Oh my god. No way. That's the moon?
March 14, 2018 12:21 PM   Subscribe

Alex Gorosh and Wylie Overstreet showed some people the moon.
posted by uncleozzy (42 comments total) 45 users marked this as a favorite
 
“Whoooaa, that’s so cool!”
posted by faceplantingcheetah at 12:32 PM on March 14, 2018


Beautiful.
posted by darkstar at 12:32 PM on March 14, 2018


Aw that was lovely.

I wanted more images of what they were seeing, though, to share in their wonder!

(TBH the one shot at 2:03 was -- not underwhelming precisely, but, er, less whelming (?) than I expected given the audience's awed reactions. I think this must have to do with the juxtaposition of seeing it in real life vs relegated to pixels on my computer screen, where my wonder has been fatigued by being spoiled with so many other high-res cosmic images.)
posted by alleycat01 at 12:32 PM on March 14, 2018 [1 favorite]


That is wonderful.
posted by corvikate at 12:36 PM on March 14, 2018 [1 favorite]


When I bought decent binoculars, the Moon was among the first few things I looked at, and rightly, I feel.
posted by Segundus at 12:46 PM on March 14, 2018


Something similar happened to me during the eclipse. I had a set of the eclipse goggles and went outside at about 2 for a viewing; the sidewalks were starting to fill up with clusters of people all doing the same thing. I'd peeked through the goggles before at home, and saw absolutely nothing, so i wasn't expecting much - but when I looked up at the eclipse with them on- holy shit it's the sun but it's a crescent. It was enough to make me blurt out an involuntary "holy shit." Then the sky clouded over for a few minutes, so I took them off and was waiting, and a group of office DudeBros coming back from lunch stopped in the crowd. One pointed at the goggles and asked "do those things work?"

I nodded enthusiastically. "Probably not now with the clouds, though." We talked a couple seconds, and then when the clouds started breaking up and I knew the sun would be back, I held them out. "Want to have a peek?"

The DudeBros laughed a bit as one put them on. "Okay, so I guess I look up and - WHOA." His entire demeanor changed with awe.

"....dude, I want a turn!" Another said, reaching for them. Then added, sheepishly glancing at me, "....if it's okay?" I gestured to go ahead. The second dude put them on - and also was instantly awestruck - "holy shit." He took them off and foisted them on a third - "Dude, seriously, look."

"...Can I have a turn next?" Said a woman in the crowd. We all laughed and I said yes. "So they really work?"

"They do indeed," I said, grinning, as the third, and then the fourth, DudeBro was blown away.

i actually had more fun watching the faces of strangers go totally awestruck when they looked through the eclipse glasses than I did watching the actual eclipse. A crowd of New Yorkers was turned into wonderstruck children.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 12:46 PM on March 14, 2018 [55 favorites]


I can never really pinpoint what will make me cry like a baby, but this hit that spot. When I was 20 and working at a bookstore a fellow used to wheel up his telescope to do the same thing, I guess I didn't really think about what a gift that is for people until just now. And if you have a badass telescope like that, why not share it?
posted by Duffington at 12:52 PM on March 14, 2018 [29 favorites]


Sublime /adj/: of such excellence, grandeur, or beauty as to inspire great admiration or awe.
posted by Abehammerb Lincoln at 12:58 PM on March 14, 2018 [2 favorites]


My college observatory did a public viewing event every month, and I remember going for the full moon, when they recommended sunglasses. It was so cool and incredibly bright. They were not kidding about the sunglasses.

In preparation for the eclipse I bought a vintage 200 mm lens and one of the first things I did with it was shoot the moon from our front porch.

Every now and then it will just catch my eye and I'll stand there thinking about how every human who's ever lived and looked up at the moon from anywhere on earth, at any time, has been looking at the same moon I am.
posted by fedward at 1:09 PM on March 14, 2018 [8 favorites]


A lot more people than I would've expected have apparently never seen any of the hundreds of existing detailed close-up photos of the moon. Which could make me cynical (or rather, even more so than usual) about the level of education and literacy in this country, but instead I'll just say it was very nice of this guy to give them a chance to see it for the first time.
posted by Greg_Ace at 1:12 PM on March 14, 2018 [1 favorite]


A lot more people than I would've expected have apparently never seen any of the hundreds of existing detailed close-up photos of the moon.

