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Looking at the night sky

Glenn’s words reminded me of an enthralling observing session on
February 19th, 1980:

> sometimes I wonder if some ever look to the sky at night and see where
> these "rocks" came from and reestablish the wonder and awe that first
> led them to look up at night! I still will never [forget] the feelings
> of seeing the rings of Saturn the first time thru my 6" Edmund
> reflector.

The days before Ash Wednesday are carnival days here in Germany, a
season of merrymaking. The sky was so clear the night before (Shrove
Tuesday) that I decided to set up my Celestron-8 telescope and observe
the sky instead of having a last dance (I can’t dance anyway) in one of
the local restaurants. It was a wonderful night, I hunted down Mars,
Jupiter, Uranus, some double stars, quite a few galaxies, several open
clusters and early in the morning the first globular clusters. Before I
went to bed in the morning to snatch some sleep, I went to the baker’s
to buy some rolls for breakfast. And there I stood (with red cheeks and
joy in my heart because of all those ‘radiant’ wonders of the universe
that I was able to behold and marvel at during that night) among the
other pale-cheeked, alcohol-stricken customers.
Looking up at the starry sky can bring so much comfort to your heart,
you almost feel in touch and in harmony with the universe. At such a
moment I don’t want to hear anything about ‘nebular condensation’, ‘T
Tauri stars’, or Big Bang theories. All that matters at such a moment is
joy, pleasure, harmony and not scientific dissection.

> Lets look at a meteroite once in a while by holding it in your hand
> instead of under a microscope.

Fortunately enough, it sometimes happens that I do get enough of
pyroxenes, olivines, phase diagrams, parallels, RR perspectives and
classification chats. Then I take out my meteorite collection (I keep
most of my meteorites in 29.5 x 23.5 cm [ca. 11.5 x 9 inches] acrylic
coin boxes) and just look at them, let my eyes wander over them, look at
some of them more closely with a magnifying glass and admire them while
pondering over their origin(s)[not in a scientific way].

When the end of my university days approached many years ago, I was
almost happy to leave it all behind. I was really yearning to enjoy a
poem for its sheer beauty and aesthetics and not for its rhyme pattern,
its meter and the like. ‘L’art pour l’art’ (Art for the art’s sake) had
taken all the fun out of it.

I think this is what Glenn wants to express, too, and it need not be
contradictory to Jim Hurley’s words.

Best wishes, Bernd

P.S.: Thank you Walter for your sincere compliments!

> BTW, I greatly enjoy ...
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