dcseain | (Reply)

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Astronomy - what I now know is "observational astronomy" - was the gateway to the realm of Real, Serious Science for many science-minded children, at least of my generation. Most other forms of science, the stuff we saw on "Mister Wizard" on TV, required lab equipment and things that children generally didn't get to play with, at least until you were old enough for a chemistry set. But all you needed for astronomy was a cloudless night! Look up - there's the Big Dipper, and Orion, and Cassiopeia, and the Pleiades, all filled with stars called Aldebaran and Mizar and Deneb and Algol and Zubenelgenubi! When my family went to the "summer cottage" in New Hampshire, I could look up at the night sky and identify the major constellations even without my glasses. (That was why I always chose to sleep on the screened porch, instead of in one of the bedrooms inside.)

Now, of course, I know that astronomy is closer to what our friend Nomad does, and very few astronomers spend their nights peering into a telescope... but the sky is always there, calling...