i've written before about a childhood astronomy book that mentioned the 1999 total solar eclipse, and how i came to be there, and what it meant. but the book was long gone, and i couldn't even remember the details. however, something triggered a hunch while i was at my mother's house over christmas, and i scored a copy on amazon for 1p. there was no picture so i didn't even know if i had guessed right until it arrived.
so the book is here. and yes the eclipse page is here, and the diagram which inspired the tattoo - although i'd misremembered it all these years, because the path of the 1999 eclipse isn't on the diagram, only in the text. but still it had its effect ;)
but then there's the other stuff that stayed with me. i never forgot the pages about precession, and how the constellations slowly change. this introduced me to what would one day be called 'the long now', and both pages are referenced [entirely from childhood memory] in the slow meditation of 2004. the diagram of the south circumpolar constellations caused a lifelong fascination with the stars i could never see, which was finally fulfilled when i stood a midnight hour on umina beach in 2005 drinking in the sight i had long dreamed of, fixing it in my mind. it's a photograph i wished i could have taken.
life impacts aside, i still think it's the nicest small astronomy book i've ever seen, for quality of ideas and design. not dry, but not superficial either. it certainly sparked this child's imagination. of course the pages about the moon and planets are fascinatingly dated, being based only on observation from earth. maybe they should fix it and reprint it.
Your tattoo is brilliant. Never seen anything like it!
Posted by: wilsonian | March 15, 2009 at 02:54 AM
thx. nor will you, unless it's on the other arm ;)
Posted by: steve collins | March 15, 2009 at 09:38 PM