Because it's so damn wet down here I have been reminiscing about old stuff and the thought that occurred to my palsied old brain was -what got me started down this road of astronomy?
So I am starting this thread here -as a newbie myself, it would be interesting to see if any public education stuff got folks all fired up on star gazing.
For my two pence worth..
Started (really!) with an interest in bats, and of course you need the nights to see bats, so there I was (back in the UK in them days) watching pipistrelle bats and these bloody streaky meteor things kept happening.
After that I thought I might borrow Dad's bin's, and started watching stars as well as bats (they were all stars to me at that point)
Within a few years I had moved rural and found myself with some great dark sky acreage. In the Sunday paper was an advert for a Tal telescope, cheap as chips and delivered. I had no idea about collimation or stuff back then but Boyo!! the first time I saw Saturn was love at first sight! The rapture!
Within a few months Comet Hale Bopp was omnipresent in the Northern Hemisphere and I learnt two valuable lessons- 1- magnification sometimes makes things less obvious, 2- the clockwork drive on the telescope was great for tracking the comet when taking pictures with my old film camera.
After that was a pretty steep slope to more and more nights gazing upwards.
Since moving down her I look forward to watching the ballet of the heavens and have never been disappointed.
Funny really, was one of those indie kids at school with the dyed black hair who played in a band and journo's called shoe gazers.
Now all I can do in the morning is check the internet and the weather gage and look up longingly at the sky waiting for the clouds to depart.
All because I once looked at bats!
Blame it on the clouds
Graham
