A review by heatherbirchall
The Last Stargazers: The Enduring Story of Astronomy's Vanishing Explorers by Emily M. Levesque

3.0

Beautiful cover, but the wrong title I think. There are plenty of people still gazing up at the stars. What the author is really talking about isn't the science of star gazing (there's a little bit about her own research on red supergiants, and I liked the descriptions of radio v optical telescopes), but the day to day lives of astronomers - traveling to telescopes in the middle of nowhere (with no wi-fi to cause interference with the telescopes), working at night in the freezing cold, and the danger of dangling off optical telescopes. As telescopes have become more advanced - providing digital images within seconds - the conditions for astronomers has become much cozier, which the author laments slightly.

I did end up skimming bits of the second part of the book because I got bored, but I was glad she concluded with a look at the reactions of people when she says she's an astronomer. Telescopes cost vast sums of money and they're not liked by everyone - all the protests around a new telescope being built on Hawaii were fascinating - but it's undoubtedly a very cool profession.