It’s a good job….
….It’s been cloudy.
If the nights had been clear I would have been tearing my few remaining hairs out. No eyepieces for the telescope, except for the one that came with it, (which doesn’t count because it doesn’t have its own shiny and new box).
They, and the rest of their bits are due to fly in tomorrow, with a following wind, but I’m not holding my breath.
When you buy a new car, you suddenly start to notice how many other similar cars there are to yours. (My last car was a Fiat (I know, I know) Multipla, and when I got that all the other Multipla drivers started waving at me. Once or twice even I was ambushed into returning the royal wave. My wife says they are just thanking me for not crashing into them.)
Anyway, I have suddenly started to become aware of the number of people who are interested in astronomy. And I mean GENUINELY interested, not like those that go “Oh yeah, I always wanted to get a telescope” and you go “Well hey! Come round and see mine, I can show you saturn and xyz cool things!” and they go, ” erm, well, yeah, I wish I could but I have to stay home and erm, shave my forearms.”
Really, young and old alike, and even girls!! Some appear to just be closet astronomers, whilst others are wearing T-shirts that say “I’d rather be glued to my telescope!” (which, incidentally, is illegal in Lithuania, after the “Incident”).
But I guess really we are just pursuing the oldest visual appreciation technique there is, and there’s something comforting in the knowledge that even without Bill Gates, Kofi Annan, George Bush and Paris Hilton, there are some constants in life. And they aint going anywhere fast.
So come on eyepieces! There’s clear nights on the way!!
