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Why We Stargaze. The Discovery of our Archimedean Point

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#1 Otto Piechowski

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Posted 04 June 2025 - 12:11 PM

Why do we stargaze? Why are we (tele)scopists?

 

These questions have crossed my mind many times over my lifetime of stargazing and scoping. My first attempt to explain why I do so and am so, was in an article I wrote, with ample assistance by J. Kelly Beatty and published by/in Sky and Telescope (February, 1993), entitled “We Stargazers”.

 

My first memory of stargazing was of my brother and his friends using a circular star chart from Encyclopedia Britannica and 7X35 binoculars to identify a bright object in the sky they hoped was an early satellite or a UFO. My second memory was of a sundog. It scared me. My first telescope experience was an out-of-focus view of a bright star through a single lens objective 40mm refractor with a plastic eyepiece. I was mesmerized by seeing a disk. I remember not being able to understand why I was seeing a disk. And, I recall other first-observations, even today some sixty years after my first look through the 40mm scope. I recall discovering a star above a neighbor’s house which, when I looked at it through my first real telescope, a 2.4 inch achromat, I saw a sizable disk and rings. I recall discovering that the star Mizar, when I looked at the double Mizar/Alcor the first time, was itself a close visible double star. I recall my first view of the quasar 3C-273, dusky markings and a bright polar cap on the surface of Mars, the Veil Nebula, the open/galactic clusters in Auriga, et alia.

 

I do not just recall these first-observations. I recall the emotional reaction I had to these first-observations; a palpable sense of serene connection.

 

And over the decades, as I have continued to observe, time and again I return to these same first-observation items, and when they appear in the eyepiece, I have that same feeling of serene connection.

 

It is not just first-observations which created and the memory of which recalls this feeling of serene connection. There are events which do the same. There is the meal shared after a night of stargazing. Parts of club meetings and star parties. Long nights in the high school physics lab listening on a radio to portions of the Wagner’s entire Des Ring der Nibelungen broadcast by Minnesota Public Radio. And then there were specific pieces of music; Debussy's Clair de Lune, The Moody Blues’ “Cold hearted orb that rules the night, removes the colors from our sight, red is grey and yellow-white…pin-**** holes in a colorless sky let insipid figures of light pass by, the mighty light of ten thousand suns, challenges infinity and is soon gone, night time, to some a brief interlude…”, Ralph Waughn Williams’s Fantasia on a Theme of Thomas Tallis, et alia.

 

There are the memories of other stargazers and scopists, memories of events with them which elicit the same emotional reaction; speaking with Mike Palermiti mere minutes after the Space Shuttle disintegrated on its return, an email with Bill Burnett of ITE asking me how I could ever possibly visually tell the difference between a 1/6 waterfront error and a 1/8 wavefront error, Bob Summerfield of Telescopes To Go explaining to me that the reason a 60mm fed my desire to observe was because I brought a pre-existing desire to gaze/observe to the scope (whereas the experience of such scopes squashes the desire to engage in stargazing by many others), looking at the first live feeds of a martian rover with Rico Tyler on the laptop obtained as a result of his being named a National Science Teacher of the Year, lunch with Story Musgrave, listening to Jack Horkheimer with Debussy’s Arabesque playing in the background, listening to Sandy Wood on StarDate, Tammy Plotner’s invitation and welcoming to a Hidden Hollow star party, reviewing the MK67 with Jeff Barbour and Cor Berrevoets, invited by the incomparable writing talent of Neil English to review and provide a forward for his Chronicling the Golden Age of Telescopes, Fathers John Neville and Myron **** guiding me in the use of a 20cm Cassegraine-Coude, having been invited by a gentleman whose name I cannot remember but whose personality I do remember to observe in a very old observatory with a venerable seven inch refractor in Michigan and record in a very old journal the brightness of a variable star, another gentlemen in Michigan who made me a paper time conversion wheel, the professional astronomer at Yerkes Observatory who wrote back to me as a teenager and congratulating me on my observation of Mizar’s companion, et alii.

