A Different Drummer

Abstract

Like everyone else, comet hunters are a disparate group of people with diverse jobs and life-styles, but they never veer far from the direction of their dreams, a lonely patch of haze secretly lurking in the sky. The beat to which comet hunters keep pace is set by the moon, whose eastward march defines the dark hours for hunting. Because they hunt for a variety of reasons, some scientists have scorned their work; in 1930 for example, Harvard College Observatory Director Harlow Shapley praised and insulted Messier in a single sentence: “He is remembered for his catalogue; forgotten as the applause-seeking discoverer of comets.”² And then only 4 years later, Shapley lauded comet hunter Leslie Peltier as “the world’s greatest nonprofessional astronomer.”³

If one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams, and endeavors to live the life he has imagined, then he will meet with a success unexpected in common hours.

If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer. Let him step to the music which he hears, however measured and far away.

Henry David Thoreau¹