Along with the year-round hiking season, Tucson has a year-round season for astronomy. Now, I'd be lying if I said that that was enormously important for me, and I'd also be lying if I portrayed astronomy as an activity that has accompanied me through all the years of my life. But, I was interested enough in it at one point in my late teenage years to have considered getting a degree in it, and I probably wouldn't have become a scientist without that initial astronomy interest. In spite of the rather high horizon, my hometown of Admont was not a bad place for backyard observing (I was puzzled that there were people in the world who had never seen the Milky Way), and I was always happy with what I saw (aside from those clouds that covered the sky just about long enough to obscure the 1999 solar eclipse, I am still unhappy about those). Then I moved to Vienna (and immediately understood the Milk Way thing), and other light-polluted places, my scope didn't move with me, and that was the end of that, more or less.
But within the last few years in Tucson, astronomy had a little bit of a "renaissance" in my life. Steve is an amateur astronomer, quite a lot more serious about it than I have ever been (but, luckily for me, not serious enough to make moving to a mid-latitude city a dealbreaker), and I could easily participate in his hobby. There were casual outings to Catalina State Park on random evenings, more serious trips to darker sites, with or without a local amateur astronomy group, and visits to some of the professional (and professional-educational) observatories around Tucson. Even during the times we were not so engaged in the hobby, we'd get reminded of it. You can just tell that astronomy is important in Tucson, from the strict rules about lights that keep the professional observatories happy and the sky beautiful, to "Sky bar" on 4th avenue setting up telescopes for people to look through between gin and tonics.
In general, astronomy is a hobby for dedicated people. The situation is something like this: first, you have to invest a high three- to low four-digit figure in equipment, if you want to see anything half way exciting. Second, there is a certain learning curve to using that equipment, and your own eyes, to see those things. Third, in a world full of glossy, color-saturated Hubble images, you really have to dial down your expectations and acquire a "philosophy of viewing" in order to get
something out of seeing dim, mostly gray-scale objects through your, say, 8 inch aperture. Fourth, you have to find a low-horizon spot without major light pollution,
and the means and permission to transport yourself and your equipment there. Fifth, you have to be able to prioritize a clear, moonless, non-work night over whatever else you may have planned. Sixth, temperatures on such a night should be well above freezing (it is absolutely unreal just how cold you can get at, say, 15 C/60 F, if all you do is stand around), and also not too windy, depending on what kind of money you invested in your mount. And then, if none of this has derailed your burgeoning astronomy hobby, and you've seen Saturn's rings, Jupiter's moons, our moon's craters, and a couple of M something-or-the-other's here and there, you have to keep at it, lest you forget how to use your scope, where you put your star atlas 6 months ago, and what there even is to see on a random September night.
One special thing about Tucson is that you can be a hobby astronomer with a low to moderate level of dedication, because many potential obstacles are a non-issue: clear skies are pretty much guaranteed 9 months out of the year, 45 minutes outside of town you have a pretty dark sky, escaping virtually all light pollution is a matter of sitting on I-10 for a couple of hours, and nighttime temperatures, depending on the time of the year, are bearable to pleasant. Again, luckily for me, Steve invested the high three- to low four-digit number in equipment in the decades before we knew each other. All we needed to do was to casually plan around the moon. Since astrophotography is a whole other animal, I do not have 12 months worth of astronomy photos to show. But here's a November morning-after photo, with the telescope still set up:
Yes, in my last entry, I was sighing about how in Vienna, planning on going hiking is not what it was in Tucson. But when it comes down to it, it is reasonably easy to organize a hike from here, and that hobby is not going to leave us altogether. But astronomy? Well....let's just say, it may be a while until we see the Whirlpool Galaxy again. Most of the major obstacles are up. And Vienna's bright skies, viewed from a street canyon, are not great reminders of a fourth- or fifth priority hobby.
But in spite of that, and in spite of the terrible weather we've had at the end of May (more here), Steve and I had a lucky, unexpected astronomy moment a couple of weeks ago: a glimpse of that triple conjunction of Mercury, Venus and Jupiter. And because I have a much better camera than when I was in Tucson, I took a photo, and it worked out:
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| Mercury (top), Venus (middle) and Jupiter (bottom) |
Not mind-blowing, I know. But when it comes to inner-city astronomy in an unusually cloudy spring, this view is an epic win.
