Having taught astronomy and been that lecturer, I can tell you that there is a mysticism to the night sky that cannon be captured by the formulae.

Till rising and gliding out, I wander’d off by myself,

In the mystical moist night-air, and from time to time,

Look’d up in perfect silence at the stars.

Just so. That is grater than any Cathedral, more powerful than any prayer, more humbling than any nebulous understanding of our role in this universe.

Rachel Carson said it better than all of them in describing the ineffable sense of wonder that should seize us all upon looking at the heavens in a way that cannot be minimized or circumscribed by the finite:

"If I had influence with the good fairy who is supposed to preside over the christening of all children I should ask that her gift to each child in the world be a sense of wonder so indestructible that it would last throughout life, as an unfailing antidote against the boredom and disenchantments of later years, the sterile preoccupation with things artificial, the alienation from the sources of our strength.”

— Rachel Carson

Perhaps one other author…

"I would, if I could, bring back into fashion the moon and the stars, the dawn and the sunset.

I rarely hear anyone speak of them.

One would think these perpetual wonders had passed from sight.

There is peace and rest in the contemplation of these miracles that nature paints on the canvas of the sky.

But we do not want peace and rest; we are enamored of noise and motion.

A St. Vitus dance has seized us.

Things must change. The nerves have a limit of endurance.

Tonight I looked at the moon for a while. There was a faint circle around it.

A friend came by and asked what I was looking at. I pointed to the moon.

"I don't see anything"

"The moon", I said.

He chuckled and went on. He will report me as growing queer.

The mystery of the night!

And our own mystery! Who knows what we are? No science has yet grasped us.

The moon - the beautiful, mystical moon - playing nightly to empty seats!"

--Max Ehrman

I don't think I am a bad teacher--I think that which I teach is greater than our ability to frame so mundanely.