 

As I matured in the hobby, I came to possess (mostly from other observers who have shared their experiences) words to describe why I felt what I felt, and why I returned to those first-observations. There is something about consuming, with my eyes, the light emanating from or reflecting off of celestial objects, which continues to draw me to the night sky. And there is something about the nearly indescribable wonder of finely crafted glass, in well crafted tubes and mounts, which causes an emotional reaction when, after some brief period of observing, I step back and just look at the telescope itself. A half century ago I ground and polished an eight inch mirror. I can still recall the smells of the slurry, the tactile sensation of moving pyrex glass on a plate tool, of examining the surface through a microscope and Foucault/null test apparatus. And I often to this day feel the ethereal sensation of being in-and-of the night.

 

As I read articles written by astronomers and astrophyicists, and as I interacted with superbly skilled and experienced amateur observers, I realized and became comfortable with the self-knowledge that I am not an cosmologist or an astrophysicst or even an astronomer. I am not even the dedicated proficient stargazing and scoping hobbyist who deeply understands the electronics of the mount, the technicalities of astrophotography, the arrangements required for star-parties, the physics of class-glass.

 

I am a stargazer and a scopist of the night.

 

And I have found an article written by a philosopher which, when I read it, immediately elicted that same feeling of serene connection. The article is entitled “The Discovery of the Archimedean Point”. It appears in a book entitled The Human Condition (pages 257 to 268) by a Hannah Arendt. A sobriquet of Arendt’s is that she is the greatest American philosopher of the twentieth century. This book was required reading of the Basselin Fellowship of The School of Philosophy of The Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C. in the A.D. 1970s in two seminars taught by phenomenologists. Some may remember a set of books prepared and published jointly by the University of Chicago and Encyclopedia Britannica entitled Great Book of the Western World. In the proposed second collection (prepared to cover twentieth century works) was included Arendt’s The Human Condition.

 

This article has given me new insight into why, as a stargazer and scopist, I feel a sense of serene connection and melancholy.

 

Our Cloudy Nights institution is hesitant about allowing philosophy to creep into discussions in its various forums and threads. It is correct to be cautious. Such discussions often go-off-the-rails.

 

However, speaking only to those of us who are scopists and stargazers, I recommend reading this article. Perhaps for you, as it did for me, it will provide a basis for understanding the reason we acquire feelings of serene connection when we stargaze and when we scope. Reading it may even engender a new feeling of cosmic connection.


Edited by Otto Piechowski, 04 June 2025 - 12:38 PM.

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#2 NinePlanets

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Posted 04 June 2025 - 12:36 PM

It's only stargazing but I like it!

 

(An allegory to the great 20th Century Philosopher, Mick Jagger.  ;)  )

 

https://youtu.be/MhM-aKCi_JQ


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#3 rockethead26

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Posted 04 June 2025 - 12:42 PM

I think that it is simpler. The stars are there every clear night. When you go out at night, it's generally quiet and peaceful. Looking up connects us with the entire universe and ignites a sense of wonder. How can that not be a beautiful thing?


Edited by rockethead26, 04 June 2025 - 12:42 PM.

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#4 oldphotonm

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Posted 04 June 2025 - 12:55 PM

I think Jim nails it.

 

In the hustle bustle of our modern lives, star gazing DOES give us a way to reconnect with that which is fundamental: the universe.

 

Pondering the scale and beauty of it all puts the earthly BS that we all put up with back into perspective.


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#5 JamesMStephens

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Posted 04 June 2025 - 01:09 PM

Otto,

 

What a great post!  I know this is just a snippet, but it caught my attention: "...an email with Bill Burnett of ITE asking me how I could ever possibly visually tell the difference between a 1/6 waterfront error and a 1/8 wavefront error..."  Why? Because I bought my INTES Mk 67 from him, and I decided to save $200 twenty-five years ago over just this thing!

 

Best,


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#6 Sketcher

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Posted 04 June 2025 - 02:21 PM

Why do we stargaze? Why are we (tele)scopists?

I can't speak for the "we" among us.  After all, "we" don't all do what we do for the same reasons.  "We" can only provide our individual answers.

