Astronomy Hacks

Don’t Give Up

It’s harder than it looks, but doable.

The night sky initially looks inviting—a big, black picnic blanket spangled with shine. Stellar objects are brilliant, easy to see, and seem to organize themselves into recognizable patterns. Vast, yes, but easily interpretable, welcoming.

Appreciating the beauty of a starry sky is easy. It’s the next step that’s hard. The night sky is the very worst kind of bully—the kind who punches you in the stomach, steals your lunch money, and then laughs at you when you cry.

When you first start looking at the stars through a telescope, the blanket shrinks to a napkin. The obvious becomes elusive and the elusive becomes invisible. Of course, the finding of things is part of learning to observe, but that knowledge is small comfort when you are unable to find the Andromeda Galaxy night after night after night.

What to say, really? Using a telescope can be frustrating. First, don’t give up. Or rather, give up, but only for a while. Learning to squeeze an expanse of night sky into the eyepiece of a telescope and then to comb it degree by degree takes not only patience, but practice. Temporarily flinging up your hands and packing up the scope for the night is not only acceptable, it’s necessary. When you’re tired and angry, the fluid motion required to scan the sky become jerky and unpredictable; you’re unlikely to find anything and you risk damaging your equipment.

Don’t let the bully keep stealing your lunch money, though. Get your confidence ...