art & atrstrophysics, bicycles & beer
Did you grow up watching Jack Horkheimer on PBS? If so, "keep looking up!" Either way, enjoy some of my recent astronomical photography while I tell you a story about turning a TV into a telescope.
I used to love tuning into Jack Horkheimer: Star Hustler as a kid. Television was pretty strictly controlled in my household. We had one of those televisions with knobs, broadcast only and no VCR. The annual showing of The Wizard of Oz or Star Wars was the only time I got to see those movies. During the week I was allowed the Nightly News (Peter Jennings ONLY) and Jeopardy. Each week, a new episode of Star Trek (TNG and onward) or any time I could find a Star Trek movie or rerun of The Original Series in the tv guide. Many years ago the weekly newspaper came with an official printed tv guide that we would pour over every Sunday morning, circling the titles that we each wanted to watch. For me, permission was required as was my deference to whatever my parents wanted to see. Paradoxically, here are a few of the television shows unilaterally allowed on the weekends and in the middle of the night: Saturday Night Live, Tales from the Crypt, Ghoulardi, Mystery Science Theatre 3000, The Red Green Show, The Dukes of Hazzard, The X-Files and anything involving Mel Brooks.
It must have been the middle of the night, after some scifi or b-movie binge, sitting my tiny arm’s length away from the tube. Avoiding bedtime by clunking through each of the knob’s numbers. It must have been then that I first saw Star Hustler. I came to rely on Jack each week to tell me what astronomical events were coming up and where in the sky to look for them. The local news might tell me about really big stuff like that time we saw Halley’s Comet (I was 7, it was incredible.) But without Jack, I would have never known to look for the Perseids or a planetary alignment. I set alarms for the middle of the night after giddily setting my binoculars out. I learned how to put my old entry level 35mm camera on a makeshift tripod for long exposures to try to capture the milky way. I built kit telescopes and spectroscopes from cardboard paper towel tubes and lenses ordered from the engineering catalogue at my dad’s job. When all the other kids in my school had to build pinhole boxes to watch the annular solar eclipse, I arrived prepared with an old welding hood and a note assuring the staff that ISO shade levels 14 and up are acceptable for looking directly into the sun. Most importantly, I kept looking up.
I looked up at the constellations and invented my own, charting them to see how they would move and interact across the sky throughout the year. I looked at Jupiter’s moons, I measured the chemical content of Sirius. I looked up and out, staring into the stars until my mind forgot about my body laying in a damp grassy field at 2am and I traveled. I would look to a place in the sky and go there, zooming in, letting all but my drishti fall away. Then I would go a little further out, trying to recall the star maps and where I was going. Eventually in my mind, I was testing the edges of our galaxy and beginning to wonder about the broader universe. By college, I was trying to find a way to work astrophysics into my art degree. I learned to read radio telescope data, translated those light waves into visual spectra and painted what I “saw.” I learned how to write python and helped to sort NASA’s galactic data, searching for tiny indications of light against 27 million years of ever-expanding blackness. Wherever you found me, I was slipping away in the middle of the night to climb a mountain, abandoned building or tree to get a look at whatever was going on up there.
This year has already been pretty amazing for my little star gazing heart. I haven’t even left home and yet I’ve been treated to a total solar eclipse, the Lyrid meteor shower and a surprise solar storm and showing of the Northern Lights. All from the meadow, right here at my house with my trusty welding goggles, camera and binoculars. I’ll be out here watching the meteor showers that come each year. In October, I might even catch a glimpse of a new comet (Tsuchinshan-ATLAS.) Speaking of comets, did you see the devil’s comet during the eclipse? If you were staring at the sun and thought you saw a sort of streaky line directly to the left of totality and just to the right diagonally with respect to Jupiter, then you did!
Jack Horkheimer is dead. Long live Jack Horkheimer.