Monty by Jim Meddick for April 10, 2023

Amateur asstronomer.

I hope it was twinkle, that’s the little one, can’t hurt much if you’re in the landing zone.

Still trying to find ufo’s for another encounter.

Or lay off the booze before sky watching

Put it in your pocket.

Aren’t you supposed to stop at the horizon?

Monty doesn’t know meteorite from wrong.

That’s some really great art in panel two.

Maybe he should read Whitman’s “When I Heard the Learn’d Astronomer.”

I thought he was practicing to be in a rock band. Give him a guitar and he’ll be fine. :)

Monty is a supreme klutz.

But, true story. When I was in that other country overseas, in a small village far from the Big City lights that obscure the night sky, we would sit in the back of the house in late summer to watch the Perseids and sip gin-and-tonics. Once, looking up i leaned so far back that my chair fell and I ended up looking rather Monty-ish. The g&t had nothing to do with it; just my leaning too far back. Really!

Soon there will AI-assisted tracking telescopes for amateurs. Not only will they be able to track fast enough to “catch a falling star” but if it should happen to be cloudy, it will generate a realistic image based on an enormous database of similar events. (Wish I were kidding. There was already an AI-assisted camera caught filling in some crater detail once it figured out it was a picture of the Moon.)