Hack1.Don t Give Up

Hack 1. Don't Give Up

It's harder than it looks, but doable.

The night sky initially looks invitinga 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 bullythe 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 back. The best tactic is a battle plan. Select a piece of sky, pull out a simple star map, and find your way around. Stars in the sky will look different from stars on paper, but once you've identified a few landmarks, go back to the scope. Wend your way through the familiar, retracing your steps until each star is a recognizable signpost.

The process is slowarduous, even. But, eventually, as the stars stop looking like little blobs of light and start looking like a set of directions, the size of the viewing field matters less and less.

Now, go get that lunch money back.

Dr. Mary C. Chervenak