"We, the readers, do not live inside space, that has billions of galaxies in it; on the contrary, this space in generated inside the observatory by having, for example, a computer count little dots on a photographic plate… You are ashamed of not grasping what it is to speak in millions of light years? Don’t be ashamed because the firm grasp the astronomer has over it comes from a very small ruler he firmly applies to a map of the sky like you do to your road map when you go out for a camping trip. Astronomy is the local knowledge produced inside these centres that gather photographs, spectra, radio signals, infrared pictures, everything that makes a trace that other people can easily dominate."
— Bruno Latour, Science in Action, pp228-9
