Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Foreword
- Acknowledgements
- Part I First discoveries: the adventure begins
- Part 2 Solar system voyages
- Part 3 A deep-sky guide
- Part 4 The night sky on film: astrophotography
- Part 5 Amateur astronomy in the electronic age
- Part 6 The build-it-yourself astronomer
- Appendices
- Epilogue
- Bibliography
- Index
Epilogue
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 August 2012
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Foreword
- Acknowledgements
- Part I First discoveries: the adventure begins
- Part 2 Solar system voyages
- Part 3 A deep-sky guide
- Part 4 The night sky on film: astrophotography
- Part 5 Amateur astronomy in the electronic age
- Part 6 The build-it-yourself astronomer
- Appendices
- Epilogue
- Bibliography
- Index
Summary
The authors hope that this book has offered insights that will prove useful. We live in an age that demands ‘usefulness’, to a degree unsurpassed by any previous era. In keeping with this spirit, it is fashionable for books on astronomy to stress the practical contribution an amateur can make to science.
Let us conclude, however, on a different note.
For many amateur observers (even the deeply ‘serious’ ones) the extraction of pragmatic data from the night sky is not the prime motivation. It is true that our telescopes transmit information. Yet often we stand outdoors under a cold, dark sky in response to a simpler yearning. Like most of our basic drives, this one is hard to define. It has something to do with the nocturnal darkness itself, and the hidden splendour that is revealed in that darkness. It has much to do with the silence of the night, in which the perceptive stargazer catches an echo of the Universe's own mysterious silence.
The point is this: your patient, systematic study of variable stars, or of asteroidal occultations or the vagaries of solar behaviour may contribute something of value to science. Perhaps on a night of rare good luck you will even discover a nova. But don't let your delight in astronomy depend solely on such achievements. Ultimately, achievement may not be the source of the amateur's joy.
The sheer loveliness of the Cosmos seems in itself to convey a message.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- The Guide to Amateur Astronomy , pp. 329Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 1995