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That old guy at McDonald's who spotted the Andromeda galaxy with me
Last fall I was killing time at a 24-hour McDonald's near Tucson with my cheap 10-inch Dobsonian, waiting for the sky to clear. An old guy in a faded veterans cap sat down across from me and asked if I could show him something real, not just the moon. I pointed the scope at M31 and he just stood there quiet for a solid two minutes before saying, "So that's what my dad meant when he said we're tiny." He told me his father was a navigator in the Navy and used to point out stars from their porch in the 50s. Has anyone else had a random stranger get genuinely moved by a single object in your eyepiece like that?
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spencer_ross4d ago
Got to admit, I used to think people were just being polite when they said space made them emotional. Saw a guy break down over Saturn once and figured he was having a rough night. But then I showed a neighbor the Andromeda galaxy through my 8-inch and he just whispered "I didn't know it was real" and I finally got it, that raw moment hits different when you're face to face with something that big.
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