The story behind #TheLastStargazers begins with my first observing run, at Kitt Peak with @MassiveStarGuy back in 2004.

At the time I was a 19yo physics major and aspiring astronomer but even as we drove to the mountain together I really didn't know much about what lay ahead...

I’d loved astronomy since I was a little kid: I saw Halley’s Comet at age 2, started inhaling astronomy books as soon as I could read (anyone else remember the Planetron books?), and knew in my bones that I wanted to be a scientist.

I had NO IDEA what scientists actually did.

I didn’t KNOW any scientists. Nobody in my town was a scientist. Nobody in my family had a PhD or worked in research. My only exposure to scientists came through movies (so, Sad Lonely Geniuses or the doomsayer everyone ignored before the dinosaurs/volcano/aliens wreaked havoc…)

(I remember loving the movie Twister because it was the first time I saw a group of scientists who happily nerded out and joked with each other while having madcap science adventures. As a lonely kid who got made fun of for being a science geek, I wanted to hang out with them...)

Back to Kitt Peak. During our first night on the mountain Phil introduced me to the other astronomers at dinner and mentioned that it was my first observing run.

EVERYone around the table immediately launched into telling me their favorite observing stories.

“So this one time someone set the wall of a telescope on fire...”

“What about the guy who locked himself in the bathroom mid-exposure?”

“Didn't someone have a raccoon climb into their lap while they were observing?"

“Tell her the one about the telescope that got shot.”

Me:

Some of these were infamous stories, some were tall tales, others were surprisingly true, and all of them gave me my first real window into the real human experience of 1) working at a telescope, and 2) hanging out with scientists.

Now fast-forward to years later...

Whenever I give a public talk or tell someone on a plane that I'm an astronomer, people get curious about what I actually DO.

I get asked if I have a telescope in my backyard, if just permanently work nights, if I ever get to *go to* the Hubble Space Telescope...

EVERYone loves space - articles about black holes, the snazzy art & photos - but not many people know the stories of HOW astronomy happens.

This isn't that weird; out of 7.5 billion people on the planet only ~50,000 of us are astronomers. Most people have never met an astronomer

#TheLastStargazers grew out of the idea that I could use the same stories that astronomers tell each other - the same ones that fascinated me the first time I heard them that night at Kitt Peak - to teach EVERYone about the science of astronomy AND about how it's actually done.

Professional astronomers are rare, and our jobs are unusual, surprisingly adventurous, and sometimes downright hilarious. Our jobs are also evolving quickly alongside the technology we use, so I wanted to capture and share some of our stories with the world while I still could.

A behind-the-scenes tour of astronomy can also guide readers through the science. Understanding the wacky things we do for space - chasing fading supernovae, flying telescopes to the stratosphere, using planet-size radio telescope arrays - means learning the science as you go.

Finally, we're currently in a time when there's a dangerous distrust of scientists & experts & a strange sort of scorn along the lines of "oh, how can you silly scientists/doctors/astrophysicists possibly understand regular life?"

Putting a human face on our science is CRUCIAL.

Being an observational astronomer means working night shifts, sometimes dealing with miserable snowy commutes to get to work, working hard because we care about what we do and want to share it with others...

These are pretty familiar experiences for ANYone, scientist or not.

I wrote #TheLastStargazers because I wanted to use stories (from my own career + the 112 colleagues I interviewed!) to share the human experience, fascinating science, & unique quirks of astronomy research with anyone curious about space & what astronomers do all day (night?)...