Astronomy

I was, like many a nerdy kid, obsessed with stars at some point in my life. When I was younger this manifested as an intense interest in science fiction, especially anything involving rockets or space ships or alien creatures. I wasn’t as interested in fantasy until I became a teenager. The two overlap quite a bit, and many would argue that science fiction technology is merely magic with some mumbo-jumbo.

During college, I tried my best to stick to the rigorous CS schedule of classes. I shopped astrophysics briefly before throwing my hands up at the first lecture and walking out. The field is extremely…difficult. I settled instead for an astronomy observation class, which included many cold, cold trips to Brown University’s observatory in the middle of winter in an attempt to capture good images of a distant galaxy. The header image is of M82, the cigar galaxy, taken by yours truly on a particularly cold wintry night.

After graduation, one of the first gifts I bought myself was a telescope. An expensive telescope. I barely had time to put it together as I was ramping up at Google. Once I finished assembling it, I used it for a grand total of 5 times during the few years I lived in that house. It was a massive Orion SkyQuest, about 4 feet tall. The light pollution of a suburban neighborhood simply makes it too hard to get a good look at much of anything.

Since coming to Singapore, spotting the stars has been much more difficult. I did manage to make a trip out to Mongolia in 2017 with my friend Nikunj, who is now married to my friend Divy! They live in Oakland, so no future Mongolia trips possible sadly. While we were in Mongolia though, I managed to get a beautiful look at the Milky Way that no phone camera could possibly capture. It was the first time I had been drawn to the idea of spending money on camera equipment since every picture I took of it with my phone seemed completely inadequate at capturing the incredible awe of that moment where I needed to pee so badly.

As it stands now, I don’t have much remnant interest in astronomy. The world of stars and cold space is still fascinating to me for it’s mind-boggling masses, gravitational lensing, Cepheid variable stars and all the cool concepts around how we investigated the universe we live in while never leaving our own little corner. But for now, the little corner we’re in seems to hold so much complexity and wonder all on its own!