Sky Spy at 500

5 Questions with Tim Hunter

What got you interested in astronomy?

When I was in second grade I was shown a book with the constellations and pictures of planets. I became fascinated with astronomy. The first constellation I remember from that book is Cygnus the Swan which I couldn’t find in the sky until several years later. That book was printed around 1930 before the discovery of Pluto, and it listed Neptune as the most distant planet from the sun.  Even then, I knew Pluto was the most distant planet from the sun. Even as a second grader, I realized the book was old and out of print.  However, Pluto is no longer a planet these days!  How times change.

What is your favorite astronomical event?

I like good meteor showers even more than total eclipses of the sun.  When I was 12 or 13, the Perseids were particularly good, and I stayed up all night marveling in the bright meteors.  I wish I had kept notes at the time.

If you could visit any planet, which would it be?

If I live to tell the tale, I would visit Venus. We have not seen the surface of Venus, because it is hidden in dense clouds, and the temperature on the surface is over 800 degrees F with a pressure 90 times that of the Earth, a very hellacious place. Due to these conditions, we have “seen” the surface with a few images taken by Soviet Venera probes that landed on Venus surviving only for a short time. We have extensive radar images of the surface of Venus, but they are hard to translate into what we would see if we walked on the surface of Venus and lived to tell about it. 

What are you most excited about seeing in the next year?

The big event for next year is the total eclipse of the sun on Aug. 21. It will sweep across the continental U.S. going from the Pacific Ocean into Oregon and across the U.S. all the way to South Carolina and out into the Atlantic Ocean. 

What is a must-have for someone getting into astronomy?

The old fashioned paper/plastic planisphere. It is cheap, easy to use, and is the best way to learn the constellations and bright stars.