How has your observing changed over time?

[kemer]

I have shamelessly stolen this idea for a thread from Cloudy Nights, simply because I think it's a great subject for discussion. CN user JayInUT started a thread asking how people have changed, as deep sky observers, over time.

My observing habits have changed drastically as a result of aging. As a cautionary tale, understand that many things you take for granted today will degrade, or disappear altogether. Remaining engaged becomes a matter of working around these losses. Not surprisingly, the most discouraging is steady loss is visual acuity. This starts in one's 40s as the inconvenience of presbyopia makes it a challenge to switch between near a far. I remember first working around this by using magnifying glasses to read things in the dim red light. Count on needing separate reading glasses and star hopping slowing down considerably as you move between looking at charts and at the skies.

In fact, thank heavens for digital setting circles! Not as a crutch for laziness, but as a critical tool to simply locate objects—especially the tough ones in those relatively blank areas of the sky. I did my time star hopping, a skill I was proud of, so I feel only a little shame in turning to them out of necessity. Floaters and the early stages of cataracts makes it impossible to even see the less bright stars. Finding the Sombrero Galaxy, something I could quickly point to in past years, would be an exercise in extreme patience. Indeed, hallelujah for 10K encoders! Also, you learn to hang on to anything else that helps: more aperture, better eyepieces, and don't forget the observing hood!

Age improves the vintage of the best and brightest objects, and heightens the accomplishment of tracking down the really obscure ones. I look at fewer objects in an evening, and I enjoy them more. There really is no limit in how many times I can look at, say, M104. Seeing it many times over the years through different combinations of optics and under different viewing conditions gives perspective. Every once in a while I see an object better than I can remember ever seeing it before: that is a grand moment. Getting a glimpse of one obscure Hickson group can give meaning the the entire session. A really good night is a combination of old favorites and fresh challenges.

I used to jealously guard observing time for myself. Sharing the eyepiece with others only slowed me down. Now I find sharing improves my odds of tracking down the challenges. Setting aside a little time sharing with newbies is almost a duty, one that occasionally allows me to re-exerience some of the early wonder I remember. Observing has become more of a social experience. I'm more interested in quality over quantity. If I can go to bed with one really good obscure faint fuzzy, I'm a happy observer.

One big advantage of being a "seasoned" observer is that we generally know what to look for and how to look for (or at) it. Our visual acuity may be shot to hell, but we are now cunning. And patient! Despite the challenges, I think I'm a better observer and definitely one who appreciates the moments better.

Kemer

[Don Pensack]

When I started, I was a 50/50 solar system/deep sky observer. That lasted about ten years.
Then, as my scopes got larger I got into observing objects outside the solar system, always pushing the limits. When I reached 8" of aperture, I was a wiz at Excel, so I put together a list of 10,000 of the brightest DSOs, with the intention of viewing every one of them. When my log reached 9300 objects, I realized an 8" can see a lot more than 10,000 objects, so I doubled the size of my list.

I thought I could see just how many objects an 8" could see in dark skies. What kept me going was seeing a new object each session that was spectacular in one way or another--that would be added to a "favorites" list.

When I moved up to a 12.5", it became obvious I would not live long enough to see every object viewable in that aperture, so my thinking about what I observed changed.
Instead of trying to see every object possible in the aperture, I picked out a group of selected targets for each session and decided to "wing it" on the rest of the targets chosen, letting my feelings at the time, or the people I was observing with, guide me to the next object.

That's a lot more relaxed way of observing.

Instead of recording the observation of at least 50 new objects every time out under the stars, now I have time to pick up a pair of binoculars and scan for asterisms (believe it or not, I saw Kemble's Cascade for the first time last year!) or try for naked eye reach (I and a couple friends caught Barnard's Loop with an h-beta filter and out naked eyes this winter).

So, after just shy of 50 years of observing, I'm finally getting around to appreciating the sky in all its aspects instead of logging another 50 15th magnitude galaxies each time out.

I've also learned to go back and view the perennial favorites at much higher powers to catch details I never logged at lower ones. That is changing how I look at every object. It's amazing to me how many of the brighter objects actually appear better than in photographs. There is no photograph of M42, for example, that can show you the detail you can see in the central region of the nebula as you can see visually at 300X.

Now the problem is cloudiness. High altitude haze is becoming more common, even here in the desert southwest, and that is quickly becoming the limiting factor--more than aperture.
That and actually getting the time to pull an all-nighter.

But that night under the stars really charges my personal battery, though, and keeps me coming back for more. I observe with a lot of friends who must get a similar emotional response to the sky, because I've seen a lot of the same faces for many years.

Don Pensack
Los Angeles