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Tim Fine is learning his way around the heavens. For months now, he has slipped out of bed at 3:30 a.m. and padded outside to look at the sky. Clear or cloudy? Go or no go? That’s always the question. If it’s cloudy or moon-bright, back under the covers he goes. But if it’s clear and starry, he hops in his car and heads out to the country for his rendezvous with Halley’s et. For Fine, this nightly ritual (56 of them, by last count) on the banks of Springfork Lake has become a delightful hobby and a definite habit; it’s one he’ll happily continue until Halley disappears next month into the twilight mists of the sky. “It’s a whole different world out there. You can see satellites, planes, planets. And there are a lot of auditory things, too — there’s one old one who’s always there; there are ducks on the lake. I’ve heard a pack of coyotes. By now, it’s like visiting an old friend each night. I feel at home,” he says. Fine, 2807 West 11th, renewed a childhood interest in Halley’s Comet last December when he started hearing all the hoopla about its return. He is collecting books and articles about the comet, and before on himself searching the night skies for the fuzzy snowball with the streaming tail. one a natural on e’ve grown accuse: ones such things second-hand, on televi sion, and not appreciating them as much. Actually going out there every morning and seeing that com et expands my existence,” he says. But as Fine, 36, is enjoying this astronomical experience im mensely and wouldn't trade these dawn’ pyop oe anything — he’s not doing or himself. He’s doing it for Nicholas. Nicholas, you see, is Tim and Debbie Fine’s 62-month-old son, born last September. Fine figures Nicholas ‘“‘came in’ with the comet, and feels a =on to peers his experience nomenon for his son’s sake. “Knowing about Halley’s Comet and its appearance in 1986, he can relate his ‘coming in’ to the earth. It’s something that’s been going on for thousands of years; civilizations have pegged time and events to it for centuries. This way he can feel he was a part it, a part of the earth,” says Fine. So, you ask, where does he look? What does he use? Can he really see it? Does he have photos’? And why, for heaven’s sake, does he keep go ing back, over and over? ‘Because,” explains Fine simply, “it is an animate object. It moves. It is different every day. It helps to draw what you see, so you can chart the changes.” And chart he has; he’s drawn “‘a lot of charts,” he grins, for friends who discovered his intense interest, and asked for help finding Halley. He’s also produced some super col or slides and prints, using nothing fancier than his 35mm camera and tripod. And — for Nicholas, took add a journal, ogaing the fa and a journal, ice and time of each sighting, the temperature, and personal impres sions of the comet and the night. (He’s also building a telescope, hop ing Nicholas can use it to see Halley’s Comet in another 76 years.) He goes to Springfork Lake (south on Highway 65 about 10 miles to Route V; left about one-half mile; follow the sign and park down the lane) because the darkest sky is there, with a good view of the horizon. He turns off the interior car t, so he’s not blinded. He takes time, locates the ‘‘teapot”’ con stellation, low in the south southeast. Below it, and to the right, is Halley’s Comet — a head and a hazy tail. _ “Use binoculars, and be patient; take your time looking for it. Take a deep breath, and enjoy the other things you see, like the red light of —_ and the Milky Way,” says “There’s a whole different world out there all the time; life’s too short to miss it. People ask me how I can get up at 3:30 a.m. day after Soins 8 aseme peice to pay far I] the night creatures, and says. tow Ha pr of latory be Sis vee
Newspaper Details
Sedalia Democrat
Sedalia, Missouri, US
Sun, Apr 06, 1986
Page 19
Full Page
Clipped by
Rachel C.