There is a difference between seeing something in pictures and something in person. I've seen plenty of pictures of partial solar eclipses; that didn't do anything to diminsh the wonder of seeing it live.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 1:18 PM on March 14, 2018 [13 favorites]


Whereas I was kind of underwhelmed by seeing it live...maybe because all I had was a 300mm camera lens to capture it with, which didn't leave me with much to look at.

The crescent-shaped shadows were cool though.
posted by Greg_Ace at 1:28 PM on March 14, 2018


I teach Astronomy 101, and we happily do have an observatory at our little community college (one 14" in a dome, plus a handful of 6" and 10" Dobsonians). We have one required viewing night a semester, so I get to see this reaction a fair bit, from students whom I'm showing high-res pictures of the Moon on a regular basis, and I always love it.

(Sadly, my night vision is pretty darned crappy--not a problem with the telescope, but I'm lousy at pointing people around the sky because I can't see very many of the stars. Thankfully, I only have to go outside for a couple of nights each semester, assisting a guy who's much better at that part.)
posted by Four Ds at 1:33 PM on March 14, 2018 [3 favorites]


We have a little telescope at home and yeah, it is different than seeing it in pictures. Something about the 3D-ness of it as viewed through the lens vs. the 2D representation on paper. Those craters, you really feel like you could just slide right down the face of one.
posted by soren_lorensen at 1:41 PM on March 14, 2018 [1 favorite]


Just be careful. A backyard telescope will get you to Saturn and it will blow your mind.
posted by whuppy at 2:07 PM on March 14, 2018 [9 favorites]


People isolate science from their 'real' world. They think atoms and planets and galaxies and microbes are only located at the far end of billion-dollar instruments.

That's false. Everything is already right there, or it wouldn't be science.

And looking at the real moon vs a photo--it's about the same as looking at the Grand Canyon vs a photo. There is no comparison.
posted by hexatron at 2:08 PM on March 14, 2018 [4 favorites]


Whelp, this made me cry. I live just ten minutes from the oldest professional observatory in the US (yeah, CIncinnati!) and they do events for the public multiple times a week. My dad was a fan of astronomy, and I have lovely memories of him dragging us kids to the end of the driveway for a lunar eclipse that occurred well past our bedtime, or pointing out constellations as the seasons changed. So very awe-inspiring.
posted by missmary6 at 2:20 PM on March 14, 2018 [7 favorites]


Many years ago, I was in Europe and thee were a couple college aged kids with a big (but not as big as the one in the video) telescope. They were charging a Euro to look at Jupiter and its moons.

Blew me away. I think I gave them an extra Euro. To me it was a revelation. I'd seen the moon through telescopes before, and even through good binoculars you can see the craters. But here I was standing in what I though of as a far away place called Germany, looking at another planet and three moons of that planet.

Great video.
posted by jeff-o-matic at 2:44 PM on March 14, 2018 [5 favorites]


There is a difference between seeing something in pictures and something in person. I've seen plenty of pictures of partial solar eclipses; that didn't do anything to diminsh the wonder of seeing it live.

This. I've seen all the amazing Cassini photos of Saturn but none of them compare to seeing a tiny little fuzzy ball with rings around it in even the cheapest of dime store telescopes. Same with the moon. There's something about seeing it with your own eyes that makes it better.

This was wonderful and makes me want to pull my telescope out on the sidewalk.
posted by bondcliff at 3:22 PM on March 14, 2018 [1 favorite]


This was wonderful and makes me want to pull my telescope out on the sidewalk.

Hell, this makes me want to buy a telescope for the same reason.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 4:04 PM on March 14, 2018 [5 favorites]


Whelp, this made me cry. I live just ten minutes from the oldest professional observatory in the US (yeah, Cincinnati!) and they do events for the public multiple times a week. My dad was a fan of astronomy, and I have lovely memories of him dragging us kids to the end of the driveway for a lunar eclipse that occurred well past our bedtime, or pointing out constellations as the seasons changed. So very awe-inspiring.

