A long time ago in galaxy far, far away…I hated the winter. The cold temperatures and biting winds were enough to keep me depressed for six straight months. I was going to write about how I missed the turning of the leaves, but I remembered that I have spent the last nine years of my life living in New Mexico and Texas where there are very few trees and no change in their appearance for the cold season. A man can go crazy living in an environment like that! I would wake up one morning and the trees would be bare! It was as if those monsters from Stephen King’s The Langoliers had descended on our little Texas town and devoured all of the leaves during the night. This was all before I fell in love with astronomy and began taking my telescope outside on a regular basis. It seems, as I recall, that my obsession with astronomy began during the winter months. I remember a distinct, stinging sensation in my hands as I tried to set up my cheapo 3” Newtonian Reflector telescope outside my apartment in New Mexico in 12 degrees F with a 10mph wind in my face. That pain, as almost any amateur astronomer will tell you, is well worth the crystal clear views that you can get from your telescope during the winter months. I spoke a little about the virtues of winter observation to the Clovis News Journal a few years ago during the Clovis Astronomy Club’s annual Astronomy Day at the Library outreach event. It was true in New Mexico and it is true today in Dayton. Winter is also great because, in my opinion, some of the most beautiful night sky targets are prominent in the early evening during the winter months: 1) Orion, including The Great Nebula and The Horse Head Nebula, 2) Lyra, featuring Vega and The Ring Nebula, 3) Cassiopeia with her double star cluster, and 4) Andromeda, with its crown jewel The Great Galaxy in Andromeda. Many of those targets stay up for the entire year, but you have to be willing to up late or get up early to see them.

Are you wondering if I have lost my mind? What kind of damned fools would stand out in the cold so they can look at fuzzy dots in the sky? Why not wait until the summer months when it is warm and you can BBQ and look at the Moon at the same time? It sounds like a pretty reasonable argument, does it?

Following the winter romance with my first reflector telescope, I was excited about the prospect of going outside and using it without a scarf, jacket, gloves, and a campfire. Unfortunately, I found that summer sessions can be, at times, more annoying than a winter session. There is a significant amount of heat that rises from the Earth’s surface during the spring and summer months. The same phenomenon that causes visual distortions on hot highways (i.e. the water mirage) can wreak havoc with an observation session. Heat rising into the atmosphere can cause noticeable distortions and make it very difficult or impossible to collimate scopes or bring some targets into focus. Depressed yet? That is just the beginning! There is another menace that can turn your session into a fight for survival: mosquitoes. I am firm believer that they are the hell-spawn reincarnations of those crusty, pissed-off amateur astronomers that huddle in their own corners at star parties and refuse to share their knowledge with anyone else. They will descend upon your observing session without mercy; they take no prisoners, and they do not care about your citronella candle. Those first few sessions were quite a battle, and it left me with many war wounds before I was smart enough to bring candles and plenty of bug spray. Somehow I wish that I had read a book before just diving into this hobby all those years ago. Not too long ago, a friend named Jeff Barton at Comanche Springs Observatory showed me a mosquito-repellant polo shirt that kept him from having to douse himself in bug spray every thirty minutes. It was pretty cool, but it can cost as much as an intermediate telescope like my 3” refractor (around $400).

I will post my entry before Wednesday because I am going on vacation for the Thanksgiving holiday and I do not plan to sit around working on school, work, or nightShifted Astronomy. That entry is already in draft and it deals with my favorite holiday topic: purchasing your first telescope and how to avoid getting a raw deal with those wonderful department store scopes that promise you Hubble-like views of the universe’s greatest wonders. Until then, clear skies!

Image Credit: Unknown

Happy Carl Sagan Day!