I participate in a number of astronomy fora online, and most of the time, I’m relatively comfortable deferring to people with more expertise than I when someone asks an astronomy question. I have expertise in goto scopes, but on other scopes, I tend to let others respond. Once in awhile, I’ll engage on issues where someone is going too far in my view in their passion for one type of scope over another, often talking smack about other scopes in ways that are not helpful to newbies, or recommending options that are just ludicrous.

Some specific bugaboos that I have are:

• People who want to recommend a specific type of eyepiece over another, when most eyepiece use depends heavily on the user…I love long eye relief and wide field of view, Jacob hates it; he prefers small plossls. At star parties, some people’s eyes work well with my one eyepiece that is big and wide, but sometimes people can’t see ANYTHING in it, and I switch to a smaller plossl, and BAM! they see everything. It’s just about their eyes…there are some 3500 different eyepieces on the market, and while not all of them are the same for quality, there are LOTS of variables for what makes a good eyepiece for YOU;
• People who recommend binoculars without any extra consideration for the person’s vision, age, firmness, etc. I have binos, I like having them as an option, but they are a terrible option if they were my only tool, and I would have quit astronomy if I had started with those. They have their use, they have their downsides.
• People who want to tell people you can’t do photography without spending $2K on various rigs or you can’t buy entry-level scopes, total waste of money.

There are others, but you get the idea. My frequent reaction is to pompous asses telling newbies who asked for help that there is only ONE way forward. Today was one of those days. A person had asked a question on one of the astronomy buy / sell fora in Canada, with a limited budget. The advice she got was generally terrible, but in the forum’s defense, it is more for people actually buying and selling, not discussion. Anyway, I saw her post, I saw what she was looking for, and I thought, “Okay, I’ll help”.

So I posted to her with a bit more “scope” (pun intended) for her question, helped her frame her interests a bit more, gave her a good overview of some options, and told her to DM me if she wanted to, happy to help. Which she did, and so I did what I said. I helped her work through some options. She was pretty far advanced already, I mostly just filled in pieces around her knowledge so she knew her tradeoffs, and what she was looking at with a limited budget. She had two good options, and so we went through all the pros and cons of each, but honestly, she could do either. Mostly what I did was give her peace of mind that she wasn’t crazy and that there wasn’t some magic difference between the two that would make her mind up for her. There isn’t, not really. I spent some time in messenger with her today going over things, sporadically throughout the day, and she’s generally comfortable now with her choices. We’ve expanded her list from 2 scopes to a ranked list of 5 possibilities, and she understands the differences between them are likely to come down to budget, availability and/or personal preference. She’ll use the list to help her decide, and she actually feels like she knows what she’s doing now and isn’t stressed anymore. She has a path and the confidence to walk towards the (astral) light.

I’m happy to help, it’s part of being in the community of amateur astronomers. We help people climb the learning mountain that goes with early entry. She was stressed because it’s a big gift for her husband, she has a limited budget, and this is a significant purchase. Ultimately? I just helped her talk it through. Not telling her what to buy, but helping her decide what she wants to get. In the end, she’s likely to go for a bigger (and more expensive) scope than she started with, and I feel a little guilty about that, even though it is a SIGNIFICANT step up for a bit more money. But I’ve assured her that the original two are just fine, if the budget doesn’t allow that, and that the other one is just a big bigger for more light capturing ability.

Eventually, I want all this “info” to be in an astronomy guide that someone can read and go, “ah-hah, I get it!”. And then they don’t need to talk it through with me. But she needed SOMEONE to walk through it with her, as it’s a gift, and in a COVID world, she can’t just pop over to the local astronomy group and figure it out with them. There are books and websites out there and I’ve almost never found one that explains it the way *I* would recommend. Everyone’s mileage varies though and today I think I was helpful.

Today I choose to help someone figure out how to get started in astronomy and figure out what they “need” vs. what someone else might tell them to get. Or even what I myself have chosen in the past.

What choices are you making?

Between my weight and lifestyle, my back doesn’t like me very much at times. It doesn’t take too much for things like yard work or walking in crappy shoes or sleeping in a new bed or a host of other things before my ribs start slipping out of position. Then my body starts screaming at me.

