One of the opening scenes from the transhuman adventure novel Diaspora by Greg Egan involves a robot on the moon tending a large laser interferometer which observes two inspiraling neutron stars. Perhaps my favourite book.
I have a similar reaction to Egan's Permutation City when the couple living in the simulation adjust the clock rate so the computer running them only executes one clock tick every second, every day, every year, every million years, every billion years, every trillion years, etc. Puts me in a contemplative mood.