The Stargazing Year

by Charles Laird Calia

Book Overview

An amateur astronomer documents a year spent observing the night sky and building an observatory in his New England backyard, offering additional background information on the history of armchair... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1585423912
• ISBN13: 9781585423910
• Release Date: May 2005
• Publisher: Tarcher
• Length: 273 Pages
• Weight: 0.95 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.0" x 6.3" x 8.7"
• Age Range: 18 years and up
• Grade Range: Postsecondary and higher

Customer Reviews

THE BEST!

The Stargazing Year: A Backyard Astronomer's Journey Through the Seasons of the Night Skyisn't about astronomy, even though astronomy is definitely its theme. It's really about one man's love of astronomy and his dogged determination to build a backyard observatory in the harsh winter of Connecticut. It's a true story and accurate story right down to pounding the last bent nail into the roof, or coffin, depending on the weather and your personal perspective. The book is easy to read, and the author deftly sidesteps the sticky scientific facts in favor of the main objective, which is building the observatory. In the end, it chronicles one man's fight to twist and turn and prod and shape the harsh, cold environment into his personal observational platform. It's proof once again that hard work and determination will always win out. I recommend the book to anyone who ever dreamed about building his or her own backyard observatory. In fact, it should be required reading. Who knows? It could change your mind!

Serendipity! Charles Calia has written a gem of a book!

In the opening sentence of his "Conclusion" to The Critique of Practical Reason (1788), the German philosopher Immanuel Kant (1724-1804) wrote: "Two things fill the mind with ever-increasing wonder and awe, the more often and the more intensely the mind of thought is drawn to them: the starry heavens above me and the moral law within me." In The Stargazing Year, Charles Laird Calia, while apparently having no significant quarrel with "the moral law within," writes of how his imagination was hooked at an early age in Pennsylvania and Minnesota by wonder, admiration, and awe at "the starry heavens above," and how he came full circle, after the passage of half a lifetime, to his fascination with the stars, his own return to the eternal return of the night sky. Tracing the trajectories of the heavens, he simultaneously traces the trajectory of his own life: "Nostalgia is part and parcel of the human condition, a natural gift of aging, and it protects us from the message that the universe telegraphs to us with frightening accuracy. You are small and will soon be forgotten." A frequent contributor to Sky & Telescope magazine, Calia is a member of the American Association of Variable Star Observers, the Association of Lunar and Planetary Observers, and the British Astronomical Association. He now lives in Connecticut with his wife and two daughters, where he has built a backyard observatory. Calia divides The Stargazing Year into 12 chapters, January through December, cataloguing the transit of the seasons from winter to autumn, and the changing constellations of the heavens. Stumbling across Calia's work is a remarkable example of serendipity, a fortunate discovery, for The Stargazing Year is charmingly written, insightfully informative, and delightfully funny--a gem of a book. Escaping from the planetary pull of his mother's obsession with astrology, Calia developed an obsession of his own, a passion for and love of astronomy. Under the watchful eye of his wife, who keeps a close watch over family expenditures, Calia's account of building his backyard observatory is hilarious, as he fumbles and flounders his way through the daunting construction, with help from the guy in the orange jacket at Home Depot. The book is star-studded with arresting metaphors, similes, and analogies and an ingratiating self-deprecating humor. Think the staccato-voiced words of Rod Serling. Think the bucolic poetic lyricism of Robert Frost. Think the sly wit and wisdom of Mark Twain. Think the whimsy and zany inventiveness of Douglas Adams. Think the contagious enthusiasm and passion of Carl Sagan. "Love can bring us a long distance," writes Calia, "if we take notice. I finally did. Throughout a celestial season, I had spent twelve months noticing, watching comets and asteroids, faint galaxies, sunspots, and distant stars. Creation unfolding. Some may witness the unfolding of the universe, like a gathering of planets, as comforting, a creation that cares enough to