Oh well, I'll see the next one.
See you in 2080!
I've long wanted to upgrade my telescope, a hobbyist refractor I've owned since I was a teenager. When great events like this come along, I'm usually content to see the photographs taken by people who undertake it seriously. I was at the annular eclipse a few years ago, where Ground Zero was in Utah. There were hundreds of astronomers spread out across the field. The guy nearest me had a pretty serious setup, and it wasn't until after the eclipse was over that he realized he'd caught an airliner in transit across the annulus. He was just as surprised and delighted as those around him to see it.
But anyway, why don't I have a nicer telescope? I've always told people I'm more about getting there than looking at it from a distance. But when I dragged out the telescope and let some newbies have a look at Jupiter and Saturn through them, I was surprised how profound an effect it had on them. They had literally never looked through an astronomical telescope before. And suddenly those points of light had become
shapes. It's one thing to know that that's a planet. It's another thing to be able to
see that it's a planet with your own (heavily aided) eyes. So I've asked Santa for a nice computer-controlled Celestron.
Moreover, we observed Jupiter over several nights so that they could see the change in positions of the Galilean moons. And another profound revelation: you can see astronomical movement from Earth. Or just aim it at the Moon's terminator and let them watch it swim out of the field of view as Earth turns. I really need to recapture the sense of wonder that got me into this profession in the first place.
