The Last Stargazers
Emily Levesque
★★★★★ 4/5
Non Fiction: astronomy, science
Edifying and Entertaining—especially if you’re into Astronomy;
As an amateur astronomer and astrophotographer I thoroughly enjoyed Emily Levesque’s The Last Stargazers. I suspect anyone interested in astronomy or even science books in general, will do so as well. Ms. Levesque interweaves the development of modern professional astronomy with her own journey: from a toddler captivated by Halley’s comet to her current station as an accomplished professional astronomer and professor of astronomy. She regales us with several episodes spanning a century of astronomy adventures from the bizarre to the tragic, and in the process gives us an insider’s view into what modern day astronomy entails, including some of the sexism she has had to endure in what has sadly been a male dominated field, like so many others.
Her collection of stories featuring scorpions to telescopes being shot at, are curated from extensive research talking with astronomers around the globe as well as her personal experiences.
Not quite the lament the title suggests:
Astronomy is not any less immune to the arrow of technical progress than any other field. As Ms. Levesque narrates, back in the very early days (nearly a century ago), astronomers had to elaborately prepare photographic plates and then crouch in high hanging cages, often precariously, to manage the focusing and guiding of the cameras to capture elusive photographic data. Photographics plates have long since given way to highly sensitive digital CCD cameras. Ms. Levesque’s own work did not require any perilous climbs as automation ensures working astronomers can safely ‘observe’ from their desks—nowadays their very own office desk thousands of miles away from the actual telescope they’re working on.
It is this ‘working at the telescope under dark skies’ that is vanishing and referenced in the book’s subtitle. The book is not so much a dirge to that old breed of astronomy as a paean to the hardy group of scientists who were willing to brave grave discomfort, and often danger, for data to advance our understanding of our universe. It is also an optimistic look at the telescopes and technology that will drive the next generation of astronomers and their discoveries! But those astronomers will likely not have anywhere close to the adventures their predecessors did.
Will the real stargazers please stand up?
Peering through an eyepiece may be romantic, but it’s not particularly scientific. The images we see must be accurately recorded and preserved in some way and the methods for doing this have evolved over time.
“Peering through an eyepiece may be romantic, but it’s not particularly scientific. The images we see must be accurately recorded and preserved in some way and the methods for doing this have evolved over time.”
There is some irony in referring to modern day astronomers as stargazers—they’re mainly gazing at images of stars. In fact popular wisdom has it that most astronomers can’t tell the most common constellations and are quite helpless at navigating the night sky, since technology does almost all of it for them these days.
In fact, in amateur astronomy circles that I’m part of, there’s palpable antipathy between the Observers and the Imagers, the former believing themselves to be the real stargazers—purists whose efforts at preserving dark adaptation to see the faintest of deep sky objects are often thwarted by the imagers with their laptops and other luminescent gear.
Being both an observer and imager (I often set up both rigs side by side), I abstain from picking sides in this battle.
Relatable Struggles
Early in the book, Ms. Levesque describes a trip all the way to the Las Campanas observatory in Chile where her allocated precious observing time went to waste because high winds put an end to observing for the night. What most people perhaps don’t realize is that ground based astronomy requires an assortment of things to all work out for a successful night—the stars need to line up just right, so to say. Foremost of course is weather—not just clear skies, but good transparency and seeing with a calm windless atmosphere. But that’s just the top of the list. There’s a whole catalog of associated technology that needs to work just right for a useful observing or imaging run. Sadly, there are far more ways things can go wrong than right and many of those things are often uncontrollable and unpredictable.
I’ve had my share of character building nights where a long drive to a dark site and a clear sky was wasted because of a single cable thoughtlessly left at home, unloaded on to my car. The stakes for professional astronomers, who are lucky to get some telescope time allotted to begin with, are much higher of course (getting data to finally complete research towards a PhD, for example) making negative outcomes all the more devastating. So it’s not surprising at all that people at the forefront of scientific exploration have their own superstitions for a successful night at a telescope: we’re all human when it comes to dealing with things we cannot control.
Overall
Don’t miss this book, if you are even remotely interested in astronomy. Here’s Ms. Levesque’s Ted Talk to whet your appetite.
1 thought on “The Last Stargazers”
Pingback: The Invisible Universe – Starvind astrophotography