Astronomy for Older Eyes: A Guide for Aging Backyard Astronomers

236 Pages·2017·13.59 MB·English

by  James L. Chen (auth.)

James L. Chen
Astronomy
for
Older Eyes
A Guide for
Aging Backyard Astronomers
Graphics by Adam Chen
The Patrick Moore
The Patrick Moore Practical Astronomy Series
More information about this series at http://www.springer.com/series/3192
Astronomy
for Older Eyes
A Guide for Aging Backyard Astronomers
James L. Chen
Graphics by Adam Chen
James L. Chen Adam Chen
The Shenandoah Astronomical Society Baltimore, MD, USA
Gore, VA, USA
ISSN 1431-9756 ISSN 2197-6562 (electronic)
The Patrick Moore Practical Astronomy Series
ISBN 978-3-319-52412-2 ISBN 978-3-319-52413-9 (eBook)
DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-52413-9
Library of Congress Control Number: 2017931679
© Springer International Publishing AG 2017
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Preface
We are stardust,
We are golden,
We are billion year old carbon,
And we got to get ourselves back to the garden.
—“Woodstock” by Joni Mitchell
I’m getting old.
I don’t know how it happened.
At one time, I was young, physically fit, mentally active, and building a career
in engineering. Then I got married. Had kids. My wife and I raised two fine boys
who have become two fine men. I retired early at age 52, having worked 32 solid
and productive years for the federal government. My post-retirement life has found
me working as an engineering consultant, a swimming coach, and guitar teacher,
and now as an author.
My parents gave me my first telescope for Christmas when I was 11 years old.
Many telescopes have passed through my hands, as backyard astronomy has been
a passion for over 50+ years.
In my 55th year, the first signs of my growing old began to reveal themselves.
Reading books became arduous as my eyes would grow weary. My ophthalmolo-
gist told me I needed bifocals. Strike one.
My physician told me I had high blood pressure and cholesterol. I had to start
taking pills every day. My doctor told me I had to lose weight. No more fried
chicken, apple pie a la mode, french fries, potato chips, cheese nachos, and other
greasy gut-bomb foods that are so comforting. Strike two.
v
vi Preface
Strike three came on a crisp October evening. Unknown to me, my physical
strength was slowly waning. The sky was crystal clear. There was a faint crescent
Moon. A perfect night for my big 11” Schmidt-Cassegrain, weighing in at a hefty
92 lb including tripod.
I traded for this behemoth while suffering an extreme case of aperture fever. A
3.5” Questar for a Celestron 11 GPS, a straight up deal. And I have never regretted
that deal. As beautifully made as the Questar is, it can never show the deep sky
delights that 11 inches of aperture can provide.
This big instrument is the most fun telescope I have even owned, with its full
GoTo capability and ample aperture. But it weighs 92 pounds!
In my younger days, moving this behemoth from the living room onto the deck
of my house was easily accomplished. On this night, the 11 GPS seemed to have
gained weight. It felt especially heavy. I maneuvered the telescope through the door
onto the deck with a degree of difficulty that I hadn’t experienced previously. As I
struggled to set the telescope down into its usual position on the deck, one of the
legs of the tripod tangled with a leg of the picnic table. I stumbled. I fumbled. I
dropped the telescope onto the deck! I stood speechless and in shock over my tele-
scope in horror. My wife came out to see what was wrong, having heard the loud
crash of the scope hitting the deck from the den. I was still frozen, standing over
my beloved scope, unable to comprehend what had just happened.
Fortunately, the only casualty of the incident was a cracked aluminum corrector
plate cell on the telescope. The Schmidt corrector and the secondary mirror were
intact, and in fact the secondary was still in alignment. Lucky me. A quick call to
Celestron the next day and $100 later, I was able to obtain a new corrector plate cell
and repair the telescope. Whew! (Figs. 1, 2, and 3).
Fig. 1 The author’s Celestron 11 GPS
Preface vii
Fig. 2 The cracked Schmidt corrector plate cell
Fig. 3 Another angle of the cracked Schmidt corrector plate cell
This accident taught me a lesson. I had to start making adjustments if I wanted
to continue to pursue astronomy as a lifelong passion.
My eyes aren’t what they used to be. I wasn’t as strong as I used to be. My sense
of balance is starting to be questionable. Cold nights seemed colder. Warm nights
seemed warmer and sweatier. Mosquitoes seemed to have found me tastier. And the
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simple act of bending over to peer through the eyepiece was becoming problematic
due to a somewhat bulbous belly that had started to form about my midriff.
Two years ago, I complained to my ophthalmologist that I thought I needed new
glasses. He asked how did I know. I told him when I played golf (another passion
of mine!), I couldn’t see the flight of my golf ball until it splashed into the water
hazard! Haha! Unfortunately, his examination revealed that at age 62, I had the
beginnings of cataracts. Strike four! (wait a minute, that’s not right....)
How am I going to survive this aging process and still pursue my passion for
astronomy? Thus, the genesis that led to writing this book.
Another theme contained in this book is the need for older people to socialize,
and astronomy clubs and star parties provide socialization opportunities.
My involvement with my astronomy club, the Shenandoah Astronomical
Society, increased my interaction with the public. One of the main goals of my club
is public outreach, especially reaching out to introduce astronomy to young people.
When did young people become so young? When did I get so …. uh..... distin-
guished?!? Many of my friends in the club are like me, retired and still in love with
astronomy. Nothing gives us a greater thrill than having a young girl or boy peer
through our telescopes and exclaim “WOW!”
It reminds me of one extraordinary night, when I was in my thirties and my older
son was a mere four years old. I was out on my back deck of our house, with my
trusty Celestron C-5 telescope set up and viewing the Great Orion Nebula.
My first born opened up the sliding glass door and asked “What are you doing,
