As a retired scientist, I was well versed with the art of technical writing. I tried to be succinct, and prefered plain English to an excessive reliance on technical jargon. I often spent hours "worrying" my text into shape.
But I have surprised my self by enjoying non-technical writing - I certainly did not enjoy "creative" writing at school! I allow my self more freedom of expression, can put more of myself into what I write, and as I've always been hopeless at the technical aspects of grammar, I'm willing to bend or break the rules! But I'll still spend hours "worrying" my text into shape!
Star Trails
This is a story about the stars and the eclipse of the moon, about the interconnection of things, and about the mystical dormant within science. It began at 11:56PM, Sunday 16th July 2000, just south of Hobart, Tasmania. The air is crisp, cold and crystal clear, far from city lights, and a ghostly, bloody moon sails overhead. There is just a suggestion of an aurora in the south.
I had happened upon a cheap roll of 800 ASA film, past its expiry date, and thought I’d try photographing the eclipse using my 35mm camera with a 200mm lens and 2x tele-extender mounted on a simple tripod. The results proved disappointing. All pictures were grossly overexposed, giving a washed out, elongated moon with perceptible star trails. However, one image was to prove a revelation! I’d set the camera facing south, with a 35mm lens and the aperture fully open. I positioned the Southern Cross and the Pointers in the right and included the horizon, opened the shutter and hurried back to the car for warmth, hot coffee and chocolate fudge. Half an hour later I retrieved the camera and drove home. I was sure that this last image was one experiment that couldn’t fail! Well, I hoped so!!
Later, after the film had been developed, the results of this experiment that couldn’t fail exceeded my expectations. Seeing that image was one of those moments that seem to defy explanation, or when explained seems meaningless to everyone, even me! There, in a flash, was so much mathematics, physics and chemistry that is usually seen in isolation, integrated into a single image.
Once before I’d had a similar experience of the integration of hitherto disparate bodies of knowledge. I was completing my Honours Thesis, a theoretical essay on the Chandreskhar mass limit in white dwarfs – the closest I would come to being the astronomer I’d wanted to be. Reading a text on astrophysics suddenly brought together classical mechanics, special relativity, statistical mechanics, thermodynamics, and quantum dynamics into a single interrelated and practical body of knowledge! Wow!
Whereas the experience with my Honours thesis was purely intellectual, the more recent experience with the image was physical, intellectual, emotional – and mystical. It was deeply satisfying, moving to the depths of my being. Perhaps it takes time and wisdom to develop the deeper sensitivity that connects our inner lives to the outer world. This one picture was to me worth far, far more than a thousand words!
It also encapsulated the sense of awe I have always felt, ever since I read books on astronomy as a kid as bed-time reading, that all we know about the stars, and much of what we know about the inner workings of things atomic, is deduced by the light we receive with our eyes! I know we have now moved onto other detectors of radiation, but it still boils down to light and colour.
Great painters knew how light and colour can evoke emotions. So do photographers; that I now knew!
That magical image of star trails is long lost within boxes of thousands of slides! But I have much more recently experimented with astrophotography with my digital camera, and the images below sort of relate to the experience I was writing about. Amateurish they are, but crikey, I have had a lot of fun learning and the results give me a buzz!
Total lunar eclipse
Startrails wheeling above Great Oyster Bay, with meteor trails
"The Emu Rising" - Milky Way & galactic center
The idea for the following poem had been churning away in my sub-conscious for a full lunar cycle following that eclipse in July 2000. Finally, I was alone at night on a long drive through the midlands of Tasmania, listening to John Michael Talbot’s Troubadour of the Great King. In his suite Talbot was inspired by the words of St Francis’s Canticle of the Creatures, in which St Francis sings his praise to his Lord for all of Creation, and in which he recognises the connection of all things – an ecologist at heart! It was this sense of interconnection that turned my thoughts back to my image and its nascent poem, and it was natural to attempt to honour the mystical side of the experience, and of course St Francis’s Brother Sun, Sister Moon and Mother Earth! Here is the result ...
The Great Wheel of Heaven Turns
The great Wheel of Heaven turns
invisibly
irrevocably
about its still, silent center.
invisibly
irrevocably
about its still, silent center.
Imperceptibly but measurably
the long arm of the cross
sinks towards the horizon,
one degree every four minutes.
the long arm of the cross
sinks towards the horizon,
one degree every four minutes.
The light of Brother Sun
no longer reflects
from the fair face of Sister Moon!
no longer reflects
from the fair face of Sister Moon!
Through Mother Earth’s intercession
the blood red lunar light
is no match to the stars,
nor to a faint auroral glow
and the Milk Way glows,
a brilliant arc across the heaven.
the blood red lunar light
is no match to the stars,
nor to a faint auroral glow
and the Milk Way glows,
a brilliant arc across the heaven.
An elegant technology of
artfully crafted glass
guides and nudges starlight
to a crisp focus,
a sparse image to human eye.
artfully crafted glass
guides and nudges starlight
to a crisp focus,
a sparse image to human eye.
In the world of individual photons
exposure is aperture and ASA.
exposure is aperture and ASA.
But time and the turning of the Wheel
developed crisp tracks
and smoothed to ghostly effervescence
the Milky Way’s myriad stars
unseen by naked eye,
while homely pin pricks of light
on the background of dark forest
counterpoint the Universe’s
ætherial glow.
developed crisp tracks
and smoothed to ghostly effervescence
the Milky Way’s myriad stars
unseen by naked eye,
while homely pin pricks of light
on the background of dark forest
counterpoint the Universe’s
ætherial glow.
The magic of light and chemistry
transforms the halides
and the mystery of the flow of time
is etched in plastic.
transforms the halides
and the mystery of the flow of time
is etched in plastic.
The gently arced images of Heavenly fires
blaze with colour
the physical manifestation
of a mystical nuclear alchemy.
blaze with colour
the physical manifestation
of a mystical nuclear alchemy.
Width is brightness not size
but colour is the story of the microscopic
of the quantum
revealed in the macroscopic!
but colour is the story of the microscopic
of the quantum
revealed in the macroscopic!
In one image
the story of a Universe:
of aeons of time
and light years of space,
of physical processes
on unimaginable scales
of chemistry and of light.
the story of a Universe:
of aeons of time
and light years of space,
of physical processes
on unimaginable scales
of chemistry and of light.
And of the depths of mystical yearning
of passion for adventure
that lures the heart and mind
of the Sons of God
from their earthly existence
into the very Heart of the Cosmos.
of passion for adventure
that lures the heart and mind
of the Sons of God
from their earthly existence
into the very Heart of the Cosmos.
Peter Sands, August 2000