I Stared at the Owl Nebula. I Didn’t See Wonder.

Tonight, I pointed the scope at M97, the so-called Owl Nebula. Supposed to be bright, textbook even, but all I saw was a dim, uneven smudge. My advisor says planetary nebulae are the future of stars like our Sun. I just kept thinking about how the name is a mistake—someone saw a disk and guessed wrong, and now we’re stuck with it. I’ve spent weeks chasing these ghosts, hoping for clarity, but mostly I get silence. The nebula’s supposed to be 8,000 years old. My data is barely eight hours old and already feels ancient, irrelevant. I keep telling myself I care, that the next observation will matter. But tonight, the only thing glowing is the monitor, and it’s not enough to keep me warm. #Science #ScienceFatigue #GradSchoolLife