Steve F
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Reged: 07/31/11
Loc: SE TX
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Seeing a dark sky actually frightens some.
#5032064 - 01/22/12 11:53 AM
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I mentioned this in another thread and thought it may best be appreciated here.
A number of years ago I was way out in the country with my wife when she looked up at the Milky Way and said in a startled voice "what is that?!". When I explained that is the Milky Way and it is always there we just can't see it from the city she was still so shaken that she insisted on going inside.
This is an educated person and the sight of the stars actually scared her.
This story is true and sad on several levels.
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Tony Flanders
Postmaster
Reged: 05/18/06
Loc: Cambridge, MA, USA
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Re: Seeing a dark sky actually frightens some.
[Re: Steve F]
#5032273 - 01/22/12 02:02 PM
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This is an educated person and the sight of the stars actually scared her.
That doesn't seem surprising at all. Stars are like breakers on an ocean beach -- an inhumanly powerful, terrifying force.
The real problem comes when people try to avoid things that are scary. Anything that's transcendantly wonderful is scary.
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mountain monk
Pooh-Bah
Reged: 11/06/09
Loc: Grand Teton National Park
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Re: Seeing a dark sky actually frightens some.
[Re: Tony Flanders]
#5032369 - 01/22/12 02:42 PM
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Yes, the vast literature and art devoted to the sublime affirms that, and astronomy holds an important place in it--see The Age of Wonder, by Richard Holmes. It contains this passage from John Bonnycastle's Introduction to Astronomy in Letters to his Pupil (1776):
"Astronomy has enlarged the sphere of our conceptions, and opened to us a universe without bounds, where the human Imagination is lost. Surrounded by infinite space, and swallowed up in an immensity of being, man seems but a drop of water in the ocean, mixed and confounded with the general mass. But from this situation, perplexing as it is, he endeavours to extricate himself; and by looking abroad into Nature, employs the powers she has bestowed upon him in investigating her works."
And as Herschel already understood, infinite space implied infinite time. Scary stuff indeed.
Dark skies.
Jack
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FirstSight
Postmaster
Reged: 12/26/05
Loc: Raleigh, NC
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Re: Seeing a dark sky actually frightens some.
[Re: mountain monk]
#5032506 - 01/22/12 03:57 PM
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A huge part of the thrill of astronomy for those among us with a taste for viewing galaxies is the knowledge that the small, pale smudges we see are actually each such enormously vast entities as to approach infinite size relative to any humanly comprehensible scale. They pose the paradox of viewing something that is clearly of finite size and distance from us, are nevertheless for all practical purposes infinitely large and infinitely, unreachable distant from us.
Viewing globular clusters achieves a similar end, except in their case although staggeringly vastness in space and time are also involved, it's just on the verge of being within a concretely graspable scale of time, size and distance. The light we see tonight left twenty or thirty thousand years ago from a swarm of stars a hundred light years across. OK, so we cannot truly grasp what the distance of a thousand light years really is or even tangibly envision the passage of thirty thousand years, but the numbers themselves at least seem humanly manageable to comprehend. The aspect of globular clusters that is more difficult to contemplate is that most of the stars in them have been around for ten billion years, or nearly three-fourths of the entire history of the universe. You're viewing objects which are nearly immortal entities on any humanly comprehensible time scale. Yes, they'll burn out eventually, but unimaginably far off into the future.
We who are loves of astronomy are thrilled by such thoughts inspired by dark skies full of stars.
Some other people find that a truly dark night sky pops their bubble of security from being snugly enclosed by the familiar local surface of our planet. It makes some people feel threatened by an ultimate form of agoraphobia (fear of open spaces), both in space and time.
Edited by FirstSight (01/22/12 07:26 PM)
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barasits
sage
Reged: 06/12/11
Loc: Chicago
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Re: Seeing a dark sky actually frightens some.
[Re: Steve F]
#5032741 - 01/22/12 06:47 PM
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I think the way people react to a dark sky depends in large part on the extent to which they feel connected with the natural world. It's easy to feel threatened by things from which you feel separated. My sister-in-law (not the outdoorsy type) said that she feels very small and intimidated by the night sky. In contrast, I'm exhilarated by the feeling that I'm part of something unimaginably vast and wonderful.
Geoff
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BlueGrass
Carpal Tunnel
Reged: 07/25/09
Loc: Wasatch Front, UT
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Re: Seeing a dark sky actually frightens some.
[Re: barasits]
#5033768 - 01/23/12 11:02 AM
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It IS overwhelming... standing out under truly dark skies, with the vastness of the Universe engulfing you. Many people in today's world of cradle to grave safety and security, simply can't handle it. Those of us who truly seek out and enjoy the experience, find it exhilarating. My favorite dark skies are those experienced from our high altitude mountain tops. You feel as though you're standing in the middle of the Universe, with it surrounding you on all sides. The incredible expanse makes me feel as though I'm part of it all. Returning to the skies of the urban valley, leaves me sad and wistful How could anyone NOT appreciate the experience?
