
What have we lost now that we can no longer read the sky? - benbreen
https://aeon.co/essays/what-have-we-lost-now-we-can-no-longer-read-the-sky
======
dingaling
I would argue that it's not so much that people ignore or have forgotten the
stellar sky.

Instead for most of us we cannot see more than 30 or so stars plus a few
planets, due to light-pollution. So trying to do back-yard astronomy or simply
star-gaze is futile and therefore we carry on with other pursuits.

Take people out to a dark site and they will always be awe-struck by the
_real_ night sky. Once you've persuaded them to go 100 miles into the
wilderness... but in daily life the stars, galaxies and nebulae are simply
pretty pictures in books.

~~~
rbritton
It's not that hard to find a dark area, and I've been really enjoying
photographing the night sky when I get the chance. With just a tripod, an SLR,
and some basic knowledge it's fairly easy to get great photos.

A few of my favorites:

[https://ryanbritton.com/wp-
content/uploads/2015/08/Aurora.jp...](https://ryanbritton.com/wp-
content/uploads/2015/08/Aurora.jpg)

[https://ryanbritton.com/wp-
content/uploads/2015/08/DanceOfTh...](https://ryanbritton.com/wp-
content/uploads/2015/08/DanceOfTheSpirits.jpg)

[https://ryanbritton.com/wp-
content/uploads/2015/10/Sagittari...](https://ryanbritton.com/wp-
content/uploads/2015/10/Sagittarius.jpg)

[https://ryanbritton.com/wp-
content/uploads/2015/10/Eclipse.j...](https://ryanbritton.com/wp-
content/uploads/2015/10/Eclipse.jpg)

~~~
vitd
Nice photos!

I just got back from a trip to Zion National Park where I shot the Milky Way
one night. It was clearly visible with the naked eye every night.

National Parks are a great place for night photography because they're usually
10s to 100s of square miles with no lights. Even Joshua Tree which is near
Palm Springs is pretty good. You can see the light from both Vegas and Los
Angeles from it, but in the right spot in the park you get some very dark
skies.

~~~
rbritton
I've been to southern Utah before but never stayed out at night. After seeing
some photos from the area I am really wanting to plan a trip that way to do
some of my own.

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hedgew
This whole article is nonsensical.

> _" If humans do someday migrate outward toward the stars, our narrative
> space will move like an expanding wave before us, a vanguard of the
> imagination."_

What reason is there to think that "narrative space" has to expand when a
species becomes space-faring?

> _" Our need for stories that help us find our way is too important to be
> left behind."_

Why?

Are species or cultures that don't need stories somehow inferior?

Do we really _need_ stories?

> _" Knowing where you are in the world is fundamental to knowing who you
> are"_

How do you measure "knowing who you are"? Are people who "know", better or
more human than people who don't?

How can anyone claim that anyone "knows where they are"? How many people could
point their exact location on a galactic map? (Less than one in a million?)

~~~
benbreen
"Are species or cultures that don't need stories somehow inferior?"

Can you point to any human cultures that don't? I'd argue that storytelling of
some kind is integral to what makes us human, and that that propensity toward
abstract thought and creativity really does make us "better" than other
species, in at least one cognitive sense (though naturally I'm biased by being
a human and if I were, say, a hyperintelligent squid or AI that somehow didn't
think abstractly, it's possible to judge it differently).

~~~
empthought
Why don't the observational investigations of science count as stories for
this purpose—with the added bonus that they're not pointless woo or social
indoctrination, but rather the closest thing to objective fact that humanity
as a collective has learned?

For example, the "story" that all life on earth is descended from a single
ancestor, and that we are all distant cousins with a pine tree, a wasp, and a
cow, is quite compelling.

~~~
zaccus
Because the fact that I'm distant cousins with a pine tree, while compelling,
is inherently meaningless. Science is a method for achieving a better
understanding of the empirical world, but it doesn't begin to address crucial
parts of lived experience such as:

What is my place within my community?

What is the point of me being alive right now?

What is 'good'?

Stuff like that. I'm sure you could come up with science-y answers for these
questions, but those answers would ultimately be yours, subject to your own
experience and judgement. There's no empirical, scientifically objective way
to approach these things. That's why religion is still a thing, and why we
need stories.

------
owenversteeg
If anyone wants to find Hercules X-1, it's at these coordinates: RA 16 57
49.83, dec +35 20 32.6. It's also magnitude 13, not visible to the naked eye
(about 0.00064% as bright as Vega, which it is fairly close to.)

Also, one reason why the scientist mentioned in the article didn't look at his
star is because he couldn't know where it is. We can guess that the graduate
student in question was Ethan J Schreier, who was in the MIT area until 1973,
and the position of X-1 wasn't known until 1973, three years after the launch
of the satellite. On the other hand, if I was that scientist, I would still
have looked in general at the Hercules constellation, out of pure curiosity.

(The scientist in question certainly isn't Gursky, as he was a graduate
student decades prior, but certainly also could've been Harvey Tananbaum. I
had no information on been R. Levinson, Edwin M. Kellogg, and Giacconi [0] was
a student at the University of Milan in the 40s.)

[0]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Riccardo_Giacconi](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Riccardo_Giacconi)

------
tokenadult
I still use stars in the night sky for navigation once in a while. As another
comment noted, in many settled places in the United States there are so many
outdoor electric lights that it is hard to get a good view of the night sky,
but some of the brightest stars are visible even where I live, where yard
lights abound. (My bigger problem with viewing the sky is cloud cover at many
times of the year.) I live at the 45th parallel of north latitude, so the pole
star (Polaris), which I can easily find from the pointer stars on the Big
Dipper[1], provides a convenient guide to which way is north, at a halfway-up
angle from the horizon. In winter, the seasonal constellation Orion[2] is very
distinctive, and depending on the exact date in the season and the time of the
day is a reasonably good guide to which way is south.

I once used Orion to navigate my way across an unfamiliar town when I took the
wrong bus to an evening appointment and found out that the last bus stop on
the line still left me with a two-mile walk to where I needed to go. These
days I usually drive to evening appointments in the winter, but the stars are
still a good guide which way I am driving on twisting exurban roads. Winter is
better for seeing stars here both because the hours of darkness are longer and
because the air is drier in winter (especially on cold nights) and there is
less cloud cover hiding the stars from seeing.

[1]
[http://www.fortworthastro.com/beginner2.html](http://www.fortworthastro.com/beginner2.html)

[2] [http://www.space.com/16659-constellation-
orion.html](http://www.space.com/16659-constellation-orion.html)

------
johngalt
Go ask a few friends 'have you ever been out in a dark enough night to see the
milky way?'

You'll be surprised how many adults have never seen the milky way with their
own eyes.

~~~
mkaziz
This happened to me recently. I asked a close friend if she had seen the Milky
Way. She said yes, but I learned later that she thought that by "Milky Way" I
was referring to the smattering of stars she can see from her mid-sized
Indiana hometown.

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itburnswheniit
This skill is being re-taught in at least one branch of the US military, in
case GPS gets compromised.

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al2o3cr
The real question for the ages: how can somebody write 3.5k words on stories &
stars and not at least _touch_ the cosmic horror genre...

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ddmma
Too busy lookin at the screens maybe

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ddmma
Too busy lookin at the screens maybe

