whatever approach you want
My brain gets sticky sometimes. It likes having a problem to solve, and sometimes, especially when I’m feeling stressed, it will start inventing solutions to problems I don’t truly have.
Case in point: My brain somehow became convinced recently that I am in fairly urgent need of a travel wrap, even though I have no travel planned and am not someone who typically wears a pashmina or a shawl. But that didn’t matter. Trying to impose some order on circumstances that were increasingly out of my control, my very helpful brain fixated on travel wraps. It kept me up at night imagining all the different ways such a broad piece of drapey fabric might come in handy, and ruminating on material choices and various blends of natural fibers.
I wish I were kidding. More often, my brain fixates on a non-existent need for a new backpack, so I guess at least it was different this time?
Knowing this about how my neurodivergent brain works is helpful, but it took a while to recognize this tendency of sticky fixation for what it is. It can show up almost anywhere, including in my pursuit of the stars.
There are times I go down deep, twisty-turning rabbit holes on equipment that I can otherwise easily determine I don’t need. Or I get fixated on a particular deep-sky object and try to strategize how best to find it in the night sky, or better yet to image it with my smart telescope.
When I was picking up this hobby again in the early days of the pandemic, I was overwhelmed by possibilities. I had only a basic pair of binoculars and my own two eyes with which to observe, and it was easy for my brain to nearly convince me that I must have this or that piece of equipment, or that this or that approach was the only true way to find and appreciate whatever new star cluster had captured my imagination.
And it was all bullshit. Because the stars don’t care. They are there, doing their stellar thing regardless of whether I even look up at the sky, much less what tool I choose to use on any given night. Nebulae continue slowly churning in their gassy beauty, and galaxies keep spinning and cannibalizing each other.
There is no “right” way to do amateur astronomy. I can lie on the grass and look up with no idea of the names or shapes of the constellations overhead. I can peer through the strongest, fanciest home telescope money can buy. (I wish.) I suppose I could even stand on my head to try to peer at the skies upside down, or whatever, and it would still be legitimate stargazing.
While there’s so very much to learn — literally an entire universe to study! — stargazing isn’t a problem to be solved. Sometimes my sticky brain gets so focused on overcoming obstacles that it almost makes me forget why I ever looked up to begin with. And while I might (again) choose the wrong filter or a less-than-optimal telescope for viewing the dramatic diffuse nebula around Sadr, there’s no wrong way to appreciate the cosmos.
So I indulged my sticky brain on some fabric research and all the different ways to wear a sarong I don’t need. But when I feel that stress-response, problem-seeking urge crop up with regard to astronomy, all I have to do is step outside on a clear-ish night and look up. I don’t have to be able to do celestial navigation to find my way back to joy.
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IMAGES
1. Lyra constellation, by Giuseppe Donatiello
2. Sadr (Gamma Cygnus) surrounded by diffuse nebula IC 1318, imaged from Portland, OR, on 15 September 2025 by Jennifer Willis