In 1953 there was big publicity about Mars being closest to earth in 1954 since the 200" telescope was built. The articles all said the images from the world's largest telescope would answer the debate over the reality of the Martian canals. I wanted a telescope so I could see for myself. I found everything on the market cost $200 and up even for a 60mm refractor (lot higher quality than today's version with good eyepieces and very solid mounts). That was far beyond my budget, paying for 24 cent gas was too much as far as I was concerned! I checked out a library book on astronomy. The final 3 pages were on how to build your own 6" reflector for $35. Now that I could afford. Little did I know that three pages was a "tad" insufficent for the job, especially how to grind your own mirror and lenses! Fortunately, I located an "old guy" (younger than I am now) that knew something about the job. With his help and a years worth of goofs I finally had that telescope and it did come in under $35. Turned out the mirror was great but f/12! Mount was too weak for a f/4 let alone f/12, no finder, home made eyepieces made the worst of today's dime store scope eyepieces look great and the focuser usually bound rather than move. Still I was elated about the view of Mars but saw nothing but the polar cap and a hint of markings. I thought the scope junk. It was but for the mirror, that was excellent it turned out but with the rest trash it didn't much matter at the time. I then went out and bought a 3" f/10 reflector, all plastic made by Gilbert or some outfit like that. Mirrors and eyepiece were glass however and it had good optics but worked at 30x. Still the view was far better than in the 6". Then I put that eyepiece in the 6" (with lots of tape as it was .965 but the 6" was 1.25". The view was shaky but very crisp. I saw "the old man" who loaned me a couple orthoscopic eyepieces. Even though the scope shook, couldn't be pointed and focusing difficult I was in heaven. The "old man" took pity on me and bought a high quality 60mm refractor for me that I could pay off over the next year. I used that until about 4 years later I came across a garage sale with a funny looking scope for sale for $500. By then I was saving for a good scope and it appeared to work great. Not much more aperture than that 3" moonscope but I was still dumb and didn't know that if I wanted to see faint fuzzies I need that 6". Still it seemed a good buy at the time. Had a brand name I'd never heard of "Questar". The guy threw in a complete darkroom with Omega color enlarger with filters, a Miranda 35MM camera, an Exa 35mm camera and an Exacta 35 mm, all SLRs and the latter two came with lenses from 28 to 200mm, all Zeiss lenses! I still have all of this stuff but for the darkroom gear. I sold that when I went digital a few years ago. Not a bad deal all for $500 though I didn't know it at the time. Later I bought a Cave 10" f/5 for deep sky work and an f/8 tube for the same mount for planetary work. I tried the 6" I'd made some years earlier on that mount and wow what a difference (new focuser as well as a finder). That's when I really got going, this would be about 1960. Helped form a local club in 1961. None of us knew much but together we managed to teach each other what we each knew and the result was a big improvement in our knowledge base. That really made it far easier to climb the learning curve which I'm still climbing. One of the co founders, Pete Schultz, knew a bit more than me and is now a planetary geologist at Brown University. He designed the impactor for Deep Impact and has been seen on many Nova astronomy shows. Another early member was head of the optics team designing the Gemini telescopes and now is heading the design of the 30 meter telescope. So it's amazing where a club of members who individually didn't know much can take you when that "little" knowledge is put to use.

Oh yes, that "old man" I mentioned, Jess Williams. Turned out he was the last surviving Scott Joplin ragtime musician and gave a command performance for the President at the Bicentennial Celebration. He was also a composer of one of the commonly played wedding marches, the name of which escapes me. You never know who you will meet in this hobby.

Rick