How did you start?

The thread by the beginner about buying his first scope brought a question to my mind. How did you get interested in astronomy? My theory is that most of us did it mostly on our own, discovering things for ourselves.

About 20 years ago my wife bought me a telescope for my birthday from a department store, luckily it was somewhat usable and stable at low powers(Jason comet catcher 3" Scmidt-newtonian). I remember my first view of the moon, Saturn, and Jupiter. It was amazing, but I didn't know how to find anything else so lost interest for a few years.

Later I subscribed to sky and telescope and read an article on star hopping and ordered the Tirion Sky atlas 2000. I piked an M object at random from the fold out star charts in sky and tel(M5 if I remember correctly) and took a long time with my low power eyepiece hopping from star pattern to star pattern, getting lost, starting over and finally getting there and seeing the fuzzball that was obviously not a star and thinking that that was so cool. The next object I tried was M97 because it looked like it would be easy to find being placed right there in the big dipper. Needless to say my little scope showed no sign of it. I knew I needed a bigger scope.

So when I finally had some money quite a few years later I did a little research on the internet but basically just jumped in blind and purchased my current scope a 10" discovery pdhq. Of course this opened everything up for me and the views were astounding. I remember just going out with the Tirion star atlas and star hoping to what ever looked interesting on the map. The discovery that sticks out most in my mind is when I had been seeing objects in Sagittarius and moving up the sky and came to m11 on the atlas. Now on the atlas m11 doesn't look like much, but you can imagine what I felt like when I looked through the eyepiece.

Sorry this post is so long but it was necessary to make a point. No one had ever showed me the moon, Saturn, Jupiter or m11 in a scope. I "discovered" these on my own and have been hooked ever since. I think if I had had people showing me all these objects before I owned a scope a lot of the thrill of the discovery would have been gone. I show my son stuff all the time and he says "yeah that's neat", but there seems to something missing. Maybe I should have just given him a 6" dob and a star chart and said go discover for yourself. How many of you discovered most everything on your own and how many of you had lots of help and still developed a passion for it?

David Gale said:
The thread by the beginner about buying his first scope brought a question to my mind. How did you get interested in astronomy?

For me, it was just an offshoot of a more general interest in space, triggered by 2 things:

1) Being a little kid and just old enough in the early 1970's to watch the last few Apollo flights on TV

2) Watching "Star Trek" with my dad around the same time 8)

>>>Sorry this post is so long but it was necessary to make a point. No one had ever showed me the moon, Saturn, Jupiter or m11 in a scope. I "discovered" these on my own and have been hooked ever since. I think if I had had people showing me all these objects before I owned a scope a lot of the thrill of the discovery would have been gone. I show my son stuff all the time and he says "yeah that's neat", but there seems to something missing. Maybe I should have just given him a 6" dob and a star chart and said go discover for yourself. How many of you discovered most everything on your own and how many of you had lots of help and still developed a passion for it?
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I started by myself with a worn out 60mm refractor I bought at a garage sale for $5. I took it on a car camping trip to Arizona and early one morning I stumbled across the Orion Nebula and that was it, I was hooked...

Since then I have been pretty much a loner and a starhopper. Currently I have a couple of GOTO rigs but they just sit.

But....

At the deepest level, this hobby is not about the equipment but about the observer.

Hobbies like astronomy are driven by personal passions, how one starts probably does not matter because it takes more than a casual interest to develop the skills required to enjoy astronomy. It takes a special combination of personal characteristics to have the necessary passion, I believe this is inharent in our personal make up.

Consider another potential passion, baseball. Some folks like it, some don't. It is unlikely that starting with a poor quality bat or mitt is going to deter someone from enjoying the game, or that starting out with an expensive glove is going to help someone who just has no interest in baseball.

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So, over the years I have come to the conclusion that it really does not matter how one starts, the potential for developing the passion is either there or it isn't. If it is there, then one can overcome great obsticles the germinate, if it is not there, then there is not much hope.

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So I know what I enjoy about this hobby, spending time under the night sky, wandering around looking at the great wonders, finding stuff, remembering stuff.

But I also know that there are lots of different ways to enjoy this hobby, there are no right or wrong ways.

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So I am interested in helping folks get a good start in this hobby. I view this role as helping them avoid the common pitfalls so that they can use their hard earned cash to get equipment that is most suited to their particular desires and personal make up.

Whether this means starting with a DOB or with a 60mm department store refractor or a 10 inch GOTO SCT, this really depends on them.

Jon

PS: I recently picked up one of those Jason 76m Comet catcher 3 inchers... Its cute but a tough go even for someone with a fair amount of experience.

I started astronomy just like I start everything else, with no plan, no idea, and no understanding. It all started when I found a set of keys in a common area of the development that I was living in at the time, I had no idea who they belonged to. Me being myself I took the keys door to door throughout the neighborhood looking for an owner, in my wanderings I met an older gentleman who opened the door, as I asked about the keys I noticed that he had 3 different telescopes in the living room. 2 of them were refractors and the other one was a Meade SCT, now I had never even seen a telescope that looked like the SCT before so I was sure this guy had to be at least some sort of semi-pro astronomer just to have access to a scope that looked that much different than a "normal" telescope. I did not say anything to him at the time as there was still the owner of the keys to find. I left his place and continued on my quest, after managing to find the owner I returned home and talked to my wife about this odd gentleman and his telescopes, I finally convinced her that if I went over there we might find out how to get a decent telescope for ourselves with some coaching from the old guy. We both had an interest in astronomy and this might just be the avenue to get us headed in the right direction. So I went back to the old guys house, I told him that I was interested in getting a scope and asked him if he had any pointers. He looked at me like my head was on fire then proceeded to give me a Orion catalog and told me to read it and think about one of their smaller refractors. He then showed me the door and thought to himself that would be the last of me. Needless to say my wife and I mulled it over got a nice 60 mm refractor and we were off.
There were several things that came about as a result of those errant keys. First we got to get into Astronomy with a decent first scope.
Second after we got the scope I went back to the old guys house and thanked him. Well the gentleman in question wanted to see the new scope and so I brought him back to my place. My wife and I grew to be great friends with him, Bill was his name. Bill not only helped us find the right scope, but then offered up some targets that were within the scopes range. In time he helped us learn about birdwatching, gardening, photography, we attended Star Parties and astronomy club meetings together and he became our finest family friend.
So I got into astronomy by being a Boy Scout, and I made one of the best friends of my life. Bill passed away last year as a result of cancer, but I will always remember the day I met him and started down the road in this hobby.

