Stargazing woes

I live in Ottawa. Despite how poor our skies generally are, there are quite a few astronomical enthusiasts I’ve met at the monthly Royal Astronomical Society of Canada (RASC) meetings I try to get to.

I often marvel at their dedication to the hobby. They stay up all night, observing, writing in their notebooks, and taking stunning pictures.

Me… most nights I’m not able to go out because of cloud cover.

Tonight was one of those rare exceptions, however. I got my telescope aligned quickly, took a few test shots of the moon, and then took 50, 30 sec exposures of NGC2392, the Eskimo Nebula. I hope I’ll have some decent exposures to stitch together tomorrow.

Sadly, I feel like such a non-devoted astronomer when just before 11:00 pm, I shut up the observatory because I think my fingers and toes are going to fall off from the cold. It really isn’t that cold—only about 6C—but it feels like -20. I crank the roof shut, gather my stuff, go inside, and feel sad that I’m unable to live up to my own aspirations to be such a devoted amateur astronomer.

But then I remember: Who am I competing with anyways? The point is, I went out, I enjoyed it, I got a few shots that may or may not work…and I had fun. So, I’m good with that.

Until the next RASC meeting at least…