I was there some years ago for a daytime open house. They had the big 1845 refractor telescope pointed at the sun. The telescope is made of polished brass, wood, and cast iron with an 11 inch lens.

A modern, high tech "hydrogen alpha filter" attached to the telescope brought out the sun's surface details and a few solar prominences around the edges. "Wow! Look at that!"
posted by jjj606 at 4:08 PM on March 14, 2018 [3 favorites]


I had read unhealthy amounts of science fiction as a kid and studied astrophysics as an undergraduate and yet somehow had never looked into a telescope.
Until 20 years later in 2006, someone let me look through a telescope pointed at majestic Saturn and its moons, from the streets of New Orleans.
An unforgetable moment, thank you dude!
posted by duncan42 at 4:26 PM on March 14, 2018 [1 favorite]


This gives me the same upwelling of emotion that the “Where in the Hell is Matt?” video did. Basically, tapping into something so deeply human and joy provoking that it overrides our perceived differences and the normal tendency to be guarded with each other.

In that case, it was the sheer exuberance of dance, and in this case, it’s the sheer wonder at the cosmos we all inhabit together.
posted by darkstar at 5:03 PM on March 14, 2018 [3 favorites]


Should we start a "I'm building my own telescope" thread now? I definitely teared up.
posted by ikahime at 5:23 PM on March 14, 2018 [5 favorites]


Previously on John Dobson and grinding your own telescope mirror. While perfect for sidewalk astronomy like this, it also gladdened my heart last year to see lots of Dobsonian telescopes being used for the MU69 occultation campaign that was part of the mission prep for New Horizons' flyby at the end of this year. Cheap, powerful light buckets like this can do real science.
posted by rhamphorhynchus at 6:09 PM on March 14, 2018 [1 favorite]


In an extremely random set of circumstances I was part of a group that got a good look at Saturn through a big Soviet-era telescope. Person after person approached the eyepiece like whatever and then started giggling and grinning. This video pressed the same buttons in the best way.
posted by the duck by the oboe at 6:45 PM on March 14, 2018 [1 favorite]


What everyone said: you can look at a thousand pictures of the Moon, but the real thing, on a clear, crisp night, is entirely more magical. I used to have a none-more-crappy 3" Chinese refractor, and a viewing site in my garden in the backstreets of London, and I'd still sit out there night after night catching the Moon, Jupiter, Mars, the Pleiades, Orion, Andromeda... And that Moon, it moves! Visibly! You have to keep moving the scope to keep up!

It has actual presence, and I still don't fully understand why; it's not as if it's any more 3D.

Since then, I've looked through some magnificent scopes at many more exotic objects, and it's all wonderful, and goodness knows I feel hugely privileged and excited to be in the very first people in history to look at Jupiter and Saturn and Pluto (Pluto!) and the centre of the galaxy and the furthest objects we know about through some unimaginably wonderful technology... but nothing has that pure, awe-inspiring thump in the soul of looking at the Moon through a cheap telescope on a clear, crisp night.
posted by Devonian at 7:07 PM on March 14, 2018


I also lent my eclipse glasses to sone college duuuudes who were hesitant because it was kind of cool but also kind of lame (from our oblique New England perspective). They couldn’t believe that an Old like me was happy to share my goofy orange cardboard goggles, which they were embarrassed to not have Had All Along. :7)
posted by wenestvedt at 7:26 PM on March 14, 2018 [1 favorite]


My own encounter twenty years ago with some Sidewalk Astronomers like this guy inspired me to get into astronomy. I built my own Dobsonian (cheap, big ass telescope) using the SA plans, which at the time you had to send a SASE for. It took me a month of weekends to build, plus $50 of supplies from the hardware store and $150 in mailorder parts (for critical things like the big mirror).

A couple years later I thought it would be cool to set the telescope up on our front porch during Halloween, when the full moon happened to be rising, and THE KIDS WENT APESHIT. "Whoaaaa!" "Oh my god!". And my favorite, "that's not real!"

