Astronomers look out for themselves

I've been at the Eldorado Star Party for the last couple days. The weather has been nice, with clear skies and pleasant temperatures. There was some rain in the last week and that has made dew a bit of a problem, and hair driers are frequently heard on the starfield at night.



Last night, Matt R. And I began the Texas Hash list. It is a lot harder than most of the TSP lists I ran last spring. We got through 15 objects we attempted last night, with only one object we could not find. We have another 10 to go tonight if we decide to proceed with the list.

It was sometime yesterday, while cleaning up camp to leave for lunch, that the title of this post occurred to me. We were talking about the fact that astronomers were a pretty honest crew. Nevertheless, it is never a good idea to leave expensive items lying around. We were cleaning up, "Because astronomers look out for themselves."

I laughed at the appropriateness of the words, because that is exactly what we do. Instead of looking at pictures of stars in books or the Internet, we stay up late at night to find and admire those objects ourselves. That is why it is about.