Amateur Astronomers

On summer nights, I used to lie on my back in the six-foot patch of grass we had in the middle of our cement backyard, and stare up at the stars littering the Manhattan sky. I could pick out the Big Dipper, and on particularly clear nights, the Little Dipper, but that was the extent of my astronomical acumen.

The members of the Amateur Astronomers Association of New York are a very different breed of stargazer who spend clear nights on fire escapes and rooftops and promenades, looking at star clusters and globules and double stars and nebulae through telescopes that can cost thousands of dollars and weigh as much as a hundred pounds. They host leactures at the Museum of Natural History and public observing sessions in parks and are battling tirelessly to combat light pollution in the Metropolitan area, hoping to preserve our little window onto the universe.