Isolating Christian Astronomy: From Heliocentrism and the Primordial Singularity to the Rings of Saturn


1:12 PM Sunday.

Looking back over my notes in Christian Earth Science, I see that I failed to properly isolate Christian Astronomy back on 16 August 2025 when I wrote In Pursuit of Wisdom: Catholicism and Science Through the Ages. Now I see that I need to maintain Christian Astronomy as a project. In part this field of focus includes Christian scientists from Copernicus to Lemaitre:


And in part it includes my quest for astronomical evidence of Christogenesis as defined by Teilhard de Chardin:


I am presently looking at this in terms of Clairvaux's three-Advent model:


I am inclined to say that the 21 December 2020 Great Conjunction was a sign of the Middle Advent:


On a more tentative note, I am inspired (perhaps recklessly) to extrapolate that the Final Advent, or Omega Point, could take place in the 41st century of the Common Era, if not sooner. 


(By way of comparison, Ray Kurzweil believes the technological singularity will occur much earlier, in 2045. Elon Musk thinks it will be even sooner, perhaps as early as 2026. Others believe it may never occur: https://share.google/aimode/LoaRvJEGYzIVv4bn9).

This line of thinking leads me to conclude that I need to learn enough Christian astronomy to start making some observations with a basic refractor telescope on an equatorial mount. I already have the telescope and mount assembled. I just need to take the next step and learn how to actually use them. It would help if I had a plan about where to try my telescope out, when to look, and what to look for. 

Okay, we might have some clear sky coming up tomorrow night, and then not again for a while (cf. Albany Clear Sky Chart and 7-Day Forecast 42.63N 73.79W). Determining that is my first step.

I don't want to get my hopes up, but I've just checked Stellarium, LUNA, and Google Gemini. This is my second step. If the meteorology cooperates and I am able to learn how to use my telescope, I should be able to see Saturn and the Pleiades from a setup in my front walkway between 6-7 PM tomorrow. I don't know if I should even bother trying to locate Uranus, although it won't be far from the Pleiades. I doubt I have the technical capacity to find it, especially in my urban light conditions. Uranus is about twice the distance from the Earth as Saturn, on average, and it's less than half the size, by diameter. Maybe I should just aim to find Saturn. 

I've never seen the rings of Saturn "in real life." Galileo Galilei was the first person to see Saturn's rings through the lens of a telescope in 1610. According to Gemini, he didn't have a powerful enough telescope to clearly discern the rings. This didn't happen until Christiaan Huygens was "the first to correctly describe Saturn's rings as a thin, flat disk surrounding the planet" in 1659:


Both astronomers were Christians. Henry Hudson reached present-day Albany in 1609. It was still under Dutch control in 1659, when the Dutch astronomer Huygens correctly described Saturn's rings. It sounds like I shouldn't expect Saturn to appear bright orange if I am able to see it through my telescope tomorrow, but it looks orange in many photos and the first permanent Dutch settlement in New Netherland was called Fort Orange. Later Fort Orange became known as Albany.

This is a bit of an astrological tangent, but Jupiter was exalted in tropical Cancer on 30 July 1610 when Galileo made his first observation of Saturn's rings, and it will be again tomorrow night. Saturn and Jupiter are presently in a trine. Jupiter will be almost exactly opposite the Moon tomorrow night at 6 PM. I don't think I will be able to see the Moon from my front walk.

I guess I need to prioritize a telescope lesson tomorrow afternoon.

End 6:01 PM.

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