https://medium.com/@kaspripobservatory/watching-50-of-humanity-go-online-is-pretty-mesmerizing-398906d4b6a

Here at the Monash University IP Observatory, we handle hundreds of millions of observations of internet connectivity and quality every day. While most of our time is spent providing communities around the world with near real-time monitoring of the internet during major natural disasters or periods of intense concern for political and online freedoms, every so often, we allow ourselves a chance to push the chair back, head over to the big monitor on the wall, and toggle the zoom knobs on the dash to planetary mode.

I guess classical astronomers did the same thing every once in a while. For them, the task was actually pretty trivial, but no less awe inspiring. Just the simple act of lifting their eye from the view-finder, descending the ladder, and stepping out into the cool air of the mountain top was all it took for them to see their beloved stars in universe mode. What a job.