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Eyes,Mind,Sensory Deprivation.
Lew brought up a very interesting point. As I am a new observer (other than
the perseids), It's been fascinating to note all the strange things that go
on as your eyes and mind settle down when starting. I've found that it's
been useful to keep track of moving fuzzy blobs, how the sky background
gets dimmer and lighter and other perceptual anomolies, so that I recognize
them the next time. When you think of it, it's a kind of sensory
deprivation. While waiting for my eyes to dark adapt I'm moving around,
getting settled in. But I noticed last night (When for the first time in 2
weeks sparkly things appeared in the sky), that it being a slow night,
strange things occurred. One effect is the lack of motion detectors in the
brain. I was trying to split epsilon Lyrae, a really tight double(based on
a suggestion in Discover magazine). Well when staring at it, the remaimder
of the field of view disappeared from conciouness, until a meteor appeared,
when all of a sudden the black sky reappeared. PS. I did split it, which
means I can see great far away. It's that stuff closer than arm's length
thats gettin' fuzzy :-)
Other quick observations, as I doubled by total NAMN observing time....
You can NEVER have enough pencils, It's unbelievable how they disappear,
and the only way to find them is many many photons, and eyes off the sky.
Bad,Bad,Bad.Maybe it's that Zen sensory deprivation thing for pencils too!
I will DEFINATLY need an observing coffin by September. May in NJ can be
too brisk for comfort.
A glass of cola with ice cubes is NOT an appropriate beverage under these
circumstances,
and finally...Gloves can always come in handy(Bad pun provided free of
charge). Someday I'll be a well prepared observer:-)
It was 38 degrees F this AM, tonight should be clear and 6 degrees colder.
If I could just get rid of this work thing....
Wayne Tv