I put the feelings and fear that some people feel when confronted with the infinite in perspective though. They see, but do not understand. They fear the unknown, and we embrace it.
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uniondrone
Carpal Tunnel
Reged: 12/05/09
Loc: Streetlight Archipelago
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Re: Seeing a dark sky actually frightens some.
[Re: Tony Flanders]
#5034049 - 01/23/12 02:44 PM
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Quote:
Quote:
This is an educated person and the sight of the stars actually scared her.
That doesn't seem surprising at all. Stars are like breakers on an ocean beach -- an inhumanly powerful, terrifying force.
The real problem comes when people try to avoid things that are scary. Anything that's transcendantly wonderful is scary.
This is very well put. I grew up watching the night sky from a moderately light polluted semi-rural area. My first time seeing a truly dark sky was shocking to me--and this was with knowing what to expect.
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Dark Sky Scott
super member
Reged: 01/06/12
Loc: Tucson, Arizona
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Re: Seeing a dark sky actually frightens some.
[Re: uniondrone]
#5034363 - 01/23/12 06:04 PM
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I am surprised that nobody seems to have mentioned Isaac Asimov's Nightfall yet in this thread.
If you haven't read it, I highly recommend it. Imagine living in a multistar system that only experiences darkness once every 1,000 years (or so). How would people react to seeing the stars when they don't even know what darkness is?
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Achernar
Postmaster
Reged: 02/25/06
Loc: Mobile, Alabama, USA
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Re: Seeing a dark sky actually frightens some.
[Re: mountain monk]
#5034391 - 01/23/12 06:25 PM
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The majority of people are terrified of both a dark sky and the very idea we are but a drop of water in an endless sea. The least educated among us especially think this way. That is why a growing portion of the world's people are growing up never having seen a dark night sky, or the Milky Way.
Taras
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mountain monk
Pooh-Bah
Reged: 11/06/09
Loc: Grand Teton National Park
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Re: Seeing a dark sky actually frightens some.
[Re: Achernar]
#5034530 - 01/23/12 08:05 PM
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Dark Sky Scott,
In one of his essays, Emerson said that if we only saw the stars once in a thousand years we would all worship them. Or something very close to that. I would not be surprised if Asimov read Emerson.
Achernar,
That is why Richard Feynman once said "we are not yet a scientific culture."
Dark skies.
Jack
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Steve F
sage
Reged: 07/31/11
Loc: SE TX
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Re: Seeing a dark sky actually frightens some.
[Re: Dark Sky Scott]
#5034558 - 01/23/12 08:24 PM
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I am surprised that nobody seems to have mentioned Isaac Asimov's Nightfall yet in this thread.
After I started this thread I remembered "Nightfall" and thought about for quite a while. I think it is really sad that our skies have become so bright that a person can reach adulthood without ever seeing anything but the brightest stars. I remember laying on the hood of my car looking up at the stars, praying and soaking it all in, at times I would feel like I could fall off into the sky. It can be a disquieting feeling. All of a sudden you are really really small....... and vulnerable.
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aezoss
member
Reged: 03/27/11
Loc: Alberta, Canada
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Re: Seeing a dark sky actually frightens some.
[Re: Steve F]
#5034739 - 01/23/12 11:11 PM
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Our kids had the opposite reaction at the SSSP in Cypress Hills, SK last year. They were so taken with seeing the Milky Way under a truly dark sky that they just cozied into their sleeping bags and stared up for hours, eventually falling asleep under the stars.
The feeling of safety and security at the event probably contributed in no small way to them just relaxing and taking it all in.
There's definitely hope for this generation if we can get them out in the dark at an early age.
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Tonk
Postmaster
Reged: 08/19/04
Loc: Leeds, UK, 54N
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Re: Seeing a dark sky actually frightens some.
[Re: aezoss]
#5034947 - 01/24/12 05:58 AM
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Our kids had the opposite reaction at the SSSP in Cypress Hills, SK last year.
Same here - we took our kids on a cruise off Japan in 2009 (solar eclipse trip - so boat was full of astronomers). At night my daughters just wanted to lie on the deckchairs on the top deck. This was a 60 miles east of Iwo Jima - I've never personally seen such a dark sky - stars all the way down to the horizon and in such profusion the constellation were lost!
My only earlier memory of such dark skies was on a family farm in Sussex in the early '70s. The farm was about 5 miles for then then UK Royal Observatory at Herstmoncaux. That was closed as a science observatory many many years ago because of the growth of light polution (the main scopes went to Tenerife). Sadly that part of Sussex is no longer dark at all - Eastborne 15 miles to the south west and London 50 miles north sees to that!
Its sad that I had to go to the Pacific Ocean to see skies I once saw at home.
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George N
Carpal Tunnel
Reged: 05/19/06
Loc: Binghamton & Indian Lake NY
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Re: Seeing a dark sky actually frightens some.