 

Why does anyone partake in the humongous variety of hobbies/pastimes that people partake in?  There are elements in those answers that are in common with elements within "our" astronomical passions.  It's all the same -- yet different.

 

In the end, it doesn't matter -- not one iota.  All that is relevant lies in that journey before one's end.  After that, it doesn't matter -- not to "us" anymore.

 

I stargaze for some of the same reasons that others quilt, sew, hike, climb mountains, spelunk, scuba, paint, play tennis, chess, go, card games, watch birds, go boating, fly, parachute out of perfectly good airplanes, etc. etc.  It gives me something pleasing to do with a meaningless (in the end) life, and that's most definitely preferred over being miserable, bored, and passively awaiting that final ax to fall.

 

We know that we will die.  So, we strive to enjoy life while we can.  This may sound rather crass, but that's the way "we" are.

 

Some choose to stargaze.  Some choose religion, Some choose both or neither, and instead choose one of the many other possible distractions from our inevitable fates.  But in the end, it boils down to having knowledge (either consciously or subconsciously) that one's life will end.  One might as well enjoy it while one can -- and stargazing is one of the many available means for precisely that.

 

As for the "telescopist" part:  That's neither here nor there.  Under a pristine sky a telescope hardly matters to me.  I can still see naked eye comets, meteors, fireballs, the Milky Way, the constellations, the stars, the Sun, Moon, and all of "our" planets with the sole exception of Neptune.  Most recently I've had auroras putting on shows that could be seen by simply turning off my indoor lights, allowing my eyes a little time to adjust, and looking out a window (though I generally step outside -- if I'm not already outside).  The sky is more important than the telescope -- at least when one lives under a "seriously dark" sky.

 

So what's the point --  Archimedean or otherwise?  Life is pointless, but don't blame me.  I didn't start this thread smile.gif .


Edited by Sketcher, 04 June 2025 - 02:24 PM.

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#7 Takuan

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Posted 04 June 2025 - 02:35 PM

I think there are two main reasons.

1) Darkness. It's the opposite of daytime. We live during the day; we sleep at night. That darkness is mysterious because it's unknown. At night, our eyes don't perform as well as they do during the day. Nightlife is different from daytime life and, historically, hasn't been familiar to us. Darkness scares us, but some of us are drawn to it; we feel safe in it. It's a place where we can take refuge from the day and from our daily miseries.
I often think that astronomers are divided between those who love the dark (deep space fans) and the rest, who enjoy bright objects more: the Moon, planets, the sun. Of course, this is a simplification, and both supposed groups will enjoy the other fields, albeit to a lesser extent.

2) The need of many Homo sapiens (some more than others) to wonder what their eyes are seeing. Of course, point 1 is related to point 2, and those dark skies with thousands of tiny lights are a great challenge for our innate curiosity.

Edited by Takuan, 04 June 2025 - 02:36 PM.

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#8 LenX

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Posted 04 June 2025 - 02:41 PM

Thanks for a wonderful post.  I'm going to check out a copy of The Human Condition from my library. 


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#9 Starman1

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Posted 04 June 2025 - 02:41 PM

The moments of quiet reflection, interspersed with moments of wondrous perception; the experience of the night air and the wind in the trees; the turning of the Earth that marks the passage of time;

the balance of the knowledge of what you are seeing versus the sublime experience of its beauty; the momentary experiences of personal forgetfulness; the immersion in the celestial universe above us;

the slower pace of life under the stars--these are merely a few of the experiences that make astronomy a hobby that resonates with your being and makes us long for repetition of those experiences.

 

I recommend a couple books for you that may bring home how the night under the stars is important to the human mind:

1) "Acquainted With the Night: Excursions Through the World After Dark" by Christopher Dewdney.  He explores the differences between the hours as they pass.  As an all-nighter most nights I observe, I experience

almost exactly the same things each hour that he so poetically describes in the book.

2) "At Days Close: Night In Times Past" by A. Roger Ekirch.  The story of the relationship of Man to the night and why we absolutely need it in our lives and always have.


