Observational Breakthrough
(This article appeared in the January 1993 issue of Astronomy Magazine. The full title was Observational Breakthrough for Amateur Astronomers. It was the first piece of writing I sold, for a whopping $75. Very slightly edited here. Copyright © 1993 Kalmbach Publishing Co., all rights reserved.)
As a serious amateur astronomer, I often become frustrated by the limitations we face when we turn our telescopes to the evening sky. For instance, my home is near a large city and I live within the city’s extended dome of light pollution. And although my small-aperture telescope (a trusty 4.5” Newtonian) struggles gamely to find the more exotic beasts that populate our galaxy and beyond, its limited resolution and light-gathering capacity are no match for the light-years that separate me from my quarry.
They were no match, that is. Recently I developed a simple technique that has radically extended the range of my telescope and at the same time virtually eliminated every handicap amateur astronomers have had to work around.
My first success came with the object near Sagittarius A* at the galactic center, mentioned and pictured in ASTRONOMY’s August 1991 AstroNews. I was able to view this object easily with my telescope despite the fact that the object had previously been detected only in the radio portion of the spectrum, and I actually resolved more detail than the Very Large Array Telescope in New Mexico was able to capture. But more about enhanced detail later.
Here’s how I did it. I placed my telescope in its usual spot in my driveway and inserted a low-power (35x) eyepiece. I then nailed the August 1991 issue to the wall of my neighbor’s garage so that it faced my observing area. (Be sure to turn to page 18 before nailing the magazine in place to avoid frustrating delays in locating this faint object.) I walked back to my telescope and in only 25 or 30 seconds had it in my field of view. And remember, this source is so faint it’s almost off the end of the magnitude scale.
After observing for 10 minutes at low power, I switched to my 85x eyepiece. Magnificent! Subtle details not visible at low power sprang into view. My elation grew as I spent the next hour sketching the fine structure of this source, probably never observed before by human eyes. In all I spent over an hour viewing Sagittarius A*’s companion, and I can you that I have never observed under such favorable conditions, despite my location just outside Philadelphia.
The ability to locate faint objects is only one of the advantages of this technique. Look over the following list of benefits, and I’m sure you’ll soon become a devotee of my revolutionary new observing technique.
Daytime observing. Forget all those sleepless nights stumbling around in the dark, fumbling with unseen equipment.
No star hopping. You no longer need to waste hours star-hopping across bright but boring stars on your way to that cute little number in Coma Berenices. I now do my star-hopping during TV commercials. A simple bookmark keeps hard-to-find objects waiting patiently for the next time I pull out my telescope.
Image stability. My new method actually eliminates the need for a clock drive. Objects remain centered in my field of view indefinitely. We were all tired of tripping over power cords and replacing batteries anyway.
Simplified star coordinates. The new system I invented of Issue (Iss.) and Page Number (P.N.) is much simpler than the reviled system of right ascension (R.A.) and declination (Dec). It also puts to rest the long-smoldering dispute between the competing advocates of right ascension and left ascension.
Freedom from weather conditions. Cloud cover won’t inhibit your view at all. Even inclemency won’t stop you. I tested this by observing M81 (Iss. May ’91, P.N. 42) in a heavy downpour, and still had fair viewing, although there was some image bleed after the first 20 minutes. (Technical tip: when viewing in the rain with a Newtonian, avoid the hassle of having having to drain water from your scope by nailing the object you’re viewing to a position near the ground. This tilts the tube so draining is automatic.)
Solar observations. Use your telescope to look directly at sunspots, solar flares, or the corona without special attachments and without any danger of damaging your eyes or your telescope.
View all wavelengths. I’ve already mentioned my success in viewing the radio source near Sagittarius A*. This observing technique works just as well for infrared, ultraviolet, and X-ray sources, and without the need for cumbersome filters.
Recapture missed events. The return of Halley’s Comet sneaked up too quickly on many of us, and we missed what we thought was a one-in-a-lifetime opportunity. With my new technique you can still thrill to catching this beauty in flight.
Save on travel expenses. Why drag your equipment to the Southern Hemisphere to see the Magellanic Clouds? Just yesterday I studied the Large Magellanic Cloud (Iss. April ’88. P.N. 99), and saved over $1200 on airplane tickets alone. And imagine what you could have done with all the money you dumped on the 5-minute show in Hawaii a year and a half ago.
Enhance small-aperture instruments. My 4.5-inch Newtonian actually has some advantages over much larger telescopes. A friend who owns a 17.5-inch Dobsonian has adopted my technique with excellent results, but he’s encountered some problems with the technique I have not. For instance, to focus on the X-ray source LMC X-1, the black hole candidate near the Tarantula Nebula (Iss. June ’91, P.N. 42), he had to nail his copy of ASTRONOMY to the top of a telephone pole several blocks away, losing precious viewing time in the process.
Now back to Sagittarius A*’s companion. I discovered that this source is composed of an amazingly regular grainy pattern. There are dozens of smaller, regularly placed objects identifiable within the source. As I scanned the surrounding areas of reduced radiation, I saw that most of the dark areas were embedded with this same grid-like pattern as well. Realizing I was seeing something never reported before in the literature, I tried to remain calm. I checked objects in several other issues and found that the grid-like structure underlies every star, galaxy, and planet in the universe.
This was a heady discovery to make with a 4.5” telescope! Frankly, I’m a little surprised it got past the fine folks at Palomar, but perhaps they’ll take another stab at it now that they know what to look for. It didn’t take long to assemble this wealth of information into a provocative new description of the universe, which is: Everything in the universe is composed of a grid-like pattern of dots, which appear to radiate in only four wavelengths, corresponding to the colors cyan, magenta, yellow, and black. (Now, I know a few of you will write in about the supposed fact that there’s no such thing as a wavelength corresponding to black, but please don’t do this, as even a first-year physics student knows about black-body radiation. You can look it up.)
The black objects are particularly interesting—they seem to aggregate to form empty space—the more of them there are in a region, the emptier that region seems to be. One might say that interstellar space is “filled” with black holes! Can these black objects be the very black holes we’ve been seeking so long to confirm observationally? If so, their multitude would more than account for the missing dark matter of the universe. I never bought the brown-dwarf theory of dark matter anyway: first, brown isn’t really that dark, and when you think about it, how much could a brown dwarf weigh?
I am not aware of any current theories that could account for the four distinct classes of objects I’ve isolated, which are scattered throughout the universe and which seem to be the building blocks from which all astronomical objects are composed. I’ve tentatively labeled these objects C, M, Y, and K for the first letter of their signature color. (Please don’t write in to criticize my nomenclature. I’m the one who figured out all of this, so I get to make up the rules—that’s the way real science works.) Thus, it appears we live in a so-called CMYK universe, which I invite other astronomers to confirm observationally for themselves, using my new technique.
Well, there you have it—a great new technique to observe virtually every known object in the heavens, a simplified astronomical coordinate system that can be mastered in seconds, and a succinct explanation of the underlying structure of the universe.
There are sure to be volumes devoted to expanding on my watershed discoveries. Amateur astronomers everywhere can share the credit for my achievements, for this revolutionary new observing technique and the resulting new description of our universe was developed from within that community of serious-minded truth-seekers.