Having lurked this forum for a few months now, a picture is starting to form around the people here, 99% I will probably never meet (unfortunately).
So another question is well worth asking: What is your most memorable, satisfying or even exciting time in this hobby?
I'm not sure how long I've been at this myself - it must be less than a year by now. Jupiter was at Zenith by my kid's bedtime when I started. But my best experience happened just tonight.
My old man had his 67th B'day this weekend. Whilst my parents have always been together, and lived under one roof, we've very rarely got along with him. Only now that he's getting older and sicker, are the fights becoming a rarity. Last year we bought a scope for my Mum's 70th, and until very recently it went unused. Tonight I showed my old man how to use it (to the best of my "green" knowledge"), and I havent seen him this enthused in a very long time.
My Folks' house is a dark site, so it was all handed to us on a silver platter. Anything a C5 could see, we could see. The old man was blown away, and the sight of something new brought forth a flurry of questions and discussions - a level of conversation we've rarely had. Many thanks to wise IIS posts, (and Sky Safari) for filling in all the blanks
He now plans to pull this scope out any time he can, and I think he's found the first new thing in his life in a long time. So, All things considered, this has been the best time in my brief stint of amatuer astro.
One memorable experience for me was on a trip to Canberra in about 1988 with my wife and son. I was a little interested in space and read that there was an observatory near a club of some sort. We went to check it out and were surprised to find you had to walk through a pokie club of some sort to get in. Well in we went to a dome where a uni student named Attila was just shutting the door and leaving. He said it had clouded out and he was closing for the night but he unlocked the door again and took us in to show us the telescope. It was a C14 and he explained how it worked ect. Then we went to leave and my son looked up through a skylight I think and piped "I can see a star." Sure enough there was a break in the clouds and Attila said "oh that's Sirius-oh no it's not it's Jupiter!". So he said come on back and he unlocked the door and took us back in. For the next 30mins or so we had our first look at Jupiter which was stunning to us. Then the clouds closed up again and out we went again. I've often wondered where Attila ended up and will always be grateful for the effort he put in. I think he said the C14 was to be replaced with a 16 inch donated by a Japanese businessman. Anyway that's one of many positive experiences to do with astronomy that I've had, Cheers Richard
Last year I was observing with a Dob at our weekend place when a young Indian couple dropped by and asked if it would be ok if their parents who were on a visit could drop in and take a gander.
I spent an hour guiding them through some of the usual suspects, NGC104, a couple of nebs, I think Jupiter was up etc, and the following morning I had a deep and meaningful with the father looking at how we could get a Dob over to his guru in his village who knows the sky well but has never looked through a telescope.
Am hoping the old guy achieved what he set out to do but I suppose if I am answering the question posed by Andy, then this would be it.
Watching a solar eclipse in soon after sunrise Jan 1981 from on top of Mt Wellington, with a sea of cloud at our feet covering the rest of Tas. Just surreal.
Watching Jupiter as two chunks of comet Shoemaker-Levy collided with it, on a couple of nights. It pretty much finished any arguments about what happened to the dinosaurs, combined with the discovery of the impact site on earth.
Aug 21, 2017 Total Solar Eclipse and my visit to Australia in Aug. 2015 where I saw celestial objects that are not visible from the northern hemisphere.
First look at Saturn in my own 8 inch dobsonian reflector...Wow!
The other was my first visit to South Pacific Star Party...growing up in the USA the sky and the whole event were just wonderfully memorable. The people, the sky...again Wow!
The night at astrofest some years ago , Ron spotted something unusual and unkown in the nightsky ,remnants of a rocket launch it turned out .
To have something so unexpected and unique to happen in front of a group of people with a bunch of telescopes pointing up was pretty special .
Then seeng it in a 20 " scope hurtling through the night ,,well nice
2012 Transit of Venus: camped overnight with a C6 on cliffs above the Murray River to avoid Adelaide cloud.
Worked a treat & almost surreal as it ended, realising the next one isn't until 2117.
Not many folk alive today will live long enough to see that one....
Dean
Halley's Comet - my first experience at a dark site and the first time I took a serious photo, on film
The first time I saw Saturn through a telescope.
Transit of Venus. I setup two telescopes in a vacant lot across the road from my place. During the course of the day, I had probably 15-18 people pull up and ask what I was doing. Everyone then asked if they could have a look. At one point I had a queue.