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#10 Otto Piechowski

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Posted 04 June 2025 - 03:33 PM

Thank you for your posts. There are, as some you have stated, many reasons for stargazing and scoping, some of which apply to other activities.

 

A value of Arendt's "The Discovery of the Archimedean Point" is that it highlights how the creation and use of the telescope is of singular importance for/to civilization as a whole; and, by derivation, for activities regarding the use of telescopes over the past four hundred years.

 

Arendt opens this article by writing ""Since a babe was born in a manger, it may be doubted whether so great a thing has happened with so little stir."" These are the words with which Whitehead [Alfred North; mathematician and logician] introduces Galileo and the discovery of the telescope on the stage of the "modern world." Nothing in these words is an exaggeration. Like the birth in the manger, which spelled not the end of antiquity but the beginning of something so unexpectedly and unpredictably new that neither hope nor fear could have anticipated it, these first tentative glances into the universe through an instrument, at once adjusted to human senses and defined to uncover what definitely and forever must lay beyond them, set the stage for an entirely new world and determined the course of other events, which with much greater stir were to usher in the modern age." (pages 258 and 259)


Edited by Otto Piechowski, 04 June 2025 - 08:25 PM.

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#11 Peter Besenbruch

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Posted 04 June 2025 - 07:56 PM

You can read "We Stargazers" here.


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#12 Starman1

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Posted 04 June 2025 - 11:47 PM

I forgot to mention the analogy to art galleries.

You are excited to see the new temporary exhibits (objects you've never seen before) but love seeing the permanent collection you love (your old favorite objects).

 

The objects in the sky are like the art in the gallery, only unlike an art gallery, there are much larger number of objects in the sky than there are art pieces in any gallery.

Nights are so short we can't even see a significant percentage of those objects in a decade.  But, we can see they are all, in their own ways, beautiful.


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#13 TheChosen

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Posted 05 June 2025 - 05:52 AM

A zen master took his student for a walk, wanted to show him the beautiful sunset

The student proclaimed this is so beautiful master, thank you so much

The master slapped him on the back of his head and never took him for another walk

 

The student asked, why did he get angry with me?
Someone else answered "The moment you put words behind the experience, you lessened and spoiled the experience to the limits of language and words"

 

I can describe a lot of stuff to people in life, my job requires it so.. but observing visually under the stars with a nice telescope, is not one of them. I can only speak of the profound results. With each night under the stars, my spiritual self has seen a tremendous boost. 


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#14 ABQJeff

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Posted 05 June 2025 - 07:29 AM

Otto: beautiful opening post.  That is the most personalized and descriptive version of “here is something neat I read” I have come across on CN.

 

My thoughts on astronomy and other pursuits:

 

We were created in love and are of love.  All pursuits that reveal to us the wonders of creation or of just being human, be it science, art, sport or our relationships, profoundly reveal the truth that we are loved.  And this makes you feel significant, special.

 

Astronomy, though, stands out among other pursuits in also so plainly showing how utterly insignificant we are in the grand scheme of natural creation.  We are at once incredibly special and loved, yet utterly insignificant except for that love.  In this way, astronomy is closest of all pursuits to reflect our relationship with the grand author of creation.

 

But, if I may, I cannot nearly describe this as well as one of my favorite philosophers, Calvin:

IMG_5290.png

 


Edited by ABQJeff, 05 June 2025 - 09:47 AM.

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#15 luxo II

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Posted 08 June 2025 - 01:35 AM

Oh its just for fun, to see and perhaps capture something few others have seen with their own eyes.


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#16 25585

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Posted 08 June 2025 - 10:15 AM

Started young

Attached Thumbnails

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#17 archival

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Posted 08 June 2025 - 11:08 AM

Because it is aesthetically and visually rewarding, positively "cool" dude, and therefore fun with varyious kinds of fun, from the sheer pleasure of the view you are having but at times the reward of something achieved, also as natural things are way more rewarding than some muck anthrophoids have made, whether technology or interpretation dependent art.

 

For example, if proudly being shown by someone their scope and mount and possibly camera setup, and be told about all the technical stuff, all I am constantly thinking is "Yeah, Yeah (suppress a yawn), when can I actually get to look through the bloody thing"!


