Sky and Telescope - November 2018 - 84

FOCAL POINT by Douglas Ray Nelson

Cosmic
Entanglement
A brush with death brings home the profound
connection we all have with the universe.

eight years old. "Look into the eyepiece," the astronomer said. "You'll see
Saturn." I knew Saturn from pictures
- the planet with rings - but I'd never
observed it with my own eyes. I peered
into the eyepiece and perceived a small
dot encircled by white rings. "Some of
those nearby stars that you see are actually Saturnian moons." I was hooked.
In my teens, I knew the names of
the brighter stars. During that time,
on a bitterly cold night in 1986, I stood
on a dark street in a small town and
made out a smudge low in the sky. It
was Halley's Comet. Very faint, but
there. It would make a better showing
in 2061. I'd be 90. "See you later," I
whispered to the comet.
In my twenties, I sat atop a ladder and gazed into an enormous tube
with a mirror on the bottom. Comet
Shoemaker-Levy 9 had fragmented and
smashed into Jupiter. Dark plumes the
size of Earth marked the impacts. Night
after night, I tracked Jupiter until it
sank below the horizon, knowing that
I would likely never view such a rare
event again.
In my thirties, I worked as a planetarium curator and star party host.
"Welcome to the stars," I said to the
crowds. Over years of school shows, I
84

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told thousands of
children, "There
is no reason to
be afraid of the
dark. In fact, the
nighttime sky has
so much to be
excited about. Let's take a look!"
In my forties, I climbed to the top of
the world. Well, maybe not the top. But
from a steep hill surrounded by Wyoming grassland, I watched my ﬁrst total
solar eclipse. The Moon ate the Sun and
both became a single hole in the sky
darker than pitch and crowned with a
blazing halo.
The climb that day took every bit of
strength I had. I barely made it. The
same was not true of my companion.
He didn't think the climb was a big
deal. I felt like it had nearly killed me.
Indeed, it had.
A couple of months later, during an
annual checkup, my doctor discovered
a heart murmur. A cardiologist found
heart disease, and I soon had openheart surgery. It saved my life, and I'm
still in recovery.
Facing death, I reevaluated life. Had I
lived well? What would I change? Which
were my favorite memories? Time and
again, my mind drifted to nights under
the stars. Each had been time well spent.

p Beloved objects in the author's life, clockwise from above: Saturn taken by Voyager 2
in 1981; Halley's Comet shot by the Kuiper
Airborne Observatory in 1986; a starscape featuring Cygnus; and the 2017 total solar eclipse.

How many stargazing nights do I
have left? I don't know, but the number
is ﬁnite. Each session is a gift from the
universe, an opportunity to observe
where I came from and where I am
going. You see, we are entangled, the
cosmos and I. It is part of me, and I am
part of it. This is the way it has been
and, even after I'm gone, the way it
forever will be.
¢ Las Vegas-based DOUG NELSON
blogs at confessionsofastargazer.com.
He's not afraid of the dark, but sometimes he does wonder if a monster is
hiding under his bed.

SAT UR N: N ASA / JPL; H A LLE Y'S CO ME T: N ASA;
CYG NUS A ND ECLIPSE: SE A N WA LK ER / S&T

I COULD NOT HAVE BEEN more than

http://www.confessionsofastargazer.com

Sky and Telescope - November 2018

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