I have been interested in astronomy since I was a little kid. The sky was never just something above me. It was something to watch, study, anticipate and use—whether I was waiting for an eclipse, camping under the Milky Way, planning a paddle around the tides or trying to predict exactly where the sun would set.
A Childhood Eclipse
One of my earliest astronomy memories is of a solar eclipse in South Florida. I was probably only seven or eight years old, and my father wanted to photograph it.
He had a camera, a tripod and a mounting bracket, and he rigged everything carefully so that the camera would remain steady. The idea was to make several exposures as the eclipse progressed across the sky.
At the time, people sometimes used fully exposed photographic negatives as makeshift viewing filters. That was the advice we had encountered then, although today it is recognized as unsafe because exposed film does not reliably block all harmful solar radiation. Proper certified eclipse glasses are the safe way to observe the sun directly.
Our photographs did not come out especially well. The image of the sun was far too small because the camera had no strong telephoto lens. But the experience stayed with me.
I also remember reading a newspaper article about what happened when daylight disappeared over a swamp. Frogs began calling, birds settled down to roost and wildlife responded as though night had suddenly arrived.
What Eclipses Must Have Meant Long Ago
Even as a child, I wondered how people in ancient times interpreted eclipses.
Imagine living without a modern understanding of astronomy and watching the sun disappear in the middle of the day. The temperature drops, animals change their behavior, shadows become strange and darkness spreads across the landscape.
It must have felt as though the world was ending.
The same must have been true of brilliant comets, meteor storms and unusual planetary events. Today we can calculate their timing and understand the mechanics. Thousands of years ago, they must have seemed like messages, warnings or supernatural events.
Meteor Showers and Meeting Marty
I followed the major meteor showers and usually knew when they were expected. There are several good ones during the year, but the August meteor shower was always one of my favorites.
In fact, astronomy was connected to how Marty and I first became acquainted. We were both outside at night to watch the meteors.
The best way to observe a meteor shower is to lie back, allow your eyes to adjust to the darkness and watch as much of the sky as possible. We had an old couch in the backyard that was perfect for it.
Some showers were disappointing. Others were spectacular, with several meteors appearing in only a few minutes. I always loved the uncertainty. You never knew whether the next streak would be faint and quick or a brilliant fireball crossing half the sky.
A Winter Comet from Leominster State Forest
When we were in college, a comet became visible in the night sky for an extended period.
A group of us went to one of our favorite hiking places, Leominster State Forest, in the middle of winter. We bundled ourselves into sleeping bags and waited in the cold, watching the sky for the comet.
I still remember the combination of winter air, friends, sleeping bags and the excitement of seeing something that would not remain in the sky forever.
Celestial events gave us a reason to go outside, gather in an open place and share something much larger than ourselves.
Lunar Eclipses in the Middle of the Night
Lunar eclipses often occur at inconvenient hours—two, three or four in the morning—but that never stopped me.
I have slept in canoes and on docks in the middle of lakes so that I could keep the moon in view all night. Sometimes the easiest way to catch the eclipse was simply to sleep outside, wake at the right time and look up.
I have also spent many nights in bivy sacks without a tent. One of the best things about a bivy sack is that the sky remains completely open above you.
On a mountaintop, beach or remote campsite, I could wake throughout the night and see the moon, stars and changing sky without ever leaving my sleeping bag.
Eclipse Paddles
I have even organized Pinellas Paddlers outings around eclipses.
Everyone would bring proper eclipse glasses, paddle to an open location and watch the event from the water. It turned a rare celestial event into a shared outdoor experience.
That is one reason eclipses have always fascinated me. They are predictable, but they still feel extraordinary. We know exactly why they happen, yet watching the moon pass across the sun remains deeply powerful.
Dark Skies in Wild Places
Some of the best astronomy experiences of my life happened by accident simply because I camped in remote places.
High mountains, western national parks, wilderness camps and open water offered skies without city lights. In those places, the Milky Way was not a faint suggestion. It stretched brightly across the sky.
I could see countless stars, constellations and planets. The sky felt deeper and more complicated than it ever appeared from a town or city.
I especially love winter camping in the Everglades, where there can be almost no light pollution. Out on the water or deep in the backcountry, the sky becomes part of the landscape.
Following the Planets
For many years, I regularly followed charts showing which planets were visible in the evening or morning sky.
Even now, I can usually identify several planets by knowing approximately where to look along the ecliptic—the path followed by the sun, moon and planets across the sky.
