Since my first reply was a bit flippant I should add that real reason the hobby appeals is the satisfaction of learning what's always bugged me. Before I found the atlas of the universe website I'd not come across a presentation of the "geography" of the universe, something you learn without trying through preparing for observation. When I was a kid I once asked my teacher how a magnet "knew" another magnet were nearby so they could interact. She didn't know and it was only years later when I read up and found the answer for myself that I had any confidence that I could teach myself anything.

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Yonder is Dubhe seen on Earth tonight as it was in the days of Grover Cleveland's presidency whereas this way is Deneb seen as it was in the lifetime of Muhammed . If one somehow travelled to Deneb at very close to c then whenever you looked back you'd measure Earth as closer to you than the distance you would simultaneously measure between Earth and Dubhe.