Daddy?”
“I’m looking through my telescope at the Great Orion Nebula,” I replied.
“Can I see?” he asked.
Thus began a wondrous evening with my young son. Propping him up, he got
his first views of M42, Mizar and Alcor in Ursa Major, and the giant planet Jupiter
through my telescope. The viewing session ended as a slow moving cloud front
creeped in and eventually obscured the night sky.
But my son’s enthusiasm and curiosity about astronomy was forever born that
night, as he and I brought in my telescope equipment and spent the rest of the eve-
ning looking at the pictures of galaxies in Timothy Ferris’ Galaxies and back issues
of Astronomy and Sky and Telescope magazines.
My son has grown up to be a fine man. What happened to his interest in astron-
omy? Look at the covers of all of my books. Adam Chen has been the graphics
designer for every book of mine. He has worked as a support contractor for NASA.
He has helped me on all my books by providing drawings, illustrations, graphics,
and cover layouts, and most importantly inspiration.
Another favorite memory of mine, involving my younger son. When Alex was
four years old (there seems to be a pattern here!), I took him on an across-the-
country journey to attend the Riverside Telescope Makers Convention, known as
RTMC, near Big Bear Lake in the San Bernardino Mountains of California. We
flew into Ontario Airport and I drove us to Big Bear Lake in a rental car. The first
night at RTMC, my son and I were treated to a view of the Whale Galaxy (NGC
4631) and the Hockey Stick Galaxy (NGC 4656) through a magnificent 24-in.
Preface ix
Dobsonian telescope set up near the center of the telescope field. We talked with
many fellow RTMC attendees that night, and saw many other celestial wonders
through other telescopes. My son was absolutely thrilled as the first night drew to
a close on this astronomy adventure.
The next morning, as my son and I marched up the hill to attend the vendor sales
and swap meet that RTMC schedules on Saturday morning, a very unusual weather
event took place. On Memorial Day weekend, the unofficial beginning of the sum-
mertime season, snowflakes fell. It was snowing at RTMC! My son didn’t care, this
was an adventure and he was his Dad! After RTMC, I drove my son down to
Anaheim and took him for a day at Disneyland before we returned to the airport to
fly home.
My younger son has grown up to be a fine young man also. Through his years
growing up, he and I attended many more star parties together. He went to the Ohio
State University and earned a bachelor’s degree in aeronautical engineering and is
now completing his master’s thesis. He fell in love with my 4-in. brass Renaissance
telescope, so on his sixteenth birthday, I gave him the telescope as a gift. Alex Chen
uses “Brassy” to this day.
If you read my biography, you will notice that I have spent parts of three decades
working part time at two different telescope stores in the Washington, D.C. area.
There are many people who I have met and have purchased equipment from me at
the North East Astronomy Forum over the past 15 years. Many of my insights and
recommendations on telescope equipment are drawn from my experience working
with both experienced amateur astronomers and people new to the astronomy
hobby. Two of my previous books, The Vixen Star Book User Guide and The
NexStar Evolution and SkyPortal User Guide are the result of my expertise gained
from selling and teaching the use of this equipment to customers.
I expect some of my equipment recommendations in this book will cause some
controversy and start discussions amongst my peers. That’s a good thing. The one
thing I have discovered over the years is that there is no singular answer that applies
to everybody.
This is the story of how I came to write this book. Aging is inevitable. But with
the right lifestyle adjustments, this wonderful activity of backyard astronomy is
survivable. I will continue to make memories with my sons and my friends and to
show the next generation the wonders of the universe from a backyard telescope.
Gore, VA James L. Chen
August, 2016
Contents
1 Amateur Astronomy and Its Aging Practitioners ................................ 1
2 Why Astronomy? .................................................................................... 7
Choosing What Kind of Backyard Astronomer? ...................................... 9
3 Keeping Healthy, Active, and Backyard Astronomy ........................... 21
General Principles of Aging and Health ................................................... 22
Social Activity in the Later Years .............................................................. 29
Maintaining Mental Health ....................................................................... 30
More on Exercise ...................................................................................... 32
Stress Is Destructive to the Body .............................................................. 33
4 Older Eyes, Cataracts, Lasik and Laser Eye Surgery ......................... 37
Nutrition and Good Eye Health ................................................................ 38
Disorders of the Aging Eye ....................................................................... 39
Cataracts and the Impact on Telescope Use .............................................. 41
Cataract Surgery ........................................................................................ 44
Post-Cataract Surgery Recovery and Issues .............................................. 46
LASIK Surgery ......................................................................................... 48
LASIK Surgery Incompatibility with Cataract Surgery ........................... 52
The Role of Sunglasses and UV Radiation ............................................... 52
5 Telescope Equipment and Growing Older ............................................ 55
Single Large Telescope at Age 70+ ........................................................... 56
Multiple Telescopes at Age 64 .................................................................. 57
Telescope in an Observatory at Age 68 ..................................................... 57
Telescopes, Aging, and Physical Strength ................................................ 59
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