Man, I was stuck. Last spring, things were just dead quiet around here. I finished all the streaming stuff, I fixed every single squeaky door in the house, and I was just looking for something, anything, to keep my brain running. I remembered my old man had this beat-up little telescope and a box of star charts up in the attic that hadn’t seen daylight since I was maybe ten.
I dragged the whole mess down and decided I was going to find myself a constellation, something tough, not the Big Dipper garbage everyone can spot. I picked Pisces. Sounded cool, like two fish tied together. I figured, hey, it’s July, perfect clear summer nights, let’s get this done. I cleaned up the scope, lugged it out onto the back deck, and stared up at the sky for about three hours straight.
The Great Summer Failure
I saw zilch. Absolutely nothing that even looked remotely like a fish, a V-shape, or even a smudge. I saw Jupiter maybe, and a bunch of random dots, but Pisces? Forget it. The whole experience was a total bust. I did this for maybe four nights, convinced I just didn’t have the eye for it. My neck hurt, the mosquitoes were eating me alive, and I was about ready to box the telescope back up and sell it at a yard sale for twenty bucks.
I called up my cousin, the one who thinks he’s an expert at everything because he owns a pair of binoculars, and he just laughed at me. He kept saying, “Dude, you gotta look in the right spot, the right time.” Real helpful, right? I tried downloading one of those new phone apps, but I kept bumping the screen and sending it back to the Southern Cross, which isn’t even visible here. I was close to giving up the whole thing, thinking maybe stargazing was just for guys in white lab coats.
Dragging Out the Old Manual
I got really stubborn, though. That little box of charts was calling my name, so I ripped them out and started reading the tiny, faded print on one of the paperbacks—the one that smelled like old basement and dust. It hit me right then, plain as day. The reason I failed wasn’t my scope or my eyes; it was the date on the calendar. That book made it pretty clear: you try to see Pisces in July, you’re looking at it hiding right alongside the sun. Dumb.
I learned I needed to wait until the weather got a little chillier, when the constellation really gets going and is high up there after it’s fully separated from the sun’s glare. That meant waiting for the fall. September was the starting line, but October and November were the sweet spots. I marked my calendar. I put the telescope away, but I kept the book out on my kitchen counter just to remind myself I wasn’t allowed to be an impatient idiot ever again.
The Night Everything Clicked
It was a Saturday night, late October. Crisp air, the kind that makes your lungs sting a little. I drove an hour out past the state park, way past where the streetlights end, to this open field my buddy sometimes lets me use. No moon that night—perfect conditions. I set up the scope, and this time, I wasn’t guessing. I had a whole plan.
I went for the easier things first, just to get my bearings and make sure the little scope was aligned right. I knew the setup was right because I had read that old book cover-to-cover and actually followed the directions for once. Here’s what I did, step-by-step, the things that finally worked:
- I waited for the time: I didn’t even bother looking until 10 PM. That’s when the sky had fully darkened, and Pisces had risen up high enough in the east-southeast where it wasn’t skimming the horizon crud.
- I used the neighbors: Pisces is pretty faint, so you gotta use the really bright guys nearby to find it. I found that giant square of Pegasus first—it’s unmistakable. Then I used that as my jumping-off point, dropping down and to the left.
- I looked for the string: I knew it was supposed to look like a ‘V’ or two fish connected by a little string of stars. I wasn’t trying to see a perfect picture; I was looking for the pattern, that faint line.
- I didn’t use the telescope immediately: I just used my eyes first. I found the faint area right where the star Al-Risha should be, and then I slowly brought my scope over to confirm it.
And there it was. Not a blazing beacon, not like Orion or anything flashy. It was subtle. A tiny, faint, stretched-out V-shape, kind of hanging off the big square of Pegasus. The whole thing was just this delicate collection of dim stars, exactly like the picture in that dusty old book. I sat there for maybe an hour, just looking at it and feeling totally satisfied that I hadn’t let that stupid summer failure beat me. The trick was just waiting for the leaves to turn brown.