Sometimes I can do stretches and rolls, and sometimes with a bit of help from Andrea, it will release and move back into some semblance of alignment. Not always perfect but enough to reduce the screams to a dull roar. Other times, it won’t budge without professional help.

Last Thursday, I was supposed to have a chiro appointment, but I thought I was getting pink-eye again, I woke up with a sore throat too, and a bit of congestion. Probably fine and being fine are not the same thing so I had to cancel my chiro appointment. But my ribs managed to fully slip out of position over the weekend and my body was screaming at me again.

It literally felt like my lower rib cage was sitting about 4 inches in front of where it should be. Almost like a series of right angles coming in from my back as if I was made of offset lego blocks. I stretched, and it released a little. I did some more and it released some more in my upper back, but the ribs weren’t budging.

I suddenly realized that while Wednesday is a government holiday, the chiro office might be open and it was. But I also noticed that they had appointments available TODAY at 5:00. Sign me up! I normally go in the morning to get it all out of the way early, but it makes for a bit chaotic morning sometimes to get back in time to log in and start work.

I did the appointment, and we started with a slightly different set of pressure points and lighter than normal just to do simple alignment all over my back, and then he did a slightly different angle on my lower back. My ribs IMMEDIATELY said “Oh, we’re supposed to be over THERE? Okay, why not?”. Perfect simple adjustment. Mid back, same thing. Upper back? Nope, we’re not budging, they said. Neck was good, hips went fine, but upper back did NOT want to release. That’s okay, I can do that one mostly on my own with stretches. But it sure was nice for the ribs to go back and my stomach and digestion to go back to normal. When things get out of alignment too much, I start having digestion problems, and bloating, and just general rib pain, oh my!

Today I choose to fix my back, and it’s back to being right as rain.

What choices are you making?

I’m not the most social of people, preferring a small group of close friends than a cast of thousands. For FB, for example, I know people with over 2500 friends…that number terrifies me. I’m not overstating that. It’s mind-numbingly scary. Me? I have 120 and once in a while, I have culled that to 100. I’ve picked up a bunch of work friends in recent years, so the number has grown and I’m okay with that. A surprise to me, I must admit.

But COVID has knocked even the most basic of socializing on its ass. Outside of family, I have had a total of four “social” visits in seven months. One friend from work, Sanden, we actually were going on meat runs together to the local butchery. We would arrange to meet at 9:00 a.m., stand in line behind each other and chat while we were in line, and then for awhile in the parking lot. A fake “social outing” that felt very rebellious.

Two others have been happenstance…I ran into two different friends on separate occasions while shopping and had a five-minute conversation while checking out.

And then there are our good friends, Paul and Mary-Ellen. Andrea met ME while on French training, Paul and I have a bunch of friends in common, and we get together several times a year. Sometimes it is for board games, sometimes just for Thai food, sometimes just to hang out and go kayaking at their house. Not so much this year, obviously, but back in June, Andrea and Jacob went kayaking with ME two weeks in a row while I sat on a socially-distanced deck chatting with Paul. One other time, sometime in the summer, we repeated the outing. It’s so rare, we can’t even remember when we did it.

Today, we went to their place for a campfire, some conversation, and to roast some marshmallows. Oh, and eat chocolate chip cookies. Our first social outing since August, I think, might even be June, other than family. It was heavenly. We sat around the fire, socially-distanced, and stared at the fire or the stars while catching up. I thought about taking Jacob’s telescope with us, and then realized we wouldn’t be able to let them use it too as ‘scopes require putting your eye to the eyepiece and there aren’t a lot of safe ways to do that properly. Sigh.

It also makes me a little sad that these types of carefree days have to be so formally planned. We didn’t go Saturday as J wasn’t feeling up to it, and we were also worried about me as I had something resembling pink eye. I think it’s just a sty, but we were worried about it initially. What makes me sad is that Andrea and Jacob need far more social interaction than I do, or at least crave it more, and even I am feeling stifled. I feel bad that Jacob can’t just be carefree while we do it, nor do we have an option to do the fire thing regularly. It is one of the few things from my childhood time at the lake that I really miss from time to time. I don’t want it ALL the time, but I do miss it.

Today I choose to spend time with our friends, in parallel bubbles.

What choices are you making?