[Friends_of_SSASTROS] Notes From The Field; Things That Go Bump in the Night

[Mike McCabe]

December 14th, 2022 – Things ThatGo Bump in the Night

  I was out observing one night last week, andwhen it was all over, as I usually do, I walked the scope back to the garageand placed it down in front of the door so that I could go inside and open itup. But when I stepped back from the scope to walk around it I was immediately struckby the image facing me.

  Although I would normally have it as dark aspossible while I’m observing, at this time of year I sometimes concede to theseason and will leave the outside Christmas lights on. It’s all about thespirit, you know, as in if you shut the lights off and the wife ain’t happyyour spirit is likely to get trampled.
  Every year we place a spotlight on the groundthat illuminates the front of the house, the wreath on the door, and just abouteverything else within its range. Some of that light bleeds over to the garage,and when I put the scope down that light created a very spooky scene thatincluded not only the shadow of the scope on the door, but the shadow of theleafless Japanese Maple also located in the light path.

  The scene reminded me of the eerie feelings thatwe can sometimes experience while we’re out in the dark of night with allmanner of who knows what lurking in the shadows. When you think about it,spending long periods of time outside in near absolute darkness while makinglittle, or no, noise really does create ideal circumstances for scary moments.  I’ve had a few myself over the years.

  One night I was in the backyard after a long dayand just enjoying an evening of observing (BTW, fatigue can be a powerfulingredient when it comes to these experiences) and things were going along justsplendidly when suddenly the silence was disturbed by the sounds of dry leaves beingcrushed in the woods about twenty feet away from me. Now any sensible mindedindividual would’ve probably thought about that for a minute (or maybe a fewseconds even) and concluded that the most likely scenario creating these noiseswas a chipmunk making its way across the terrain, or maybe a neighborhood cateven, but not Sasquatch like I was pretty sure it was. I immediately fired upthe brightest white light at my disposal, absolutely and utterly destroying myhard won dark adaptation and upon seeing nothing I just concluded thatwhatever it was, it was hiding now and the observing equipment got put away el’ pronto.

  Then there was time up in Vermont at the TreeFarm campground. I had opted to stay there one year while attending Stellafane and I had the entire open field known as the “Green Acres” to myself. Well, itgets pretty dark there and on my first night I was lugging my equipment acrossthe field to where I wanted to observe from and I couldn’t see a damn thing –black! On my second or third trip across the field I suddenly heard – and felt –a thumping on the ground. Now I knew one thing for sure, and that was that thisfield abutted a big pig farm. Had a wild hog escaped? I had no idea. I stoppeddead in my tracks and it’s a darned good thing that I did. As I stood therepeering into the blackness I caught the briefest glimpse of a white stripe –skunk! What I didn’t know at the time is that a skunk, like a rabbit will thumpas a last resort before launching its final offensive, and we all know whatthat is. Thankfully he turned and went the other way, but that’s the kind ofthing that can put a damper on your night.

  Another fairly dark site is our localEllisville Harbor State Park, where a few of our club members have availedthemselves on occasion of some dark-for-our-area observing. The skies atEllisville can knock on the door of Bortle 4 which is pretty good for ourparts. I was down there one night a couple of years ago with a few fellowmembers of the club, and at the end of the night it was just myself and oneother member chatting in the parking lot where we were observing from. Chattingin the dark is one of the more fun parts of the observing experience with otherpeople, and typically speaking it’s when we see the most meteors, so, no lights. It never dawned on me that there mightbe other people down inside the park proper enjoying the night too. 2020 was asummer Olympics year, and had the right people been present I’m sure I would’vequalified for the high jump team when a group of folks came slinking past inthe darkness, apparently loving the dark and quiet just as much as we do.

  Truth be told, there is generally little tofear while practicing astronomical observing in the night. Those few instancesthat I just cited really pale in comparison to the literally thousands ofpeaceful, enjoyable nights that I’ve spent outside just soaking in the cosmos.Of course we don’t live in bear country, there generally aren’t that many alligatorscrawling around here, and our reptile population is pretty docile compared tosay, Arizona, so even though our light pollution situation isn’t great, in manyways we’ve got it good.

  So there you go. Things sometimes do go bumpin the night and I’m sure that some of you probably have an experience or twothat you can look back on and laugh about. Why not share them with us? We couldall use the humorous distraction and besides, I don’t want to be the onlyscaredy-cat in the club!

Keep LookingUp!

Mike McCabe


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