16 year olds'New Observatory!

Seems a New York mom has built a $170,000 observatory for
her son complete with a 16" lx-200!See the New York Times
Home and Garden section for the full story.

Attached Image:

I read the story and was alarmed by the outright errors and the erronenous impressions it might leave on the uninformed reader, the most important being that you must be rich to be an amateur astronomer.

Too bad so much money was spent to house such a mediocre telescope.

Dave Mitsky

I haven't read the article so I do not know the situation. But, have you? Could it be the kid did "pay his dues" and had a succession of lesser scopes and learned a great deal and proved his commitment and dedication? Maybe, maybe not, but it's clear a lot of people are jumping to conclusions out of sheer jealousy.

If I had the money I'd build myself an observatory, though admitedly not with that scope. If I were really loaded and were not interested in astronomy but had a son who was, who had shown he was serious and comitted enough to make use of such a facility, I might build him one. I wouldn't do it to get into the society pages. The only way I'll ever get there is as an example of an opinionated, vaguely barbaric sort to be avoided, and I wouldn't have it any other way. ;-)