Thread by @gauravsabnis

So this view from our Lake Placid cabin faces exactly North. Like I am looking at this right now past midnight and I can see Polaris right in front and the Big Dipper and Cassiopeia nicely snuggling it on a clear night sky. And that jogged a Chile memory. So gather around....

I'm gonna post this thread and then unroll it and use it for the sample chapter of my "Imma try BillBrysoning Chile travel" book.

So a huge reason @k_rupal picked Chile as the surprise destination for our 10th anniv trip was how crazy I am about astronomy.

And she booked us a few nights at Alain Maury's SPACE lodge (google him... What a lovely guy!). The first event was a general star gazing session with 25 other people bussed in from San Pedro a few miles away. Alain didn't host that. It was a PhD student.

So it's those 25 casual tourists and Rupal who is only casually second hand into astronomy and me, bouncing around the Atacama desert because the 12 year old Pune boy in me is like holy shit I'm actually star gazing in the Atacama desert!!! This must be a dream!

Chilean PhD student host dude started the show. Asking very beginner type questions, like what is that planet... Yes Venus... Very good. Obviously, bus crowd was beginner level.

Here's the live thread from that night btw.

https://twitter.com/gauravsabnis/status/1028874142106435584?s=19

Ever the eager front bench student, I was answering his questions like he was Trebek or something. Showing off, honestly 🙈🙈 how much I knew about astronomy.

Pretty soon he pegged me as more than just a casual SPdA tourist and a fellow astro nut. So when he finally released the crowd on those dobsonian telescopes, he started chatting with me.

"Oh, you're the one staying here? You'll love it!"

"Yup. Super excited."

"So you live in New York?"

"Yes"

"I really wish to visit for the planetarium."

"It is amazing!"

"But honestly, I just want to see Polaris."

"What?"

"Polaris. I've never seen it."

"You have never seen Polaris? 😳😳😳😳😳"

"How can I? I've never gone north of Cuzco."

"Wow, I never really thought about it but most people in the Southern Hemisphere have never seen the Pole Star 😱😱"

"It's a dream of mine"

"Um, dude, Polaris isn't all that. It just stays there but is otherwise very blah."

"I know, sir. I'm doing a PhD. 🤣🤣"

"🤣🤣"

"The dream isn't to admire its beauty. But to have a star that just stays in one place. You have no idea how much easier astronomers have it in the Northern Hemisphere by having Polaris. We have to do these weird visual calculations for the South Celestial Pole. 😭😭😭"

And so on we went for a bit but wow, what a mind bending epiphany. We literally take the Pole Star for granted in the N. Hemisphere! I had never thought that anyone on the planet would have seeing it as a bucket list item!

But makes sense. I was obsessed with the Southern Cross.

But really, isn't this kinda BillBrysonish? It is literally the zenith of how we take for granted things that never change. And nothing changes less for us in the Northern Hemisphere than Polaris. But the southern hemisphere has never seen it!