract." Beyond that the
humble abacus eats dust fast.

Anecdotal perhaps... I can't claim to have seen the "world's best" users,
but I have seen competitions between 10 key and abacus (actually Japanese
soroban) users and the 10 key users lost every time.


  #9  
Old June 3rd 04, 02:35 AM
Tony Flanders
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Default Essay on Amateur Astronomy

"Brian" wrote in message ...

I wrote an essay for my english class here at the University of Washington.
It's about amateur astronomy [at]

http://students.washington.edu/bsteph

Then under "Walker Percy," click "Final." It is a Word document (*.doc).


It's an interesting essay, very well written on the whole, and
heaven knows it's an interesting subject. As for the content,
half of it I find quite original and insightful, and half of
it seems forced and false. After reading your essay once over,
I had a strong suspicion that the good part is when you are
being you and the bad part is when you are trying to be Walker
Percy, so I looked up his essay and read it too. That confirmed
my suspicions. I think that you have, in Walker Percy's gently
misleading jargon "yielded sovereignty" to him. Or to put it in
plain English, I think you've been bamboozled.

I find "The Loss of the Creature" to be one part right and nine
parts wrong. I suspect that when it was first published, in 1954,
at the height of American conformity, when people were loosing
their jobs and even being imprisoned for having dissident views,
that one part of truth was a genuine contribution -- something
that really needed to be said. Today, it seems trite as well as
being grossly overstated.

You say that "Percy believes any preconceived notion one may have
of a thing causes that person to not see it as it truly is."
That's oversimplifying Percy's oversimplification, but it's
not too far off the mark. I take a different point of view:
that without preconceptions, we would not be human -- we would
not be able to see at all. Everybody brings preconceptions to
everything; there's absolutely nothing wrong with that. I knew
lots about the Grand Canyon before I saw it, and that knowledge
made it *more* mine, not less, when I actually came to experience
it first hand.

Really, it all depends on the individual. Some people come to
the Grand Canyon, take a snapshot, and then as far as they're
concerned, they're done with it -- time to move on to the next
experience. Of course that attitude is deplorable -- with
respect to the Grand Canyon, the Andromeda Galaxy, today's
sunset, the mockingbird I listened to during my lunch break,
whatever. But it is quite independent of how much foreknowledge
one brings to something. Cardenas, apparently, was amazed at
the sight of the Grand Canyon -- so much the better for him!
Pizarro in the same situation would have thought of nothing
but the gold that he might find at the bottom.

Same with tourists today. But you know what? The Grand Canyon
has a way of sneaking up on you and becoming yours even if you
don't expect that or want it. I hiked down to the Colorado on
the most popular trail, part of the herd if you like, but there's
no way you can lose so much sweat in such a spectacular place
without some of it rubbing off on you -- or you on it.

Now let's talk about Capella, Jupiter, and your unknown star
cluster. With the first two, I think you had genuine epiphanies.
With the third, I you let Percy cheat you out of what might have
been a great experience.

Capella twinkling multi-colored on the horizon is a wonderful
example; we've all had that same experience. You know what's
causing it, and you know that you *ought* to be annoyed at the
atmosphere preventing you from seeing the star as it "really is."
But in the here and now, that flashing jewel is utterly
captivating; you stop worrying about science and observing
and just revel in the beauty of the moment. Astronomy is full
of unexpected beauty like that; that's one of its great joys.

Jupiter's moons is even more profound; alas that one can only
have such revelations a few times in one's life. That description
of how you saw our own Moon as if for the first time is the best
thing in your essay, by far. You relived Galileo's initial
discovery.

Now let's talk about your anonymous star cluster. You say that
by refusing to learn about it, you made it your own, but I think
that exactly the opposite is true. Unless you observed it really
carefully, with enough context to identify it today, then you
have lost the cluster irretrievably; even if you do see it again,
you will never be sure if it's really the same one. What you
have left is the *memory* of the cluster, not the cluster itself.

