Sky and Telescope - March 2016 - 6

Letters

First-Time Eyepiece Views
We can relate to Peter Tyson's story
(S&T: Sept. 2015, p. 4) about showing his
daughter Saturn with a telescope for the
very first time. Through #popscope (pop
scope.org), our urban-astronomy initiative, we've had the pleasure of bringing
many friends, neighbors, and passersby
to the eyepiece for their first time. We
witness their screams of delight and cries
of disbelief as they see the Moon's craters,
Saturn's rings, or Jupiter's moons.
What our guests say after viewing
makes us laugh and think; sometimes
their comments spark wide-ranging
conversations that touch on astronomy,
cosmology, philosophy, culture, and history. We enjoy these reactions so much,
in fact, that we began recording them
anonymously. Here are some of our favorites involving the Moon:
"You're telling me we sent men to the
Moon and brought them back?"
"I want to go to the Moon, but I have to
wait until I'm 15. I don't know how I'm
going to afford the rocket."
"All those craters - how can there not be
a civilization up there?"

And here are a few involving Saturn:
"On a vu Saturn! On a vu les planètes!"
("We saw Saturn! We saw the planets!")
"It's like a pig's nose!"
"Saturn looks like my ex-husband."

Our guests' memorable utterances
remind us that, no matter what our
background, we are all the same under
the stars - equally humbled, awed, and
inspired.
Michael O'Shea
Chicago, Illinois
Viva Dadwal
Montréal, Québec
Quite a few years ago, I was doing a local
star party with an 8-inch Dobsonian that
I'd built from scratch and decorated with
things to attract kids. A boy of about 9 or
10 walked by and asked me what I had
in my scope. I told him it was pointed at
the crescent Moon. So he looked into the
eyepiece and got very excited. Then he
pointed to Vega and asked if he could look
at that. I told him the name of the star
and showed him how to point the scope.
It took him several minutes to find it, but
he did. Then he announced to everyone

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with a very loud voice, "I have the star
Vega in this telescope! Who would like to
see it?" A crowd gathered and looked, and
then slowly drifted away.
Then he asked, "What else can I find?"
I told him about the big globular cluster
M13 and explained that, while he couldn't
see it, he could point the finder where it
should be and find it himself.
About then a worried father showed
up, concerned that his son might break
the telescope. I pointed out that I'd made
it myself and that it cost only $350,
most of that for the main mirror safely
mounted at the bottom of the tube. Breakage would not be an issue.
I spent the rest of the evening sitting
in my lawn chair, watching this child find
various objects in the sky and showing
them to anyone who would look. The
excitement he had at finding, seeing, and
sharing the show with others kept him
going for 2 hours. He left exhausted, and
I never saw him again. But I'm willing
to bet he never forgot that night - and
probably got his dad to buy him his own
telescope within a few months.
John Duchek
St. Louis, Missouri

VIVASWAT DADWAL

Not So Solitary After All

A group called #popscope brings the joys of sidewalk
astronomy to underserved communities in several
major cities.

6

March 2016 sky & telescope

I read with great interest "Supernovae:
Lonely Explosions Between Galaxies"
(S&T: Nov. 2015, p. 12), which details
how three solitary white dwarfs unaffi liated with any galaxy produced Type Ia
supernovae. But a white dwarf becomes a
supernova only after it has accumulated
enough gas from a companion star to
exceed the Chandrasekhar limit of 1.4 solar
masses. So by "solitary" do you merely
mean "outside a galaxy"? Or did these
white dwarfs somehow accumulate the
required mass during their lonely travels
through intergalactic space?
Jim Baughman
West Hollywood, California


http://www.popscope.org http://www.popscope.org

Sky and Telescope - March 2016

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Sky and Telescope - March 2016

Contents
Sky and Telescope - March 2016 - Cover1
Sky and Telescope - March 2016 - Cover2
Sky and Telescope - March 2016 - 1
Sky and Telescope - March 2016 - Contents
Sky and Telescope - March 2016 - 3
Sky and Telescope - March 2016 - A
Sky and Telescope - March 2016 - B
Sky and Telescope - March 2016 - 4
Sky and Telescope - March 2016 - 5
Sky and Telescope - March 2016 - 6
Sky and Telescope - March 2016 - 7
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