... I remember picking up a really old copy of some star book with whole sky maps from the elementry school library one day tens of years ago... that nite i looked out the back porch and hey there it is - it matches - must be Orion... so there you have it, major light pollution in S.F., no scope, no binocs, no nothing...

Shortly later I bought a pair of Selsi 7x35s and continued... I remember charting Mar's movements, and then Uranus, Vesta, and Neptune. I was delighted to see the 4 moons of Jupiter, Titan (or so i thought - maybe i did or maybe I didn't), M42, M27, M13 and M31 wow! ... millions of light years away i thought back then... I was really delighted to see the different colors of stars, especially the red ones like Betelguese and Antares...

... it wasn't really until about this time last year, after tens of years, that i finally bought a small scope (a spotting scope) and January of this year that I bought my 8" dob... Even though with it, I can easily find all the Messier objects, see 5-1/2 satellites of Saturn, resolve many globulars and most open clusters, find lots of galaxies, resovlve tight binaries, find a few white dwarf secondaries, and quasars billions of LYs away, its not quite the same as when i was a kid - with a limitless sense of adventure and imagination....

My interest began in my youth - I remember following the Gemini missions - To "walk" in space! Then Apollo came - To walk on the Moon! I recall being fascinated by the constellations - learning them from charts and seeking them out as I "camped" in the backyard under the open skies. I'd count the "shooting stars" one by one.

After researching and writing a report on the planet Mars for my gradeschool science class and learning of Percival Lowell's own discoveries I became obsessed with owning a telescope of my own. Though I had not yet saved enough from my summer's lawn mowing and other chores to buy it, Mom & Dad came through with the difference and I found my Sears Discoverer 60mm refractor under the Christmas tree that year.

Out in those cold December nights that followed, Dad helped me learn to setup, align and operate the scope. I will never forget the excitement I felt when we first pointed it at Saturn and I could actually see the rings! Wow! I still feel that excitement as I recall that winter night under the sky some 40 years later. Oh, the craters on our moon! And in the daylight, Solar observing too. Spots on the Sun! (Thank goodness that screw-in-the-eyepiece solar filter held up to those hours of abuse! Boy did it get hot!) That scope was my pride & joy for much of my youth. But as most toys do, it was put away as life's other distractions became my focus.

Later in life, married with children, my interest was rekindled by the coming of Halley's comet. I bought a C8, a selection of books, and even took a couple of college level classes to learn more on the subject of Astronomy.

I met a co-worker, Mike, with whom I shared many memorable nights under the night sky. We did some volunteer work together helping our daughters Scout troop earn their merit badges along the way. I ran a small corporate Astronomy Club for a time and coordinated observing sessions in the parking lot and a few outings to the local Planetarium. Then I switched jobs. Mike did too and moved in the process. My time under the night sky waned again awhile.

Though my 8" Celestron was capable, film-based Astrophotography never interested me much partially due to the complexities of film AP as well as my proximity to the Dallas light-dome. But then I met Jim, a co-worker and avid astronomer, who upon learning I had a telescope introduced me to the world of CCD imaging. Located north of Manhattan, Jim shoots over the light dome of New York City. Talk about light pollution! "Like so many other engineering problems, you have to learn how to deal with it.", he said. And now I am! CCD imaging's immediate rewards (i.e. not having to wait long to see results) was a wonderful thing too! I am hopelessly hooked.

This hobby has taught me many things. And not just about astronomy. It's also been about the relationships I've made along the way. I always enjoy my nights under the stars. I love exposing others to the amazing expanse of our universe, the beauty, the variety! And as one might guess I always get a kick out of the squeal of excitement someone evokes when they first set their eyes on those rings around Saturn!

Attached Image:

Here's my story:

http://www.umich.edu/~lowbrows/reflections/2005/dscobel.21.html

Doug

David
Your experience is almost identical to mine and discovery on your own is the thrill that creates lasting interest in the cosmos. My "discovery" of M31 on my own just by accident scanning the sky with my first 4.5 Newtonian was inspiring. At the time I did not even know what polar alignment was and I was using an eq mount like an alt az mount. Then I also "discovered" M42! wow now that did it. And if I could say I was proud to find these jewels as a novice just "shooting in the dark" at patterns that looked interesting. Next came that bright "star" in the sky, and then it had 4 other stars around it all the time. Jupiter of course. Then came Saturn. Seriously all before I really knew about the rotation around the pole and the rise and set times for the various times of the year. At times I wondered where they went as weather would limit viewing and I'd loose track of where I had found objects when it was finally clear again, not realizing that the constant rotation meant objects were changing location.
The scopes got bigger of course and the knowledge went up and the desire to see more is on going, the longest gig I've been in. I gave up computer tinkering for scopes and the night sky.

Greg