I had just such an experience, except that I *did* look up the
cluster, so I have *both* the memory *and* the cluster, and that
memory makes it forever specially my own. It happened about a
decade after my first burst of interest in astronomy, when I
decided more or less at random to drive out to the suburbs and
view the Leonids. I was lying on my back in the middle of a field
with binoculars and the Peterson Field Guide, and I happened to
notice a fuzzy patch in the sky between Leo and Gemini. "I bet
that's something interesting," said I to myself, so I took a
look through the binoculars, and of course it resolved into
dozens of stars. So I discovered the famous Beehive Cluster,
as if for the first time, although it was recorded in antiquity,
and no doubt was well known in prehistory.

I have view the Beehive countless times since then, with
instruments ranging from my naked eyes to binoculars to a
20-inch telescope, and every time I look, I see something
different. But I never forget the time that I discovered it;
that makes it uniquely mine.

Nor do I forget the time that I discovered the summer Milky
Way, 7 years ago almost to the day. I had been plugging away
at the Messier list -- a pursuit which ought, according to your
theory, have deadened me to authentic experience. The first
half dozen objects were indeed pretty uninspiring, globular
clusters in Ophiuchus that showed as featureless blobs through
my 70mm scope, and I really did feel like an automaton
checking things off a list. But then my next target was M23,
a big bright open cluster, and my spirits began to pick up.
Then M8 -- gasp! I had no idea that anything as beautiful
as that existed in the sky! And the next dozen objects after
that were one glory after another, each capping the previous.
I can never look at the summer Milky Way, or any of the objects
within it, without reliving the magic of that night.

Now I've got nothing against exploring at random, or looking
through a static telescope and watching the sky flow by. That
is, in essence, exactly what Messier did, before those charts
and tables existed. But he had a whole life to devote to it,
and most of us do not. And even with our limited time, we can
experience more than he ever did, because of our charts.
The universe is a very big place; you can explore it full
tilt all your life and still only scratch the surface;
there's no risk of being jaded. Identifying the name of
an object in Sky Atlas 2000 is the *beginning* of getting
to know it, not the end.

Human knowledge has been accumulated patiently by brilliant
minds over the course of millenia; no one person can possibly
reproduce it. The experts are there not to steal your experiences
from you but to enhance them. You can't be browbeat by them,
because they all disagree with each other! Even if you *try*
to see things as they see them, you'll see them your own way
anyway, like it or not. That's what's so great about astronomy;
no other science is so directly accessible, so immediate, and
so personal. It is the perfect refutation of Percy's arguments.

You know, our culture worries far too much about authenticity.
Who gives a hoot whether an experience is authentic or
inauthentic? The more carefully you analyze that distinction,
the less substance you'll find in it. What matters in experience --
any experience -- is not what baggage you bring to it, but how
much you are willing to throw yourself into it. Lazy people and
lazy minds find scant rewards, with preconceptions or without
them. Energetic people and active minds find rewards everywhere.
Preconceptions shouldn't stand in your way; they're things to
build upon.

Anyway, thanks for a refreshing new look at an old subject, and
thanks for inspiring me to read Walker Percy. I haven't been so
riled up for a long time!

- Tony Flanders
  #10  
Old June 3rd 04, 02:42 AM
Brian Tung
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Default Essay on Amateur Astronomy

John Steinberg wrote:
Pure gossip. Besides, even if true, I'll race any abacus expert alive
to the square root of 897,092,107.543.


Feynman tells a story in one of his anecdote books about racing a Japanese
abacus salesman at various arithmetic feats. He loses handily at the
addition and subtraction feats (he's doing pen and cocktail napkin), comes
close on the multiplication problem, beats him on the division problem,
and crushes him on the cube root.

Brian Tung
The Astronomy Corner at http://astro.isi.edu/
Unofficial C5+ Home Page at http://astro.isi.edu/c5plus/
The PleiadAtlas Home Page at http://astro.isi.edu/pleiadatlas/
My Own Personal FAQ (SAA) at http://astro.isi.edu/reference/faq.txt
 




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