A colorful image of a multitude of constellations met me when I entered a nice cozy bathroom in the house of Norwich Astronomical Society. This England based organization is a well-known community of dedicated astronomers. I felt how pride fills me up while I was making my way through the hallways. I was about to join a company of enthusiastic start watchers. My interest in astronomy had been a thing for a while, but I had been only a humble observer for a long time.
When an anthropologist starts his research, he first wonders at a new tribe. The scientist wants to see. I was about to learn about a strange tribe of young astronomers who have much changed since I was one of them.
Image Credit: Dennis Cox
There was a distinct change that immediately caught my attention. Modern young astronomers decided to split their tribe in two groups calling themselves “Screen Scanners” and “Visual Observers”. Both groups look at each other with a slight grin of superiority. These two sects are perfect examples of a phenomenon that every anthropologist observes when studying a new tribe – sects always feel superior compared to each other. The Stargazing Tribe sects were always friendly, but one could easily hear a lot of banter popping in the air around sect members.
In a spacious room coffee scent floats everywhere. The sect of Screen Scanners is busy. Each sect member works on his laptop, they merely notice the world around them. They do not like using telescopes. Instead, they do their wizardry over laptop displays tweaking images of constellations and stars.
They call themselves “imagers”. Software processes light that was accumulated over a long period of time. With the help of modern computing power, they see images hidden from the eyes of visual observers. The sect of Screen Scanners evolved quickly. The pace of progress was picked up by enthusiasts. Instead of archaic films, they have CGI images. Instead of waiting for wet chemical development of films, they receive their images in a timely manner with the help of high performance computers.
When I left this sect and headed outside, I met another sect of Visual Observers. This sect is divided in a couple of groups. One of them is Dobsosnian Alley. These tribe members praise their “Big Dob”, a 24-inch mirror, and call their 16-inch mirror “Baby Dob”. I like how these sect has a moto that echoes with my own philosophy. They say “Seeing means believing”. Tiny eyepieces that open the whole universe for them make them feel proud to be a part of this community.
Big Dob... look much better in the dark
This is an elite sect of people who are in awe of universe and its beauty. While seeing digitally processed images with bright colors is a very satisfying experience, they prefer witnessing the universe over looking at illustrations. Their legacy are portraits of the sky above drawn with graphite.
Screen Scanners pitied their retro-minded brethren who prefer this nostalgic way of observing the cosmos. Some of the techniques are old and outdated and were used only because technology could not provide better solutions. One of imagers once said that natural observation is a waste of collected light. Another looked upon hand drawn sketches and called them “sad”.
If one would ask about my preferences, I would answer that I love both sects. I am the guy who loves diversity. I try my best to improve my understanding of digital imagery and amuse myself with photographing noctilucent clouds. At the same time, nothing brings to me the same joy as looking at the night sky through a telescope and trying to make out the surface of Mars.