The library was closed. I wanted to be there today because anything else was open. Instead I checked out the Goodwill on S. Palm Ave. They have a tiny book section that's been culled for all except paperback escape literature. I picked up some vintage video, Laurel & Hardy stuff. After four years in Miami, I finally walked down Okeechobee Road for the first time. During afternoon coffee at Denny’s I found an ad for the planetarium and a look at the rings of Saturn. It’s a rare cloudless day with light traffic, and the next chance is 2032. Here's a display at the Maimi Planetarium.
By early evening I dropped over to Quizno’s to discover JZ has taken ill with the flu. Alaine says the Christmas this year was downsized, and the choir kids didn’t fly in. She was polite but I can tell I was supposed to of been there. I just didn't want anybody feeling sorry for me. Alaine noticed the planetarium ad and was aching to go but Corey needed her there all day. They are trying to recruit [one of] his younger brothers (23) to manage the store but meanwhile they've got a do it 110% by themselves. She treated me to a cup of tea. I phoned JZ later, but he’s really got it bad, like so deep in the lungs I could barely understand his speech. This one, he has to sleep through.
The planetarium laser show was copyright about 1980 (my opinion). They’ve got a few exhibits I may be able to expand on, including this huge 4” PVC open tube pipe organ you play by smacking a sponge paddle over one end. The usual overpriced gift shop with toys instead of tools, but I picked up an unusual specimen of Iron Pyrite (Fool’s Gold), as they usually keep the larger cubes for display. The telescope was a letdown. It wasn’t the big bucket, rather two Cassegrains set up on the roof, rattling in the wind and hard to focus. This limited the magnification to about I’d guess 300x, not enough to see the Cassini division. My binoculars as a teenager were actually better.
Flashback time. On really cold winter nights out on the prairies, it’s easy to believe you can see more stars, which is not true. (Then again, it's not an illusion either because there really are more stars in the southern sky, the part visible during winter.) At any rate, I had figured out how to line up Venus and the Moon to find the galactic plane, but could not figure out how to read the same thing on a star chart. Back then, research material was almost as scarce as knowledgeable adults, and I always thought the planets were too far away to be seen. It turns out so did everyone else, because years later before I found out I had indeed been looking at Saturn and nobody believed me.
[Author's note: years later, I still have that lump of fool's gold. I don't know why I capitalized the original mention, but I still use it for a paperweight. Surprising point: discovering that iron pyrite is non-magnetic.]
I had thought I’d discovered a new planet with my 10x50 binoculars since everyone said you needed a “way bigger telescope” to see anything already known. They say mankind only learned the sun was not the center of the universe just 80 years ago. Where I grew up, some folks are probably still debating the issue.
The planetarium staff did not prepare the people much or very well for this kind of show. Most were disappointed that you could not see all the colors shown on the photos. There was a lady ahead of me with her mother and daughter, and I was able to help them. Explain what was going on. The lady was quite good-looking. Nothing came of it.
The planetarium staff babes were dynamite, though. Whoa, some of them just don’t know the power they have. I miss that in my background, idle summer jobs where I could meet the public, especially girl public. Every summer I had to pack off into the bush to make enough money to barely survive the winter. I could not afford an easy job in town that would have done me some good, but I’m just sore because I’m too old for the blonde that was in there today.
[Authors note: most people look at a distant galaxy through a telescope come away wondering why they don't see all those colors like in photographs. The reason is those photos are usually extremely long exposures. Your eyes are full of chemicals that refresh what you see as light falls on them so you never get to the point were your naked eye can perceive those colors. That's right. You will never see colorful objects in deep space.]
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