My first Magazine Sky & Telescope - 01.2019 | Page 86

FOCAL POINT by Pat Plunkett
Sight Unseen
On a fi ne observing night with friends, an amateur astronomer gets an alarming surprise.
Astrolabe of Wheeling, West Virginia,
hosts a monthly starwatch every third
Friday. Since it was fi nally a clear
evening, I traveled to the site to get
ready for what I hoped would be a great
evening observing a crescent Moon and
lots of deep-sky objects. I was especially
looking forward to my last peek of the
season at M42, the Orion Nebula.
When I arrived, the Sun was still up
but low on the horizon, and the Moon
was high in the western sky. I took
advantage of the sunlight to set up my
scope and start viewing the Moon — it
was magnifi cent in my Unitron. As
the evening wore on, the sky darkened
nicely, and the stars began popping out.
That’s when I started to notice that
something was not right. I’m almost
always the fi rst of the group to fi nd
objects and usually the one to point
them out to my compatriots. As Venus
appeared, I kept losing it when try-
ing to aim my scope at it, while my
buddies seemed to have no problem
keeping a lock on our sister planet. Oh
well, I thought, I must be a little off my
game tonight. Later, one of the group
was trying to get me to M42, and I was
having trouble locating the Belt stars to
indicate the way to the Sword. Again, I
thought I was just a bit off.
Later still, one of the folks found
M51, the Whirlpool Galaxy in Canes
Venatici. When I put my eye to the
eyepiece of his 10-inch refl ector, I was
barely able to make out the “main”
galaxy and certainly couldn’t see
the companion. Bad night indeed, I
thought. Then one of the inexperi-
enced visitors peered in and saw both
galaxies with no problem.
What was happening? Was I losing
my sight?
The night continued in the same
vein for a while, and I contented myself
with observing the Moon. It really was
outstanding, so the night wasn’t a total
disappointment. But I left the site with
a real worry nagging at me. Were my
eyes fi nally succumbing to old age? I’m
only 63, after all!
On my drive home, my headlights
didn’t seem to be working as well as
usual, and as I pulled into my driveway
I checked to see if both headlights were
functional. (They were.) Okay, now I was
really worried. Can sudden loss of vision
happen? Anticipating an emergency visit
to an ophthalmologist in the morning,
I morosely started dragging my stuff
inside. As I entered the house, everything
seemed dim as well. Not good.
Then, feeling like a complete idiot,
I noticed that I still had my sunglasses
on! They’re the same prescription as my
regular glasses, including being bifocals.
It’d been sunny when I arrived at the
stargazing site, and I’d simply forgotten
to remove them.
Moral: It’s never too dark to be cool,
but if you see someone in your group
wearing sunglasses after dark, you might
want to mention it.
¢ PAT PLUNKETT spent 20-plus years in
the U.S. Air Force, retiring at the rank of
Lieutenant Colonel, after which he taught
computer science at Wheeling Jesuit
University for another 20-plus years. He
retired as an associate professor in May
of last year.
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