@Tucson Tim: Correct - well, the 60mm refractor was the standard try-it-then-decide-if-you-like-Astronomy telescope in the 70s. Any department store had one for around $200 (400 Deutschmark for me at that time), sometimes with absolutely utopian promises (450x e.g.) but workable if you exchanged the eyepieces for something with less magnification. I chose one that *didn't* brag around with magnification and it was good that way. I see this Quelle Revue telescope (along with the 4.5 inch Newton, same brand) mentioned numerous times on German astronomy boards - sorry, no pics, but it was deep blue
As for science fiction: Again a big Yes.
In the mid-70s, I was fascinated by an anthology of "absurd" fiction called "Der engelhafte Angelwurm" (the angelic angleworm in English) which seems similar or identical to "Nightmares and Geezenstacks" by Frederic Brown, THE first SF book I read, and I've dug up the author here:
http://www.squidoo.com/fredricbrown
I was about 9 years old and read about a duel between a human and an alien (Arena), about a sentinel in deep space and more.
And then there was the novel "inside outside" (German: Die synthetische Seele) which I bought at a yard sale - that got me interested in weird things
It can be found here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inside_Outside_(novel)
Fortunately, I came down with the flu in '79, and I mean *flu* which is nothing to sneeze at
- and while recovering my parents supplied me with a lot of books on space, fiction and non-fiction, Sagan, Asimov, Clarke, the whole shebang.
How pleasant it is to trod down memory lane!