Astronomer

Basic Information

An astronomer (AGk. "namer of stars") is a scientist who studies stars, planets, moons and other celestial objects.

In pre-modern times, the science of astronomy was largely concerned with predicting the influence of the planets on human affairs, and in Renaissance times there was a fair amount of overlap between astrology and astronomy. Johannes Kepler discovered important principles of planetary motion, and also plotted horoscopes, modern astronomers, however, tend to be quite upset at being mistaken for or conflated with astrologers.

There are a large number of amateur astronomers and it is not at all uncommon for a new comet to be first sighted by such an amateur.

Some Notable Astronomers

• Galileo Galilei
• Edmund Halley
• Fred Hoyle
• Percival Lowell
• Isaac Newton
• Johannes Kepler
• Carl Sagan

Sources

Bibliography

1. Wikipedia article: Astronomer

Game and Story Use

• Astronomy as a field does not exactly lend itself to adventure, but a PC with a science background could possibly be an astronomer in his "day" job.
  • Or as mentioned, as a hobby, if your system of choice supports flavor skills.
• More likely, the players encounter an NPC Astronomer
  • Such people are likely to observe any unusual activity in nearby space and/or objects descending therefrom.
• In the 18th and 19th Centuries, astronomers sometimes traveled to remote locations in order to observe astronomical phenomena such as eclipses. The PC's could be accompanying an astronomer on such an expedition.
  • In science fiction, an astronomer might need to travel to someplace off the beaten path to observe a phenomenon. See interstellar-terrain for a few possibilities.
  • Modern telescopes also like to be in remote places to avoid light pollution (and possibly other electromagnetic noise).
  • Any interstellar campaign is likely to have astronomers functioning as navigators… possibly also the case in a planet-bound sailing campaign, though for largely different reasons.
• In fantasy, there can be quite a bit of overlap between astronomy and astrology. Imagine an astrologer who knows about nebulae, or an astronomer who treats Leo as a meaningful entity.
• In Lovecraft country, the astronomer may be privy to certain plot details. Too bad he's raving mad…
• An astronomer may be essential to figuring out historical clues - see archaeoastronomical sites and the disproof of the phantom time hypothesis.
  • As an example, modern astronomy knows that the pleiades are a group of seven stars, and the mythical greek nymphs for which they were named are the seven daughters of Pleione. However, there are only six stars in the constellation that are visible to the naked eye (hence the Japanese name Mutsuraboshi ("six stars")) … the seventh being occluded by one of its sisters. Astronomical measurements suggest that it may be 10,000 years since the two were visibly distinct from Earth…
• Quite a few plots might start with a star chart that turns out to be abnormal in some way.
  • As above, a simple answer can be that the chart is very old, and the relative movement of Earth and the stars since it was made have made the constellations look different.
    • Cue a nice dramatic scene with a stellar orrery as the astronomer "winds time backwards" until the projection of the visible constellations suddenly matches what is shown on the chart. They can then look at the estimated date on the display and realise that it doesn't match with the accepted history of human civilization…