[Re: Tonk]
#5037632 - 01/25/12 05:50 PM
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Hmmmmm……. I call this “nature deficient disorder”…… 
One time while setting up my scope for a night of observing, I saw two ‘city folks’ couples move their stuff into a near by rented camp. They gave me some strange looks, but went in. After dark while observing I heard the door of the camp open and then this awful scream! I thought “Oh boy, a bear got him!” Then I realized that he had just seen the summer Milky Way high up in a mag 7 sky for the first time in his life. He dragged the other three out….. and then they remembered me and my scope. I was "stuck" with ‘um until around 2 AM. 
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amicus sidera
Carpal Tunnel
Reged: 10/14/11
Loc: East of the Sun, West of the M...
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Re: Seeing a dark sky actually frightens some.
[Re: George N]
#5038838 - 01/26/12 11:15 AM
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It is a sad commentary on the state of this un-natural world that humanity has created, that the sight of the galaxy they live in should unnerve anyone.
One component of the dehumanizing effects of our current civilization that may be coming into play in these instances, is that many today are totally immersed in a sea of artificiality... I have forgotten the attribution, but it has been said that (paraphrase): "Life for most people consists of transiting between the insides of cars and buildings".
Humanity has become comfortable with artifice, at the expense of it's relationship with the natural world... and such pleasurable artifice is like unto the concept of comfort as described by Kahlil Gibran in The Prophet: "The lust for comfort, that stealthy thing that enters the house as a guest, and then becomes a host, and then a master."
It is well past time to throw such things out of our collective domicile, before circumstance forces it at a time not of our choosing.
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WillCarney
Pooh-Bah
Reged: 10/08/09
Loc: Bloomington, ILL
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Re: Seeing a dark sky actually frightens some.
[Re: amicus sidera]
#5039207 - 01/26/12 02:33 PM
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In '79 I took a geology field trip to the southwest. One night at the Grand Canyon area I looked up and was overwhelmed. For a time I could not recognize the major constellations I was familir with. Just too many stars. After some minutes I calmed down and was amazed. I have not seen such skies since.
William
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Seanem44
super member
Reged: 09/22/11
Loc: Woodbridge, VA
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Re: Seeing a dark sky actually frightens some.
[Re: Steve F]
#5039399 - 01/26/12 04:07 PM
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Wow. That is amazing. I'm sorry to hear that. Hopefully she has overcome it. I made it to my first true dark sky site this August and honestly spent more time staring at it with my own eyes and my binos than looking through my (at the time 8" meade) scope.
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TOM O
sage
Reged: 03/30/06
Loc: Joshua Tree CA.
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Re: Seeing a dark sky actually frightens some.
[Re: WillCarney]
#5039418 - 01/26/12 04:14 PM
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I like this thread! Thanks,
"Fear not, the stars foretell happiness" Mark Twain...
When I was a kid, I took my mom's dressing mirror out and played with it from time to time. I would try to walk around the house holding the mirror under my nose and navigate via the reflection in the mirror. Not easily done at times.... but fun for a kid! We lived on the outskirts of Calgary in Canada during the early 1950's. One warm summer night, I took her mirror and went outside. It was late and sunset was very late during the summer in the North. I remember putting the mirror under my nose and seeing the Milky Way reflecting so brilliantly I stumbled around on the front lawn trying to keep my balance as I was lost among the stars...... I wish I was there, now!
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nytecam
Postmaster
Reged: 08/20/05
Loc: London UK
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Re: Seeing a dark sky actually frightens some.
[Re: Tony Flanders]
#5042109 - 01/28/12 08:26 AM
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Being smart doesn't remove a fear of wide open spaces or vastness of sky above eg a form of agoraphobiaQuote:
Quote:
This is an educated person and the sight of the stars actually scared her.
That doesn't seem surprising at all. Stars are like breakers on an ocean beach -- an inhumanly powerful, terrifying force. The real problem comes when people try to avoid things that are scary. Anything that's transcendantly wonderful is scary.
Well said Tony  Although astronomers relish the dark or contemplacing 'space' many folk do not! They are reduced to powerless insignificance.
On a number of occasions over the years when I mention seeing a distant galaxy or supernova they respond "but it's gone now isn't it?" - as if they can't bear to think anything can outlive them! Must admit I sometimes tease on newbie astro fora [not CN!] by including all the noughts when quoting galaxy distances in lightyears 
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George N
Carpal Tunnel
Reged: 05/19/06
Loc: Binghamton & Indian Lake NY
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Re: Seeing a dark sky actually frightens some.
[Re: nytecam]
#5042371 - 01/28/12 11:47 AM
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beach --
On a number of occasions over the years when I mention seeing a distant galaxy or supernova they respond "but it's gone now isn't it?" - as if they can't bear to think anything can outlive them! Must admit I sometimes tease on newbie astro fora [not CN!] by including all the noughts when quoting galaxy distances in lightyears
If you really want to drive ‘um nuts, tell ‘um how to calculate the distance in miles….. as a homework exercise!
When I have M-31 in the eyepiece I like point out that the light from the back side is at least 100,000 years older than the light from the front….. so they are not even looking at an object at a single instance in time, but a merger of much older and younger light.
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