Five months of astronomy: A reflection
May is turning to June, and as the calendar turns, I’m reminded that it’s been five months since I began writing this blog. It started out as me just writing short pieces about some of the lesser-known puzzles of the universe, and it really still is the same — just read by more people. I’ve written about stars being born and stars dying, about ring galaxies and enormous rings of gas, and a few things in between. Earlier this month, I wrote about a galaxy being ripped apart by the cluster it’s in, with the potential to form dwarf galaxies from the cast-off gas. Right now, I’m working on a post about a cluster of red supergiants near the galactic center — named, of course, Red Supergiant Cluster 1.
The thing is, I still don’t know what makes some posts popular and others less so. When I started writing, I told myself that I would write — in terms of content and style — posts that I would want to read, about things that don’t get much attention in the media. That’s why you probably won’t see me write about dark energy or dark matter, or even intriguing objections like Tabby’s Star and V838 Mon. They’ve had their fair share of attention, and I don’t think I could add much to the plethora of articles about them. Better writers than I have much more to say there.
Nevertheless, I still want to get a better idea of what people like and what people don’t, as I head into the summer. That’s why I’m sending out this letter, as a way to better engage with the people who’ve read Look Upwards. If you’re reading this, you Followed the blog at some point, and so you’re getting a short email (and this post will also be visible on the blog). Essentially, I’m writing it because I’m looking for feedback — comments on writing style, image choice, content suggestions, etc.
I’ve already had one suggestion for an interesting object to write about, from Brand Weigel: AR Cassiopeiae. It’s one of two known systems of seven stars (the other is Nu Scorpii). It has a pretty complicated structure, essentially made of three sub-systems, each with two or three stars — and, yes, doesn’t get written about much, or even explained. That’s the sort of thing I’m looking for. I’ll try to finish the post about it, once I can better diagram the system!
That got kind of long for an email, but it is, after all, hopefully the start of a conversation, and I try not to leave anything out when I talk with someone. So if you’ve got feedback, comment below this post on Look Upwards, and I’ll see what I can do.
— Graham Doskoch