Ever since, we've held our annual house party on the weekend before (or on) Halloween that has the best moon -- it just needs to be up in the evening. Over the years the party has evolved to add A) a projection of the moon on the side of the house, B) a projection of the live Earth views from ISS, C) viewings of the ISS flying over (not every year), and most recently another astronomer friend who has a killer rig. We invite everyone we know and flyer the neighborhood.
posted by intermod at 7:58 PM on March 14, 2018 [15 favorites]


i ate an egg on it
posted by Zerowensboring at 8:11 PM on March 14, 2018


What I love most about this is the people. I love LA.
posted by soakimbo at 10:16 PM on March 14, 2018 [2 favorites]




Intermod, I wish you were my neighbor. That sounds awesome. What a great thing to do.
posted by greermahoney at 1:03 AM on March 15, 2018 [1 favorite]


This was lovely.

I grew up for a few years in an area a ways outside of Billings, MT. There's very little light pollution in that neck of the woods.

My dad and I would go out on warm nights and light our chiminea while staring up at the stars and counting the shooting stars while making wishes. It's honestly astonishing how many shooting stars there are all the time that we often can't see.

On a fun occasion we broke out some old, second hand telescope to look at the moon and the stars. It wasn't the best of telescopes but it did okay. We listened to NPR radio in the mornings to see if something would be nearby that night.

I loved looking at the moon. Even with that old telescope I could see so many craters and shadows. The glow is ethereal.

I miss that. Now I live in a suburb of SLC and while we luckily get some clear skies where you can see the big dipper, it's nothing in comparison. I hope I can make a trip out of town sometime soon just to look at the stars and moon.
posted by Crystalinne at 3:53 AM on March 15, 2018


And plus one to crying at the solar eclipse and loving other people's reactions. (Especially some young dude bros.) We got a few extra glasses just to share at our apartment complex.
posted by Crystalinne at 3:53 AM on March 15, 2018 [1 favorite]


I cried. Three minutes fifteen seconds. Must see classic!
posted by filtergik at 4:24 AM on March 15, 2018


that made me cry a little bit.

thanks for posting
posted by james33 at 5:19 AM on March 15, 2018


I've seen it before. 😏
posted by DJZouke at 5:31 AM on March 15, 2018


Now I live in a suburb of SLC and while we luckily get some clear skies where you can see the big dipper, it's nothing in comparison. I hope I can make a trip out of town sometime soon just to look at the stars and moon.

Your best bet within Utah is Capital Reef National Park, said to have the darkest skies of any National Park. If you feel like heading farther away, Craters of the Moon National Monument has some great night skies, and there is now an International Dark Sky Reserve in central Idaho. Great Basin National Park, in the eastern edge of Nevada, also has very clear night skies and does a better job of publicizing its night sky events than Capital Reef does, but we felt like we had the better viewing experience at Capital Reef.
posted by fedward at 6:11 AM on March 15, 2018 [1 favorite]


I have this exact telescope. It's huge, but it collapses to make transport a little easier. It's still a huge pain in the ass to get it out of the house and into a car.

But it's amazing. Objects like the moon and planets are extremely easy to find in the night sky, and it blows peoples' minds. Especially the moon, when you can swap out an eye piece to see not just the left side of the moon, but that one particular crater right there. People just can't believe it.
posted by spikeleemajortomdickandharryconnickjrmints at 10:23 AM on March 15, 2018


And looking at the real moon vs a photo--it's about the same as looking at the Grand Canyon vs a photo. There is no comparison.

Yes. Absolutely.

One night a friend and I were visiting with someone who lived in the vicinity of Tucson. He had a telescope, and asked us if we'd like to see Jupiter. I was unprepared. Four moons were visible; he made sight corrections from time to time, and we spent several hours in awe. To make things more eerie, he explained the time lag to us. It turns out that Lightspeed makes phantoms of the stars. I still find this unsettling.
posted by mule98J at 11:25 AM on March 15, 2018 [1 favorite]


To make things more eerie, he explained the time lag to us.

The moons of Jupiter were accidentally responsible for determining the speed of light in 1676.
posted by bondcliff at 1:18 PM on March 15, 2018


« Older The appropriate evaluation of the anecdote   |   The Cold Never Bothered Her Anyway Newer »


This thread has been archived and is closed to new comments