Astronomer Quotes

When you're an astronomer, you always have stars in your eyes.

~ Anthony T. Hincks

Somewhere, something incredible is waiting to be known.

~ Carl Sagan

Uncle Yuichi: Something's moving up there? Hmm... I don't see anything. It was probably a satelite. Punpun (with gums flapping): Could I have discovered a new planet?!(long pause) Yuichi: Yes! This could be a great discovery! If it really is a new planet... It'll be called Planet PunPun! Punpun (slobbering again): Do you think I'll win the Nobel Prise?! Yuichi: You sure are a greedy kid.

~ Inio Asano

Deandre gazed at her like she was the stars, and he was a mere astronomer, searching her face for the constellations, admiring the beauty that was there

~ Aishabella Sheikh

At the age of 45, most days in Tucson were spent feeling like I was on the summit of Mauna Kea, as I was exhibiting debilitating health symptoms that corresponded to what I saw at very high altitude. I was later to find that I had erratic low blood oxygen levels after almost a decade of high altitude work.

~ Steven Magee

During my time in high altitude astronomy, I routinely witnessed workers breathing medical oxygen, industrial carbon dioxide, nitrogen and helium gas as part of their daily work routine.

~ Steven Magee

At the W.M. Keck Observatory on the very high altitude summit of Mauna Kea, there was no routine monitoring of mental functioning, blood oxygen levels, blood pressure or heart rate of workers.

~ Steven Magee

And when statesmen or others worry him [the scientist] too much, then he should leave with his possessions. With a firm and steadfast mind one should hold under all conditions, that everywhere the earth is below and the sky above and to the energetic man, every region is his fatherland.

~ Tycho Brahe

Snow cleaning of the world's largest telescope mirrors was an impressive sight. The optics technicians would climb into a huge telescopic boom lift and spray immense clouds of cold carbon dioxide snow and gas onto the ten meter diameter mirrors high above the floor indoors. It would cause some of the accumulated dirt to magically fall off, leaving it less dirty.

~ Steven Magee

Abnormal radiation exposure and oxygen starvation teaches you that reality is just a perception that is derived from your immediate environmental conditions.

~ Steven Magee

The future of the next generation relies on astronomers obtaining a full understanding ofthe rapidly changing human environmental conditions and the halting of biologically toxic corporategovernment policies. The overloading of the electromagnetic environment is one of these disastrouspolicies that must stop.

~ Steven Magee

There is a lot of willful incompetence in high altitude astronomy that is in the process of coming to light.

~ Steven Magee

Light and the human is poorly understood by the astronomicalprofession, with many astronomers not understanding which light bulbs they should have in their ownhomes and offices! It is embarrassing that astronomers do not understand the many forms of artificiallighting that they are exposed to every day and how it affects them.

~ Steven Magee

Never trust a high altitude astronomer.

~ Steven Magee

But I will confess 
that I began as an astronomer—a liking
for bright flashes, vast distances, unreachable things,
a hand stretched always toward the furthest limit—
and that my longing for you has not taken me
very far from that original desire
to inscribe a comet’s orbit around the walls
of our city, to gently stroke the surface of the stars.

~ Troy Jollimore

It is a sad state of affairs that I donot know of any astronomer who fully understands the energy in their own daily environment. Untilthat changes, Dark Energy will always be a mystery to the astronomical community.

~ Steven Magee

I read not so long ago about the construction of a large telescope in Chile's Atacama Desert, where rainfall can average a millimetre a year and the air is fifty times as dry as the air in Death Valley. Needless to say, skies over the Atacama are pristine. The pilgrim astronomer ventures to the earth’s ravaged reaches in order to peer more keenly at other worlds, and I suppose the novelist is up to something similar.

~ Brad Leithauser

My memories of my time in high altitude astronomy indicate that there were no oxygen concentration monitors or alarms in the areas that liquid nitrogen was in use at the high altitude astronomical facilities where I had worked.

~ Steven Magee

In high altitude astronomical facilities we routinely discharged large amounts of nitrogen gas into closed spaces. We were never informed by the astronomy management team about the abnormally low oxygen environments that the use of liquid nitrogen creates, how long term exposure to it manifests itself in human health and the resulting abnormal mental behaviors.

~ Steven Magee

The toxicity of medical and industrial gas to the human depends on where it is used. A gas that is regarded as safe in a well ventilated environment at sea level may be a toxic gas in an indoor environment at high altitude.

~ Steven Magee

One of the biggest lies that is currently being told in the USA workplace is on the legally required OSHA poster: All workers have the right to a safe workplace.

~ Steven Magee

I often asked Laplace what he thought of God. He owned that he was an atheist.

~ Napoléon Bonaparte

When I worked in high altitude astronomy, the worst sickness that I experienced was not at the 13,796 feet very high altitude summit of Mauna Kea Observatory (MKO) in Hawaii, it was at Kitt Peak National Observatory (KPNO) in Arizona at the much lower altitude of 6,875 feet. Due to my very high altitude experiences, I knew that this strange sickness was not primarily caused by altitude sickness and was most likely Sick Building Syndrome (SBS). After reporting various behavioral problems in all of the staff to the management team, my contract was not renewed, I was unable to legally protect the health and safety of the workers that I was responsible for, troubleshooting of this environmental problem stopped and I left in a sickened state for my next position before I could find the root cause.

~ Steven Magee

When the National Optical Astronomy Observatory (NOAO) found out that Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) were going to visit the site to assist in bringing it into legal compliance, they freaked out! They insisted that the visit had to be canceled and the result was that I eventually became so sick from the toxic workplace environment that I had no option but to leave.

~ Steven Magee

Sleep disorders are a known occupational hazard to astronomers and their support staff.

~ Steven Magee

Pluto is dead, I know as I observed the Terminator that was sent to kill it

~ Steven Magee

What caused me to undertake the catalog was the nebula I discovered above the southern horn of Taurus on September 12, 1758, while observing the comet of that year. ... This nebula had such a resemblance to a comet in its form and brightness that I endeavored to find others, so that astronomers would not confuse these same nebulae with comets just beginning to shine. I observed further with suitable refractors for the discovery of comets, and this is the purpose I had in mind in compiling the catalog.After me, the celebrated Herschel published a catalog of 2000 which he has observed. This unveiling the sky, made with instruments of great aperture, does not help in the perusal of the sky for faint comets. Thus my object is different from his, and I need only nebulae visible in a telescope of two feet [focal length].

~ Charles Messier

Industrial liquid gas containers were left open and venting gas into the indoor environment in high altitude astronomy. On reflection, I realized that I routinely observed mental and physical effects that match those of a low oxygen environment in staff that I supervised.

~ Steven Magee

When discharging industrial gas into the indoor environment in high altitude astronomy, we never wore breathing respirators that fed us oxygenated air at above the legally required 19.5% oxygen levels.

~ Steven Magee

When I worked in astronomy, I routinely observed young college and university students working with liquid nitrogen and breathing nitrogen gas as they discharged it into the indoor environment at high altitude.

~ Steven Magee

Astronomy staff that routinely discharged industrial gas into the indoor environment at high altitudes did not wear oxygen deficiency monitors or protective breathing respirators.

~ Steven Magee

This fits in with what I saw in staff in astronomical facilities and was reporting to the management team: 10-14% Oxygen: Emotional upset, abnormal fatigue, disturbed respiration.

~ Steven Magee

A few years after working on Mauna Kea, I discovered that I had radiation sickness

~ Steven Magee