There is a fully-functioning planetarium aboard QM2 and now there is an astronomer to make proper use of it. There was a presentation listed in the daily activity program but by the time I got to Connexions, the tickets were all gone. The sign said we could go to the planetarium and wait in case of no-shows. I did and got a great seat.
It was the first in a series presented by Dr Diego, a Fellow of the Royal Astronomical Society, who has a soft voice, with a vaguely Spanish accent, strangely reassuring in the dark but exuding enthusiasm and knowledge.
The late Michael Crichton wrote an excellent essay lamenting the fact that scientists are generally very poor at communicating except to other scientists. Dr Diego is the exception. He has the all-too-rare skill of bringing science to non-scientists, presenting and explaining with just the right mix of erudition and conversation.
Luck comes in many forms: because my accident was neither fatal nor paralyzing but serious enough to make me re-think my priorities, I got on this ship, was lucky enough to get accommodation at every segment and now am lucky enough to experience and appreciate Dr Diego's knowledge.
We started on the virtual deck of the QM2 at noon, watched the sun set and the stars rise. Ok, I know that it's the Earth which is moving but somehow it seems more romantic, and is more egocentric, to think that the stars, moon and planets are putting on a show for me.
We looked at a star hatchery (Orion's nebula), a star hospice (the center of our galaxy) and the remains of an exploded star (in the Crab nebula), at hot, blue stars, cool (in relative terms) red stars and our yellow sun, midway between the 2 extremes, at the Milky Way (in German, die Milchstrasse) as prominent as it was when I saw it in Australia and at constellations as imagined and drawn thousands of years ago.
We traveled millions of miles out and back, faster than the speed of light, only possible in a virtual world, and saw how tiny our place in this vastness is. Dr Diego quoted from Carl Sagan, a hero of mine.
Years ago, I read COSMOS, later M and M read it. Before that, we were in London and got a home planetarium which No. 2 had to carry home. It consisted of a large glass dome with a light bulb inside and hard plastic templates which fit over it. Each had holes in the pattern of well-known constellations which were then projected onto the ceiling.
At the Smithsonian, I bought a telescope and once when it was exceptionally clear, we saw Jupiter (that bit was easy), 3 of its moons and the shadow of the 4th on the planet's surface.
Like all good obsessions and stargazing is, it had a great start. One night, at Highland beach, I asked my grandfather where the stars came from and he said that when good people die, they become stars. He pointed to a bright, yellow object (probably Jupiter but who knew! He was a dentist!) and said that was his mother.
Shortly after he died (it was in July which is important for this story), I was at the beach again, saw a bright reddish star (Antares, only visible in the summer in MD) and promptly decided that it was my grandfather. Ground light in the city was so bright that it was impossible to recognize much more than the Big Dipper but I knew he was there, and still is.
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