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#18 Dave Mitsky

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Posted 09 June 2025 - 11:25 PM

Oh its just for fun, to see and perhaps capture something few others have seen with their own eyes.

In my case, observing is not simply just for fun.  However, I must admit that I get somewhat of a kick out of seeing objects that very few other human beings have experienced visually.


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#19 preprius

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Posted 10 June 2025 - 01:22 AM

I have asked this several times in the past 10 years.

Why do I stargaze.  I agree, I am not an astronomer, or a cosmology student or a teacher.   I really don't want to dive into another career.  But I always asked what is the deliverable in visual telescopists. 

Some do astrophotography, some sketch (very impressive). I really did not want to have another pressure of deliverable after long hours at work and commute > 1.5 hrs.

It is a time I can calm down and let the my imagination run.   I appreciate all CN categories, and do read most posts.   I learn by reading.   but I also apply the simple stuff like calculate eyepiece info. 

 

I recently got laid off (6 weeks) and at 65 years old, probably won't get back in the work force. 

So I get to relax more less deadlines.  

More time for me.   

I always asked what is progress, part of my personality at work.  How can I make it better. 

 

Now I don't care.  Or I should not care.

 

No deliverables, no progress was my thoughts.  But I learned from CN , is that the experience is more important than deliverables , or equipment specs. The goal is to be able see stars and day dream, and relax. 

See the propeller in M13.  A lack of stars shows the propeller.

 

My answer to why do I stargaze?  For the amazing experience.

For the imagination to ask questions.  . .

Thoughts of how insignificant I am.

How many other life forms there is. 

How many light years away are they. 

How less advanced , more advanced are they. 

How stupid humans are. 

How we need to play together to make better science.

How do I experience the overview effect?

 

Me.

Mark Eason


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#20 mountain monk

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Posted 10 June 2025 - 10:12 AM

“Woven man nicht sprechen kann, daruber muss man schweigen.” Wittgenstein 

 

Dark, clear, calm skies.

 

Jack


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#21 daedalus

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Posted 10 June 2025 - 10:34 AM

I do it for the cigar and bourbon.

I am a double star observer. After the typical astromeasures of the evening, say about four hours of executing the evening's data collection, I sit alone, pour two ounces of bourbon and light a cigar, reflecting on the evening's work and the night sky. I won't move from that chair for at least an hour and a half, until the bourbon is gone and the cigar is done.

I do it for the bourbon and the cigar, and the solitude.
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#22 Otto Piechowski

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Posted 10 June 2025 - 04:11 PM

Jack, I would appreciate it if you know and would tell me, this closing statement found in Wittgenstein's Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus which you quoted...do you think he was applying it only to his analysis of linguistic philosophy expressed mathematically/logically/algorithmically....or do you think he was speaking of all speech in general; social, political, scientific, religious, etc.

 

Otto



#23 Starman1

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Posted 10 June 2025 - 04:22 PM

Jack, I would appreciate it if you know and would tell me, this closing statement found in Wittgenstein's Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus which you quoted...do you think he was applying it only to his analysis of linguistic philosophy expressed mathematically/logically/algorithmically....or do you think he was speaking of all speech in general; social, political, scientific, religious, etc.

 

Otto

I think all speech.  If you know nothing about something, you should not speak about it, i.e. don't try to speak on a subject about which you know nothing.

That doesn't mean you can't ask, or that you cannot learn.  But, if you pick up some knowledge of something, you no longer know nothing.



#24 Otto Piechowski

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Posted 10 June 2025 - 04:44 PM

Thank you, Jack. I’m glad to hear that because I frequently use this statement to refer to rhetoric in general rather than just specific logical mathematical formulations about the nature of linguistics.

#25 Starman1

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Posted 10 June 2025 - 05:14 PM

Thank you, Jack. I’m glad to hear that because I frequently use this statement to refer to rhetoric in general rather than just specific logical mathematical formulations about the nature of linguistics.

I'm not Jack, Otto.  I just butted into the conversation.  My apologies.

Don




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