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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 |
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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 |
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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. |
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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 |
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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 |
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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 |
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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
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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. |
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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
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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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