Living the American (star-gazers) Dream

Remember the era before light pollution? Neither do I. But recently I rediscovered "Starlight Nights," the wonderful autobiography of Leslie C. Peltier, 1900-1980, and learned about the moon, the stars, and from whence came the expression “slick as a whistle.”

I love this book for its ambiance, for its astronomy, and for the intelligent, inquiring personality of the author who did many things I envy, such as taking a honeymoon trip to the American southwest with no clear agenda, timetable, or budget – just a spirit of intellectual and physical adventure. Those chapters roaming the country, camping where you please, and living off a very limited budget make for enjoyable reading whether you have any interest in astronomy or not.

But Peltier is the quintessential amateur astronomer whose bucolic lifestyle fit his era and whose clear and interesting writing style speaks well of a boy who came of age in a time when school was “something one eventually outgrew rather than graduated from.” (Yeah, shoot him- he ended a sentence in a prepostion!) He was a comet discoverer extraordinaire and joined the American Association of Variable Star Observers just a few years after its founding in 1911. ( At the time the AAVSO required you to have at least a 3-inch telescope. He didn’t lie on his application form, but all he had was a 2-inch and he admits his numeral “2” looked a lot like a “3” – purely by accident, of course. )

“Starlight Nights” was my dream book when I first read it around 1966. At that time my scope was a 4-inch Criterion Dynascope and I aspired to an RV-6, or maybe a Unitron 60mm – both about the same price and out of my reach. Even then Peltier came out of a much different era, but with admirable values and sensitivities. He grew up on an Ohio farm with no running water, indoor bathrooms, or electricity. He picked strawberries and sold them in order to raise enough money for his first telescope, a 2-inch spyglass which he fashioned an alt-az mounting for, using a discarded grindstone as a base. And he did amazing things with the two-inch, though it was hardly what we would call today an astronomical telescope.

He eventually graduated to bigger scopes, but he did most of his work with a short focus, 6-inch refractor installed in what he called his “merry-go-round” observatory because the whole thing turned as he sat in the “driver’s seat. “

In this reading I not only gained appreciation for his primitive, do-it-yourself approach to astronomy, but I learned some valuable lessons that I can apply to my own observing and teaching. For example, he learned the stars through Martha Evans Martins classic work “The Friendly Stars.” I think today almost everyone approaches the sky by learning a few major constellations first. Martins approach is different. She focuses on the 15 first magnitude stars that we can see from northern latitudes. And Peltier followed her advice, learning those stars first, then building the constellations around them. I like this approach and will have more to say about it when I review Martins book which I bought having read Peltier again.

I also liked his comments on the moon, which I believe are true today – and keep in mind I am in awe of Amateur astrophotography and use video myself. But Peltier writes:

No photograph has yet been made that is not cold, and flat, and dead when compared with the scenes that meets ones eye when the moon is viewed through even a small telescope.

Agreed. That’s as true in 2007 as it was in 1965 and 1915. For my educationnal program I’ve acquired four small, fast (F5) refractors on alt-az mounts and equipped them with correct image diagonals so the beginner can easily learn the basic layout of the moon. But the next thing Peltier said helped me choose the best eyepiece for those small scopes.

While it is often possible to utilize the very highest powers of the scope to ferret out some small detail of cleft or craterlet, it is only when the entire moon fits comfortably within the field of view that she is at her dramatic best. Only when one sees some empty space about her does she seem to float suspended in the sky like the neighbor world she is.

In my case I’ve determined that a 10mm Plossl yielding 40X on the small scopes makes for a very nice introduction to the moon where the user gets the dramatic impact Pletier refers to of the moon with plenty of elbow room, yet the user can see enough detail to learn the major seas and craters without being overwhelmed by them. Later, I must admit, that using the binoviewer (not available to Pletier) on an 8-inch or 15-inch does give one the feeling of being in a helicopter above the moon, delivering a sense of 3D.

I also love the story he tells about his teacher. There were three children in the class when he was six years old – himself and two little girls. The teacher asked "What is the shape of the world?” The girls replied “round, like a ball.” Peltier goes on:

“That’s right,” replied the teacher. “Now then, where do we live? Are we inside or outside this ball?”

Both little girls in unison, “Outside.”

Little boy's reply, drowned out by girls, “Inside.”

He was ignored. Worse yet, his mother took the girls’s (and teacher’s) side.

But I didn’t give up without a struggle, for in the blue of the vault of the sky by day and in the bowl of stars by night I could plainly see the inner surface of my world.

Recently I came to the same conclusion – and, of course, thought I had arrived at it on my own. I now suspect my brain was secretly holding onto this passage from "Starlight Nights" until I was old enough to understand it. We ARE on the inside of the ball, just as in a very real sense we also live inside the sphere of the sun whose boundary is nearly impossible to define with precision. But I’m sure I owe that kind of thinking to Peltier. I suspect he had a much bigger subconscious impact on me from the first reading – and an even bigger one with this second reading.

Great literature? Probably not. But I would suggest it’s a must read for every amateur astronomer, and I suspect non-amateurs may enjoy it as well.

There's a new edition out with some new photos and a foreword by David Levy - Starlight Nights :The adventures of a Star-Gazer, by Leslie C. Peltier,Sky Publishing corporation, Cambridge,

Read more about Leslie Peltier on the AAVSO site.

Comments? Please send them to gstone@umassd.edu and I'll post them here.

On March 11, Tom Mote wrote:

Greg,

I agree with every word of your:

"Living the American (star-gazers) Dream
Remember the era before light pollution? Neither do I. But recently I rediscovered "Starlight Nights," the wonderful autobiography of Leslie C. Peltier, 1900-1980, and learned about the moon, the stars, and from whence came the expression “slick as a whistle.”I love this book for its ambiance, for its astronomy, and for the intelligent, inquiring personality of the author who did many things I envy, . . ."

I'm delighted to say that "Starlight Nights" is the only book in my rather extensive collection of astronomical books that I have read so many times that I have lost count. I probably read it at least once a year and hope to continue doing that for many more years.
:-)
Tom Mote, PhD, Professor Emeritus
Departments of Computer Science, Physics and Psychology
St. Mary's University, San Antonio, Texas

He followed that message with this note:

Greg,

I also should have said that I have had my dog eared copy of "Starlight Nights" so many [@ 40] years that it is the no longer available "hard back" edition. When I purchased I probably owned no more than a dozen astronomy books. Now, my astronomy related collection has grown [one of the "perks" of being a professor ;-) ] to at least 40 linear feet of book shelves and "Starlight Nights" is one of the most, to me at least, valuable.
:-)
Tom