Posts Made By: Fred Lusk

Another shot. Both of these were taken with an Olympus E-1 and 14-54 mm lens.

Here's a flower on the grounds of Flagler College in St Augustine, FL.

Here are some birds at Blue Spring State Park. The barrier keeps boat on the St Johns River out of the spring channela and away from the manatees. Just before this photo, the bird hopping onto the barrier had been splashing around like a little kid. The photos of that didn't turn out like I wanted.

A few moments later.

The pelican again. I think he's staring at me!

Here's a crop of the previous photo.

Here's the ceiling of the China pavillion at Epcot Center.

Dan…

Try NGC 457 in Cassiopeia. In our club, we call it "Stickman". Others call it "ET" or the "Owl Cluster". Once you have seen it, you'll see why. Everyone like this one.

Fred

Jon…

I'm 47 and President of Central Valley Astronomers in Fresno. My wife (also 47) is the newsletter editor. My son (19) is our club's webmaster. He, as well as my two daughters (23 and 21) have all taken the Astronomy course at Fresno City College taught by one of our members. However, my daughters have a only a mild interest in astronomy. My son, even with 20-15 vision (which he inherited from my dad, not from me), is actually more interested in the gadgets than observing.

After decades of up and down interest, I got serious six years ago. The proximate cause was my dad retiring. He was the chemistry teacher at my high school and faculty advisor for the astronomy club. The club started (barely) near the end of my senior year. It took about three years for the club to raise the money to buy a C-8, an OM-1, and a few accessories. For 20 years all of my infrequent observing was with my dad and the C-8. Anyway, when he retired, we lost the use of the telescope. It's still at the school, in the care of the physics teacher. My son tried to get him interested in dusting it off and rebuilding the astronomy club, but no luck.

When we lost the use of the C-8 I finally decided to buy my own scope. I wanted a more portable and versatile package, so I bought a C-5+. This scope was small enought to not trigger the dreaded weather curse. My wife had no such luck. When she bought her Orion 10" Intellescope two years ago, we had three months of bad weather. My son doesn't have a scope yet. He's saving money for a car.

The oldest few members of our club are over 90 and the youngest three are still in elementary school. However, the core of our club is in the 35 to 60 bracket. The biggest problem for many young people trying to get started in astronomy is the cost of the equipment. Actually, it's a perceived problem, since decent 10x50 binos are available for about $50. It's the same in my son's ham radio club. He and two friends are by far the youngest members. The rest of the group is over 40. Good ham radio equipment is expensive, but my son's first handheld radio was about $250.

Fred

This shot I purposely underexposed. I like the result.

Fred