It took a pandemic, a once-in-20-years sky event, and two granddaughters willing to kneel in the backyard.
Not many good things came out of 2020. But on December 21st of that year, something happened in the sky that only happens once in every 20 years, but on that night something happened that hadn’t occurred in nearly 400 years — I saw Saturn for the first time and it gave me the best night I’ve ever had with a telescope.
It’s called Great Conjunction and it made the 6 o’clock news. Jupiter and Saturn were going to appear closer together in the sky than they had for 20 years — so close you could see them together even without a telescope. I had my eBay Celestron 8” sitting in the corner. The motor drive still didn’t work. I still couldn’t properly align the mount. But I had a clear night, a target I could actually find with my eyes, and two of my granddaughters visiting.
You’ve met the older one before — she’s the one who would later stand with me at the Dyer Observatory eyepiece. [INSERT LINK TO SECTION PAGE] Her dad is Scott, the same Scott from the golf scrambles. Both her parents are accountants, which means she comes by her interest in science entirely on her own. When she was little, her dad gave her a working model of the solar system. I remember going into her room once and finding she’d rearranged the planets — not by distance from the sun, but by size. Her younger sister is more of a tennis player, but she has always been willing to humor her grandfather’s obsessions. That night, both of them were in.
The Plan (Such As It Was)
My plan was simple and completely dependent on a string of “ifs.” IF I could get the telescope set up. IF I could find Jupiter and Saturn in the eyepiece — which the naked eye could already see as that unusually bright point of light in the southwest. IF I could hold them in the field of view long enough for the girls to look. And IF I could repeat that every few minutes for about 20 minutes before the planets drifted out of reach. That’s a lot of ifs. I went outside anyway.
Galileo’s Shoes
Here’s something worth knowing about planets: the word itself comes from the ancient Greek word for “wanderer.” To early observers, planets didn’t move across the sky the way stars do, circling Polaris in a steady arc through the night. Planets wander — because they’re orbiting the sun just like we are, and from Earth’s perspective their paths look strange and unpredictable. That’s why even a working motor drive on my telescope wouldn’t have helped much. It was designed to track stars, not wanderers.
I’m also aware that we live in an era of stunning astronomy photography. Four spacecraft have visited Saturn — Pioneer, both Voyagers, and Cassini-Huygens — with flybys as close as 6,000 miles. The images they sent back are breathtaking. So when I finally got Saturn in the eyepiece that night and saw a small white ball with a line through it, I’ll admit it could have felt anticlimactic.
It didn’t. Because Galileo first observed Saturn in 1610 — and my telescope was more powerful than his. Standing in my backyard in rural Kentucky, I was looking at the same thing he saw. That’s not anticlimactic. That’s remarkable.
Hands Behind Your Back
Getting the girls to look was its own comedy. The natural instinct when you peer through an eyepiece is to grab the telescope tube to steady yourself. Which, of course, moves the telescope off whatever you were looking at. So I kept having to say “hands behind your back” like some kind of backyard drill sergeant.
Then there’s the height problem. The eyepiece doesn’t move — it’s fixed to the telescope. Depending on where the scope is pointed, you might have to kneel on the ground or stand on a step stool to reach it. That particular obstacle kept most of the adults from even trying. But the girls were game. They knelt in the grass, held their hands behind their backs, and looked.
Watching their faces when they found it was worth every frustrating night I’d ever spent at that eyepiece seeing nothing.
What I Learned That Night
- A clear target makes everything easier. Jupiter and Saturn were visible to the naked eye that night — which meant I actually knew where to point.
- Sharing the eyepiece is the whole point. Seeing Saturn alone is one thing. Watching someone else see it for the first time is something else entirely.
- Context makes the image. A small white ball with a line through it is underwhelming — until you remember it’s Saturn, 800 million miles away, and you found it yourself.
- The limitations just make you want better equipment. That night started me thinking seriously about software, astrophotography, and what it would take to actually show people what I was seeing.
What’s Next
That night planted a seed. If I could capture what I was seeing — not just hold the planet in the eyepiece for 30 seconds but actually photograph it — I could share it properly. That line of thinking eventually led me to SharpCap software, which I now have loaded on my PC but have absolutely no idea how to use. More on that journey ahead. But first — the 2024 Solar Eclipse passed right over Ohio, and I had a front-row seat. [INSERT LINK TO ECLIPSE POST]
Grace and Peace,
Scott Walker
GranddaddyCant.com
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