Planetary alignments were always especially interesting. Other people might plan their evening around a major sporting event or television finale. I was more likely to drive to an empty field and watch several planets line up across the sky.
That was my kind of event.
Astronomy, Not Astrology
I have always been fascinated by astronomy, but I have never believed in astrology.
The idea that everyone born within the same range of dates shares the same character traits or destiny has never made sense to me. A person born a few minutes before midnight can fall under one sign, while another born moments later falls under a different one.
That does not diminish anyone else’s interest in astrology. People are free to believe what they choose. It simply has never matched the way I understand the universe.
What amazes me is not a horoscope. It is the real motion of planets, moons, stars and galaxies—and the fact that we can observe, calculate and understand so much of it.
The Northern Lights
Living in Massachusetts and traveling farther north gave me several opportunities to see the aurora borealis.
I probably saw the northern lights six or seven times, often by chance. About three of those displays were absolutely spectacular.
The sky filled with curtains, rays and ribbons of light. The aurora shifted and changed for hours, sometimes covering a large portion of the sky.
Unfortunately, cameras were not always convenient then. We did not carry camera phones, and successful night photography with film required careful exposures, a tripod and some luck.
Those displays remain mostly in my memory.
Night Photography in a Phone
Modern phone cameras have transformed night photography.
Now, while camping in the Everglades or another dark location, I can stabilize my phone on the ground and make a long exposure lasting ten or twenty seconds. A single photograph can reveal stars, constellations and even satellite trails that were difficult to capture with ordinary film cameras.
The camera is always with me. There is no need to carry a separate tripod, film, lenses and exposure charts just to attempt one night-sky photograph.
That would have seemed impossible when I was a child trying to photograph an eclipse with my father.
The Moon, Sun and Tides
Astronomy is not separate from my everyday life. It directly affects how and where I paddle.
Tides are driven primarily by the gravitational effects of the moon and sun. Before a paddle, I need to know whether the tide is rising or falling, how high or low it will be and when the strongest current will occur.
A low tide can leave a paddler stranded in mud or make a mangrove trail impossible to enter. It can expose huge areas of shallow bottom and turn a short return trip into a long walk through muck.
A very high tide creates different problems. The water may rise so high in a mangrove tunnel that branches strike your head and block your route.
The rate of change matters too. Fast-rising or fast-falling tides can produce powerful currents, eddies and standing waves.
Seeing the Water Slope at Hurricane Pass
During a recent paddle through Hurricane Pass between Honeymoon Island and Caladesi Island, the outgoing tide was ripping toward the Gulf.
I could see a distinct boundary where some water curled back while the main current poured outward. It looked almost like an eddy line in whitewater.
For the first time, I was positioned where I could actually see that the water surface upstream was several inches higher than the water farther out in the pass. The surface visibly sloped downhill through the constriction.
The current accelerated along that slope and formed standing waves.
It was a perfect example of astronomy becoming hydrology, and hydrology becoming something I could feel directly through the kayak.
Sunset Azimuth and Weather
The position of the sun also affects how I plan sunset paddles.
If the western sky is mostly cloudy but contains one narrow opening, I want to know whether the sun will set through that opening or disappear behind the clouds first.
That means estimating the sunset azimuth—the exact compass direction where the sun will meet the horizon—and comparing it with radar, satellite imagery and the visible cloud deck.
If the alignment is right, the sun may shine through the opening for only a few minutes and create an extraordinary sunset. If it is wrong, the sun can disappear behind the clouds half an hour early.
Over many years outdoors, that kind of calculation became almost instinctive.
Astronomy and Weather
The sun drives nearly every weather system on Earth.
It heats land and water unevenly, creates pressure differences, powers winds, influences evaporation and helps determine the daily cycle of thunderstorms—especially in Florida.
I worked outdoors for about twenty years and have played outdoors throughout my life. Knowing where the sun will be, how strong it will be and how the atmosphere is responding can determine whether a day is comfortable, dangerous or impossible.
My interest in astronomy naturally blended with a lifelong interest in weather. The two subjects are inseparable.
Astronomy Is an Everyday Thing
For me, astronomy has never been limited to telescopes or distant galaxies.
It is the eclipse that changes animal behavior. It is a meteor shower watched from an old couch. It is a comet seen from a winter sleeping bag, a lunar eclipse viewed from a canoe, the Milky Way above an Everglades campsite and the northern lights spreading across a Massachusetts sky.
It is also the tide beneath my kayak, the current pouring through Hurricane Pass, the angle of a sunset and the heat that drives Florida’s weather.
The sky has always been part of how I understand the world.