Why We Look Up: Starlit Generations

Sometimes a joyful hobby truly can be all in the family.

I’ve written previously about how my paternal grandmother introduced me to Orion, Taurus, and the Pleiades one clear and cold winter evening, and so gave me the cosmos. Now in middle age, I was feeling a little lonely in my celestial enthusiasm.

Then my father signed up for a self-paced astronomy course. He also read The Human Cosmos, which I’d recommended — after a reader of this column suggested it to me. So when I received my Dwarf 3 robotic telescope in September, I decided to give my Dwarf II to my Dad.

He’s challenged by heavy light pollution in Richmond, Virginia, something the small electronically assisted astronomy scope was built to compensate for. The timing worked out for this to be an 80th birthday present; regardless of that, I wanted him to have the scope anyway.

I arrived late on Halloween and pulled the Dwarf II out of my backpack. We took the D2 onto his back patio for a quick test run, to ensure his phone could connect to the D2, and to see how the telescope would handle the Bortle 8 conditions. With my unaided eyes, I could make out the Summer Triangle but little else. With the D2 connected to Dad’s phone, we looked briefly at Vega — and the many stars surrounding it — before heading inside for dinner.

“It’s tremendous how much more you can see!” he exclaimed to my stepmother.

“Just wait,” I replied.

Two nights later, after his birthday party, we headed outside again. It was just the two of us as we looked first at the Dumbbell Nebula (M27), and I showed him how to use the scope’s Neutral Density (ND) filter. We then observed the M71 star cluster before turning to the main event: the Andromeda Galaxy, though we first had to relocate due to an inconvenient tree.

My father was astonished by what the little telescope revealed in the skies above.

When one of my sisters ventured outside with her husband and sons, Dad demonstrated his new astronomical prowess. He again targeted M27, and as the green hourglass shape resolved on the screen, I was put on the spot to explain what a nebula is. Amid jokes about space farts and playful plans to open a restaurant called Galactic Gas, Dad navigated to M31, and the awe was contagious. My oldest nephew in particular seemed mesmerized by the image building on Dad’s phone screen.

We huddled together in the November night, a chatty and excited blended family gazing in wonder at another galaxy.

In daylight, Dad insisted he needed a new tablet to appreciate the stellar sights on a larger screen. Dad and I both like gear. For me, this includes computer tech and backpacks. For Dad, it’s been scuba diving and fly fishing. And now, for both of us, astronomy, too. So, off we went to Best Buy.

“Are you astronomers?” asked the young sales clerk when she heard us talking about the telescope and imaging. After ringing us up, she volunteered that she’s a college student studying space sciences, and that she was excited to have assisted us. When I introduced myself and told her I write for Sky & Telescope, she replied, “I’ve studied your articles for my research.” I was gobsmacked. I wish I’d gotten her name.

We didn’t have any more observing nights during my visit, but we did spend Election Day at the Air & Space Museum in Washington, D.C. Dad wanted to know why Pluto was no longer a planet — I have my own Pluto angst — and had many questions about the Kuiper Belt. (I managed to escape the plastic rockets and cosmic Snoopy keychains he tried to foist upon me in the gift shop.)

On the train back to Richmond, Dad detailed his plan to develop his own step-by-step instructions for the D2, rather than having me put something together for him. He was determined to conquer the scope’s learning curve, but promised he’d be calling me “plenty” for help.

Dad and I are now talking more than ever. We’ve FaceTimed to go over the telescope setup sequence and when to use the ND filter. He’s a new subscriber to Sky & Telescope and made plans to take the D2 to the darker skies of Virginia’s Eastern Shore for Thanksgiving.

The other night, Dad called from his back patio. The telescope was a little glitchy, and I talked him through some troubleshooting. He then targeted M15, a globular cluster in Pegasus. As the images started to stack on the screen, I heard him tell my stepmother, “Here’s where it gets cool.”

It’s deeply heartening to share this new stellar pastime with my father. But then I remembered one night when I was 14, when Dad took me to Randolph-Macon College to attend an astronomy lecture. We waited in a long line for our turn to peer through their massive telescope, and that’s when I saw Saturn for the first time. Because of my Dad.

Now, I’m returning the favor. This yearning was always there, for both us. It just took a few decades to make it stick. But here we are, on opposite coasts, bound by blood and starlight.