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Mercury, September/October 1999 Table of Contents

Helen and Edwin Woerner
United Arab Emirates University

What sort of celestial sight can make children halt their games? And what can you do when they run over to where you are, too excited to stand in line, to get a look through a small telescope and ask questions in a language you only slightly comprehend? And how can you answer when questions become difficult? Not questions that they have been trained to ask, but spontaneous queries about the world, sky, and Universe - about real natural philosophy?

For the past two years we have taught at the United Arab Emirates University. The UAE is a country on the Arabian Peninsula, bordered by Oman, Saudi Arabia, and the Arabian (or Persian) Gulf. The University is in the city of Al Ain, home to industry, enough groundwater to support a robust agriculture, and about 200 thousand people. To the north and west about 150 kilometers are the cities of Dubai and Abu Dhabi. South is the part of the Arabian Desert known as the "Empty Quarter." There the skies are clear almost every night and dark enough for excellent visual astronomy.

Sharing a Conjunction

Like sky gazers everywhere we watched the planets Jupiter and Venus appear to come close together last February. The pair of bright planets made a striking sight in the west, even for those who are not in the habit of watching the sky. On 18 February the crescent Moon formed the apex of an equilateral triangle with the two planets as they set. This sight was denied to Western Hemisphere observers as the Moon had moved east of Jupiter by twilight time there. On 23 February, two bright points of light appeared only about ten arcminutes apart for us, Venus to the lower right and Jupiter to the upper left.

In Al Ain, as in other cities its size, skies are too full of light for effective deep-sky astronomy. But this night called for getting into the spirit of a rare and beautiful conjunction. We took our six-inch Newtonian reflector to the vacant lot on the corner of the block on which we live. It only needed a few minutes to set up, but that was plenty of time to attract considerable attention. A soccer game ended, the ball bounced and rolled off. We heard the Arabic words "look!" and "come!" We'd been noticed.

The excitement of a first look through a telescope

We have enjoyed similar experiences in the past, showing the public the sky. Such activities are common in parks, shopping centers, and observatories in the U.S. But in the UAE opportunities to share the heavens are rare. There are very few telescopes in the country. There are no observatories that we know about. We had an evening last fall with an organization in Dubai that is devoted to nature study, archeology, travel, and the outdoors. We have set up the telescope on the University's campus. These activities created a lot of excitement among a lot of people.

But no experience before has generated the pure energy of these children. They all took a quick look at the planets, close together in the same field of view. Then brothers and sisters, friends and neighbors came. Following the children came their parents.

We know the Arabic words for "Venus" and "Jupiter," and for "Look in here." This kept the telescope pointed in the correct general direction. "Jupiter has four big moons. See!" we said, and they saw. Saturn was higher in the sky, and the first quarter Moon was also prominent. Everybody wanted to see these, too.

We don't know how to describe the Moon, to say what it's made of, or to describe how it moves in the Arabic language. We can say "mountains," and the craters we let speak for themselves. We don't know the word for "rings," but it is easy to appreciate Saturn's beauty even in the absence of language.

The children wanted to know what a star looks like through the telescope, so we swung it over to Sirius. It shone brilliantly, sparkling like a blue diamond. Everyone seemed satisfied. "How about Mars?" one child asked in Arabic. "After several hours [we'll see]," we responded in the same language. Then it was back and forth - the Moon, Saturn, and the conjunction - with the same simple words and the same spectacular impressions. At last the pair of planets set behind the houses on the next block. The evening's showcase event had ended.

For the Love of the Sky

We often camp in the desert. We look for animals and plants, climb mountains, cook our meals outdoors, and sleep under the stars. For these trips the telescope is as much a part of our necessary equipment as our sleeping bags. At times we wonder how any family gets along without a telescope.

But as our viewing of the conjunction came to an end that February night, what we had experienced with the children was as much a part of our love for the sky as is our enjoyment of the subtle nebulae and galaxies that we search for. The people we met and talked with that evening wanted to participate in something dramatic. Complex explanations and lists of facts were not a part of their evening. Facts are often forgotten or remembered incorrectly. What remains is the joy, the excitement, and the feeling of adventure.

All of us are a part of the Universe. When we look at the sky we can become aware of this connection. It is probably part of the reason we started observing originally. We strive to recover this every clear night. Sometimes it is as easy as glancing upward while on a short evening walk.

Since coming to the UAE we have gained an even greater awareness that no optical aid is required to see the nightly motions of the Moon and planets, or to notice the seasonal changes in the stars and constellations. These are as straightforward as they are profound. No one can appreciate the wonders of the natural world for anyone else. But it is an awareness that astronomers can foster. When children wave at us at the grocery store and their parents smile, we know that we have contributed.

Helen and Edwin Woerner, originally from Peoria, Illinois, and Lincoln, Nebraska, respectively, enjoy the excitement of living and working abroad. Helen teaches English as a second language and Edwin teaches mathematics at the United Arab Emirates University in Al Ain. They have three children and two cats and can be reached via email at edwoerner@hotmail.com.