"The universe is mostly hydrogen and ignorance." John Dobson
One night I was walking
in Central Square, Cambridge, MA
and saw somebody with a telescope,
probably an MIT or Harvard student,
showing the people the moon in front of MacDonald's.
It was a beautiful thing.
But I've seen it happen only once.
Another night, more recently,
the moon was huge and low in the night sky and
nobody seemed to notice it at all.
There were two kids sitting on a bench
in front of Toscanini's Ice Cream
both looking at their handheld screens,
cell phones, computers.
I called out asking them to
at least once
"Look at the moon!"
Who knows if they did.
1/19/2014
Further references:
Sidewalk Astronomers http://www.sidewalkastronomers.us
"A Sidewalk Astronomer," documentary on Dobson and his work http://telescopepictures.com
Article which informed me of Dobson's death and life http://boingboing.net/...
hat tip boingboing