Ann Finkbeiner: A Grand and Bold Thing (2012)

Now that I have mentioned it in the previous article about Emily Levesque's Last Stargazers, I should write a bit more about this book, which I read just before The Last Stargazers.

 

It had been recommended to me years earlier when I asked around about astronomy books, to fill the decades' gap between between the books I had read as a kid in the earlier 70s and now. I had already heard about the Vera Rubin Observatory (ex-LSST) mostly from the software side (no details, just the general gist) and was curious what had happed in between since the 200-inch telescope on Mt. Palomar was the ultimate thing. (Which it then still was for a while, I know.)

 

This book is the story of the Sloane Digital Sky Survey, where a largely automated telescope ("the Sloane") charts about a third of the sky, with all observational data being made publically and freely available, and creates the largest and most detailed three-dimensional map of the universe so far from the pictures and the spectroscopy. Calling this a Grand and Bold Thing is apt indeed.

 

This book is a story, and it puts all this in a narrative arc that feels a bit forced in places. Not everything in it is very entertaining to read; I could have done without the details of the project history with successes and setbacks and successes and setbacks and organisational complications and funding problems and so on. But in the end I find the science highly interesting, and this book filled a good part of the abovementioned gap.

 

Andy Lawrence: Losing the Sky (2021)

This is another one I read in the recent bout of reading astronomy, but it is a rather specialised book. It details the – in principle easy to understand – danger of night sky pollution through an enormous number of existing and in particular planned fleets of satellites. Interesting, alarming, and well-written and quite readable, too.

But here, the message is much more important than the book. Best I quote the author from his web page:

I love Astronomy. I love Space Exploration. I love the Internet. Until 2020, I assumed that these three loves do not clash, and indeed that they feed each other in a virtuous cycle. It now seems that was just a Moon Age Daydream. A new generation of satellite megaconstellations – fleets of thousands of low orbit satellites – is on its way, aimed at producing ubiquitous global high-speed internet connection. All very exciting – but these objects pollute the night sky, streak across our astronomical images, blare loudly and unpredictably at our radio telescopes, and increase the danger of spacecraft collisions, pushing us towards a space debris run-away that may make space industry unsustainable. The scary thing is that this may be the thin end of the wedge… opening the door to tens of thousands more, and maybe even sky advertising.

My fellow astronomers round the world have been forming professional working groups, and doing technical studies – you can read all about those and follow the links in the book. This is a bit different. Its aimed at the general reader, its a very personal view, and tries to set the issues in context. My aim is to bring the issue to as much public attention as possible.

https://andyxlastro.me/losing-the-sky/ (as of 2021-10-03)

This is a dreadful prospect.