The Heavens May Mock, But I Persist
“Yet still he writes, though heavens mock his quest.”
✦ bortle 9 astro ✦
Three months into this strange project, I can’t help laughing at the absurdity of it all. I built a website about astrophotography in a place where the sky actively discourages astrophotography. I’ve logged nights that barely existed, chased astronomical darkness that slipped through my fingers like a rumor, and written Field Notes with the seriousness of a man chronicling a war fought entirely with clouds. And yet — still I write, though the heavens mock my quest. Because somewhere in the glow, in the crumbs of darkness the sky begrudgingly hands me, I’ve found something worth documenting. Something worth returning to. Something that feels suspiciously like meaning.
Somewhere along the way, this harmless website turned into a full-blown obsession. I’ve spent three months treating suburban astrophotography like a graduate thesis — charts, logs, philosophical essays, and the kind of workflow diagrams normally reserved for NASA or people who alphabetize their spices. I’ve written about Bortle 9 skies with the intensity of a man documenting a rare disease. I’ve analyzed twilight geometry like it’s a personal betrayal. I’ve built a logging system so detailed it could probably run a small observatory — or at least embarass them. And for what? A handful of photons that survived the glow of O’Hare and the emotional turbulence of Chicago weather. Truly, this is how normal people spend their retirement.
And yet, for all the ridiculousness of it, I keep coming back. Something about this whole endeavor — the logging, the learning, the writing, the quiet ritual of pointing a telescope into a sky that barely cooperates — has carved out a strange little space in my life. It’s become a practice, almost a meditation — a way of paying attention in a world that’s always trying to distract me. Even on nights when the sky gives me nothing, I walk away with something: a sentence, a thought, a pattern I didn’t notice before. Maybe that’s the real reason I’m still here, three months in — squinting at the heavens like a man convinced the universe left him a message in the margins.
So here I am, three months in — still pointing a telescope into a sky that behaves like it has better things to do, still writing notes no sane person would write, still chasing photons that clearly don’t want to be caught. And somehow, instead of burning out, I feel more drawn to this project than ever. Maybe it’s the challenge. Maybe it’s the ritual. Maybe it’s the absurdity of practicing a dark-sky hobby in a place where darkness is an endangered species. Or maybe — and this is the part I’m finally willing to admit — I’ve come to love the chase itself. The crumbs, the clouds, the tiny victories, the nights that almost happen. Whatever it is, I’m not done. Not even close. The heavens may mock my quest… but I’m still showing up.
Clear skies / Pete // bortle9astro.com
Filed under the principle that even the most stubborn constraints occasionally let a little beauty escape.