Who is Milky Way Man?

STARGEEZER

MY name is Jack Troeger. I'm also known as Dark Sky Guy, Dark Sky Knight, and STARGEEZER.

I used to be a stargazer, but upon stumbling over the threshold into the big 6-0s, I became a stargeezer. Even my car's license plate--STARGZR--shouts out who I am. The license plate on my other car, which I call my Milky Way Wagon, a 1991 Camry station wagon with 84,000 actual miles on it, reads DKSKYGY, dark sky guy. Oh, by the way, the image of me at my scope is from the early 1980s, MANY, MANY years ago, when I was still young!

I'VE been a stargazer / amateur astronomer since early childhood.

AFTER 30 years teaching 9th grade earth science (geology, astronomy, meteorology) in Ames, Iowa, I retired from teaching in 1999; but by then the sky had become so polluted with light that my students could not see the Milky Way! They were not happy and neither was I. Some of them said, point blank: "Mr. Troeger, why don't you do something about light pollution?"

SO, here I am doing something about it. You may disagree with my style, my approach, my manner, but at least I'm doing something about light pollution. What are you doing? Bitching and moaning, waiting for someone else, or some bogus organization to rid the night of wasteful light? If you fall for the same old corporatized darksky.org approach, you might as well be doing nothing!

OBSERVING with my telescopes ceased in 2002 after surgery for a cataract on my right / observing eye. The surgery KILLED my right eye! It's D-E-A-D!! EXTINCT!! I can't see a single celestial object through it and I never will, ever again!

LIKE other lifelong astronomers, I had worked very hard over many years (about 35) to train my observing eye to be the best it could be. Most astronomers often observe as many objects as fast as possible, never concentrating on any one object for more than a few minutes. The only time I did this--jumping from celestial object to object, observing each for a minute or so--was when I was helping others to see numerous objects in a short time; in short when I was still teaching.

BUT my real and very rare observing time (usually alone...I preferred it that way), was devoted entirely to choosing 3 or so objects for the night and observing each for lo-o-o-ng periods of uninterrupted time, typically for an hour or more. This way I was able to make my eye and mind work together to tease every single photon of light coming my way from those distant, dim objects into full focus and view. I built up a treasure of magnificent memories and observations of hundreds of objects! And my right eye became extremely good at observing!

BUT upon retirement and with the cataract growing increasingly prominent and making my observing time more and more difficult, I finally caved in and went to the eye repair shop for lens overhaul. The eye Vet said, "Your eye will be better than it has been for years, surgery now is 95% successful!" I said, "Then let's get to it, cuz now I can spend my nights observing instead of teaching others."

MOMENTS after surgery the awful truth slapped me extremely hard. Nothing in my life had come close to such a beating! I happen to be in the 5% of people for which cataract surgery does NOT work!!! And there appears to be no pre-surgical test that can indicate such an outcome.

NEEDLESS to say I was angry! Deeply devastated! Demoralized to the point of... Amateur astronomy / observing is the ONLY hobby / passion I've ever known. Well, it took several years before I recovered enough from the trauma of knowing I'd never see starlight again with my right eye as I had seen it for most of my life!

PEOPLE always say, "Well, why didn't you start training your left eye immediately?" Because it has a cataract, too, and my left eye was NEVER as good as my right eye, even before I trained the right eye. Besides, I knew I didn't have 30 years to train another eye, so I prefer(ed) to leave well enough alone and accept that my observing eye is dead and will never return; and I don't wish to replace perfect memories from my right eye with less-than-satisfactory views with my left eye.

I'D always told myself whilst I was teaching that my observing time was for the kids, for the students; that I'd have time after teaching to put eye to eyepiece, and even more important, travel 5 or so times a year to a truly dark sky site, something I could never afford to do or had time to do during my working career!

SOOOO, the lessons to be learned here are to 1. train both eyes equally at the eyepiece, 2. don't think you'll have time later to seriously observe, 3. KILL LIGHT POLLUTION NOW! and 4. don't have cataract surgery until you know damned good and well it'll be successful!!!!!

IMMEDIATELY out of the classroom and into retirement, I created what is now called the Dark Sky Initiative.

AS you can plainly see on any clear, moonless night, the light pollution problem is worse now than when I started; and I admit, my earlier polite and civil efforts had little impact. Because being polite and civil rarely (if ever) works in our overwhelmingly corporatized society, where money is the only real measure of success, don't expect me to continue to be polite and civil.

WORSE, though they believe otherwise--because they all live on the Isle of Denial--the efforts (and huge expenditure of $$$$) of the national and international mainstream dark sky organizations (darksky.org) have also failed--MISERABLY!!

BUT there's something even more unacceptable, more troubling, more sinister. The dark sky organizations and the glossy astro-publicatons seem oblivious to their failures and unwilling to foster future success by inventing and using new strategies, new methods, new techniques, new thinking.

UNLIKE your friendly, stay-the-course, bureaucratic, hierarchical dark sky organizations and astromag's, I do NOT ask for your money, and I do NOT want your money, but I am pressing forward with all possible dispatch with my Dark Sky Rebellion, my own three-word solution to light pollution: LIGHTS OFF, NOW!

ALAS, whether or not my Dark Sky Rebellion is successful depends entirely on YOU. I wish no award or reward if it succeeds and no blame if it fails.

YOU can stay the course with the darksky.org and glossy astronomy magazines and continue to chalk up more failures, or you can step over the threshold to something new, something revolutionary, and rescue starlight and your nighttime sky from oblivion!

IT'S your choice: Do nothing and lose the dark night sky...OR...get your head out of the sand (or your telescope tube) and launch a Dark Sky Rebellion in your own community / county / country / continent tonight!

There's only ONE solution to light pollution:

LIGHTS OFF, NOW!

NO EXCUSES! NO COMPROMISES! NO EXCEPTIONS!

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