2012 Transit of Venus: camped overnight with a C6 on cliffs above the Murray River to avoid Adelaide cloud.
Worked a treat & almost surreal as it ended, realising the next one isn't until 2117.
Not many folk alive today will live long enough to see that one....
Dean
me too on a clifftop between Berri and Renmark - tried to imagine how Jeremiah Horrocks must have felt when he saw the same thing in 1639. Used a really basic achro on a stepper driven mount to get the atmosphere right and the experience was unforgettable.
Mine was traveling to Murraybridge to get past the rain to get a look at the total lunar eclipse of April 1986, then to be treated to Halley's comet at it's naked eye best during totality.
There are a number of occasions that spring to mind,from seeing Comet Halley and SN1987A in my 60mm refractor, seeing NGC 253 in a 19.5"scope
The transit of Venus Twice and of course the spy satellite separation at camp Duckadang a few years ago as mentioned by Graham in post #8
But for shear excitement I cannot go past Comet D/1993 F2) Shoemaker Levy-9 on July 16/17 1994.
I heard on the ABC radio that Greg Bock had seen a piece taken out of Jupiter in his 72" scope (obviously focal length)
I rushed outside and set up my 20cm Celestron SCT, and gave out the most excited yell I have ever made in all my time in Astronomy.
I watched over the nearly one month both Day and night the impacts and their developments and demise.
Such an exciting thing to realize that one is watching something that had only happened 33 minutes before I was seeing it.
There are others that deserve a mention,but I don't want to bore you.
The first night I used my FC100DL up at Yass (when I bought it) and saw Mars as it was closing in on opposition. That was the first night I’d ever seen Mars as anything more than a red fuzzy blob (my main scope before that was a 10” LX200 that I don’t believe had the word “acclimation” in its vocabulary. Seeing the polar ice caps and large scale detail. Was the first night I’d seen the GRS on Jupiter and the first night I’d ever properly got a clean split (non fuzzy) with the Cassini Division.
The second was a few months back seeing Carina through a 32” scope, looked like a Hubble image!
The Messier galaxy marathon I did in my first VC200L years ago was memorable too.
Comets and eclipses haven’t really ever grabbed me. I watched Haley’s as a young guy but it didn’t leave me in rapture. Nebula and Galaxies are what do it for me. Planetary a little, lunar very little.
... but we've been watching you... we are always watching... that's why we have telescopes
Ehem,
Most memorable experience.
Observing:
- Saturn for the first time, or
- NGC 2070 through a 29" newt
In general; its a toss up:
- Meeting Clyde Tombaugh
- Standing inside the 200" Hale telescope or the AAT
sigh....
Well Rom, both of your "In general" moments leave me speechless! As for mine:- Like Lewis, the views with my 60mm refractor as a kid opened up a whole new universe to me. A lot of paper rounds went into that telescope and nothing I have owned since has given me quite the same joy as that telescope and Patrick Moore's the Amateur Astronomer did, which does make me wonder why I have spent so much money since! Apart from that, 2 transits of Venus and a view of Jupiter a couple of years ago. Seeing here on the outer western suburbs of Brisbane is not the best, but that night with the 18 inch Obsession and the LVW 3.5mm I ran out of eyepieces. Jupiter looked like a painted golf ball as it disappeared beneath the neighbours palm trees.
Pointing out Comet mcnaught to a few people at a lookout as it showed up in the fading afternoon light , wow said one that looks just like a jet
plane , he was right and i was about 10 degrees and five minutes out ,,memorable in that i shut my mouth and said nothing more
Most memorable Astro experience?
was just shutting the door and leaving. He said it had clouded out and he was closing for the night but he unlocked the door again and took us in to show us the telescope. It was a C14 and he explained how it worked ect. Then we went to leave and my son looked up through a skylight I think and piped "I can see a star." Sure enough there was a break in the clouds and Attila said "oh that's Sirius-oh no it's not it's Jupiter!". So he said come on back and he unlocked the door and took us back in. For the next 30mins or so we had our first look at Jupiter which was stunning to us. Then the clouds closed up again and out we went again. I've often wondered where Attila ended up and will always be grateful for the effort he put in. I think he said the C14 was to be replaced with a 16 inch donated by a Japanese businessman. Anyway that's one of many positive experiences to do with astronomy that I've had, Cheers Richard
