When I moved to New York, I took it as a given that there would be some trade-offs. Like never having to search for parking... but having to sit through 15 additional stops when the A train runs local. Or always having something to do in 'the city that never sleeps'... but actually wanting it to quiet down so I could sleep occasionally. And of course, to be near all those bright Broadway lights, I knew I'd have to give up the stars. Not a huge deal; after all, this sort of give-and-take was to be expected... or so I thought.
One November day as I was coming home from work, I noticed a flyer for the Inwood Astronomy Project. I was thrilled to discover that not only did they have a star-gazing event every Saturday night, but that they were also hosting a special viewing for the Lenoid Metor Shower that week. I'm a total science geek at heart, and instantly decided that I was going to convince/force my roommates to come with me. Turns out, they were actually pretty excited too, and we decided to make an evening of it and invite some friends over as well.
When the night finally arrived, we kicked off the evening by cooking up a delicious vegan dinner of orange-glazed tofu, kiwi-Lime soaked asparagus, watercress salad and brown rice. We also baked some vegan cookies, but promptly stuffed them in a ziplock to save them for star-gazing. Then we bundled up, grabbed some thick blankets, and headed out. Turns out the correct entrance to the park is only a block from our apartment, but somehow someone overlooked it and dragged everyone all the way up to Indian Road Cafe before realizing her mistake (that person may or may not have been me; I plead the fifth). But the adventure didn't stop once we reached the park. Inwood Hill Park is a "forever wild" park, meaning that that park service tries to minimize the human footprint on the ecosystem. One way they do this? No streetlights. Awesome for astronomy... no so awesome for finding the astronomy club, especially considering that the 'Hill' portion of Inwood Hill Park is mighty step, and over 200 yards up. But if you looked closely along the path, you could just make out the little orange flags leading the way, so we headed off into the brush.
After a few wrong turns, we eventually made it to the top of the park where we were met by several telescopes and about twenty or so stargazers laying out in a tiny meadow. We spread our blankets, broke out the cookies, and settled in to scan the sky. As a regular viewer of the always-impressive Perseids (which are visible every August), I knew that the somewhat less spectacular Lenoids would be an adjustment. It was a new moon though, so the hope was that without the interference of moonshine, a lot more would actually be visible. But as we played silly sentence games to pass the time, some heavy cloud cover started to obscure the view and our optimism began to fade. After an hour, the November chill was also really starting to seep through our blankets, and we still hadn't seen any meteors. Once the yawns set in, we knew it was time to pack it in. No one complained as we sleepily headed down the path though... between the cookies, the games, the great meal and great company, who needed stars?
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