trixon

just chillin

34, software engineer, writer

trixon on discord as well, just message me here first so I know where the friend request is coming from!


So I've been reading this book lately called The Last Stargazers: The Enduring Story of Astronomy's Vanishing Explorers, and it's pretty good. Like many things I get into or read, I now what to completely change careers and uproot my life and become an astronomer. In college I went through this phase when I watched Scrubs and wanted to be a doctor for a while, but thankfully nothing ever came of that. At least with this I can simply read a lot about space and buy a moderately expensive home telescope to become a hobbyist astronomer.

Anyway, the book as a whole is really quite good. The author, Emily Levesque, does a great job of making the factual parts of the book not nearly so dry as every school textbook I've read and all the anecdotal parts are generally funny, or at least interesting/entertaining. I've learned a lot about what it means to actually be an astronomer and the more recent history of astronomy (the last 50ish years or so), and in many instances I've been able to actually imagine and feel what it's like to be one as well. As one of the reviews on the back states, I'd recommend giving this to any young person with an interest in science or math or the stars and let them run with it.

For those interested, here's the goodreads link, which should have other links to buy it if you'd like (which I recommend): https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/44024316-the-last-stargazers

Now, I'm not quite halfway through the book when I've decided to write this, mostly because of one part of the book. Toward the end of chapter 4, Levesque starts writing about the many encounters astronomers tend to have with animals around various observatories. Thanks to her and this book, I have now learned of the existence of the viscacha, which is apparently "are relatives of chinchillas but resemble wise rabbit grandfathers." This seems incredibly appropriate. Aside from being entirely adorable, my favorite part is that astronomers have noticed a quirk of viscachas: they apparently like to watch sunsets. Mentioned several times in the books, astronomers have a tradition of watching the sun set just before getting to work for the night. As explained, this has a number of reasons such as giving astronomers a good idea of the weather they can expect for the night but also, people just like sunsets. They're pretty and romantic. The concept of these highly educated people on mountaintops, ready to gaze out in the universe to study objects that are millions or billions of years old and may not even exist any longer, standing there watching the rotation of the earth alongside a small rodent simply because both like to amuses me to know end. Of course, this was offset by then being told viscacha populations around observatories have declined due to the presence and scraps from observatory kitchens increasing predator populations in the area. Never having been to or worked at an observatory (and almost certainly never will), I feel a weird sense of loss at knowing this. I can only hope the somewhat silly but heartwarming kindred bond between astronomer and small rodent continues for a long time.


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