In 1978, our school started an astronomy club, of which I was a founding member. The enthusiasm and energy of the sponsoring teacher, the late Viv Lawton, was one major factor that began this 35+ year journey. Viv also ran a mirror grinding and telescope making group in the school. My scope was completed via membership of the ATM club of Qld and mentoring by the late, great telescope maker, Cliff Duncan.
It was the publication of Dennis Di Ciccio's analemma photo published in 1979 really inspired my interest in photographic recording of astronomical phenomena.
http://twanight.org/newTWAN/photos.asp?ID=3001422
Although people continue to shoot these today, the remarkable aspects of this image were that it was the first image of the phenomena and it was shot by multiple exposure onto a single piece of film. Consequently there was no room for error or clouds in this year long project requiring dozens of well exposed images. Modern attempts are assembled from many individual images so any errors can be easily excluded.
Earlier this year, I co-authored a feature article in Sky and Telescope. To my delight, Dennis Di Ciccio was assigned to edit the feature. By way of introduction as we began editing, he kindly told us that he first viewed our results with retired former editor, Roger Sinnott and they were both impressed with our project and described it as a "remarkable accomplishment." Robert Naeye had already told us that the editorial staff were all excited about the article. While the mutual admiration society was up and running I told Dennis how inspirational his image had been to my introduction to astrophotography.
Joe Cali