(Observational) Astronomy as a stim

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I find it oddly satisfying. Not only does seeing images of our universe make me and my problems temporarily feel small, but it's soooo soothing to look at. It makes me very curious, but not in a nervous, hectic way. All the bodies, all the colors I can never chase and the textures I can never touch. Hopefully I can buy my own telescope one of these days and get my own images.

Do any of you have some recommendations for stims, where to look for (real) celestial imagery? Also, I've seen there's space simulation programs available for download for the PC. I think I would love to play something like that before bed. Any experiences or recommendations?

I really like looking at the Hubble Deep Field images. Here are a few:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_D ... 140603.jpg

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_D ... resolution).png

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_D ... .800px.jpg

Click each one to see the full resolution view.

Astronomy this is one of the most important and most popular research processes for all over the world. i like astronomy here most interesting this are available this are all to included for the each and every humans life. It is very interesting education for all peoples.

Astronomy is the grandfather of all sciences.

As a Cosmologist myself, I rarely look at any photographs (especially the Hubble Deep field photos), I think every Cosmologist has experienced that phase of feeling insignificant.

I think the soothing power of astronomy is a bit different than a stim.

A motion stim with your hands or legs is an instantaneous sensory experience and does not require higher level thinking. I find that when I need a certain kind of mental focus, I stim with my hands/arms/legs, almost without being aware of it, but it only works that way--the stim is somehow used to provide more energy and focus to working through the problem.

The thing that happens with astronomy is very different. It doesn't necessarily need any physical stim and is all about thinking through complicated systems at a higher level. Big time. Big space. Complex structures. The pleasure comes from exploring these immense structures and relationships in my mind.

The images are inherently beautiful and fascinating, but so much more interesting when explored with knowledge and thought. How big are the hourglass structures in the southern crab nebula? How many brown dwarfs and rogue super jupiters are there and how are they distributed? How do the orbits of moons and planets change over long time scales?

Using a real telescope is very different than looking at images.

Depending on what sort of mount you use and how large the telescope is, there is the whole business of set up, and then the environment is a big factor--hot nights mean bugs and unstable air, cold nights usually mean stable air, but then you have thermal balancing issues in the tube and mount, cold eyepieces and focusing knobs that often aren't made for gloved hands. In choosing locations, you have to balance security, dark skies, ease of access and so on.

On the other hand, there is nothing like seeing the planets or Messier objects with your own eyes. Saturn's rings and the Jupiter's clouds. Seasonal changes on mars. The mountains and maria on the Moon. It's really hard to describe the delight of seeing them in the eyepiece.

When I was about 9, I used to make maps of the Moon as observed through my small telescope. It was about the only celestial object reliably visible in the intensely light polluted sky of the city I was in. It was somehow very soothing to know that the processes that produced what I was seeing transcended the chaos of the human life in the city around me.

The Cold War was raging and nuclear annihilation seemed very possible at any moment. There were intense battles between the unions and the central government and there were power cuts and the national front were attacking dark skinned people, gays and anyone else they didn't like. Exploitation and violence were visible in everything around me and in everything I learned about the wider world.

But in the Moon, Moons of Jupiter and all the evidece of the greater cosmos, there was order that made all the chaos of life on Earth seem inconsequential, and that was very soothing. The universe is violent, but the laws that drive it are ordered and full of harmony, symmetry and beautiful pattern. Astronomy is where those patterns are most obvious and most beautifully revealed.

http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/astropix.html
http://hubblesite.org/gallery/
http://annesastronomynews.com/
http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/mars/ ... index.html
https://www.google.com/moon/
https://www.google.com/mars/

Well, I'd like to do observational starry nights, literally take the tent and go in a field watch the stars (with a telescope too). But not comfortable doing that by myself at night, lost anywhere. No one I know is remotely interested in anything scientific.
I'd like to see through one of the hugest lenses with my own eyes.
I wouldn't consider what you describe as a stim, rather a passion.

Anxiety can be an issue, and is not altogether unreasonable for any nocturnal activity that involves putting your focus on something other than your surroundings (e.g., the eyepiece instead of the periphery of the space you are in.)

I'm not sure where you are located, but there are "star parties" in many areas where you can go to a dark sky location and camp with a community of amateur astronomers who will provide safety in numbers and share experiences, tips and techniques, as well as giving people an opportunity to try their telescopes, which can give you observing experiences way outside of your usual operating range. Andromeda, for example, looks really different through a 20+ inch dobsonian than a 2 inch refractor or 6 inch newtonian.



My wife is not interested in doing this with me and I sometimes get extreme anxiety doing things on my own, so it's a struggle.

I wish I could tell the difference, but I've never had the chance. I'll look into that, although I doubt there's much around here. I heard one they occasionally did that in a club (with varied activities - a few in Nature), but it's often people with kids who wants to have a nice pincnic. Not criticizing, just not my place.