Jim Colyer This is a Timothy Ferris film shown on PBS. Ferris talks about his early experiences with astronomy and because he was born on August 29, 1944, he is someone I can identify with. He is a mere 16 months older than I am. His film focuses on amateur stargazers and their telescopes. Ferris gets into the life of E.E. Barnard, a Nashville-born astronomer who photographed the Milky Way. It was the Horsehead Nebula which convinced Barnard that the dark regions in the Milky Way were gas and dust. Exoplanets were the rage by 2007, and Ferris talks about them and the means by which they are detected. As much as I enjoy astronomy, I realize that it takes us out of a world in which we have to function.