This thread is about what made you an astronomer.
The Why is probably unanswerable, not so the how.
I was among the youngest (in between boomer and gen Xer) who saw the first moon landing and old enough to understand what happened.
In the third grade, I won a reading bee and the book prize were two children's books on astronomy similar to the American DK-books.
Man, was I disappointed, this seemed baby stuff for me.
But of course I still had much to learn: At age 12, I had my first "telescope", a no-name gunmetal 10-30x30 zoom tabletop and immediately undertook it to try to resolve the brightest stars as a disk
One of these days, I did.
Later I found out that this "star" was in fact Jupiter.
At 14, I first bought a 60mm refractor and later a standard beginner's 4 1/2 inch Newton reflector, German equatorial mount, more or less a DST.
However, it was a good one for a DST, and I tried to "specialize" on deep sky objects.
Unfortunately, even with a new 35mm ocular, most, including M81 and M33, eluded me.
Alas, a Tasco 11x80 binoc finally did it.
Another thing I learned: Low surface brightness objects are no good for small telescopes.
I've been hooked ever since I first managed to glimpse M81.

And how about y'all?

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Mars Society.

First scope...60mm 15-60 power. Age 6. Been hooked ever since (now 60)!

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Any day you wake up on "the right side of the dirt" is a good day.

T. Anderson

My first scope was also a 60 mm (2.4 in) cheap thing/refractor my parents bought me as a kid, but I didn't really get interested in astronomy until my early 20s when I found that old scope at my parents, took it home, cleaned it, set it up that night and pointed it towards the brightest "star" in the sky and just by chance it turned out to be Saturn. After I saw the rings (just barely) I was hooked.

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

Quite simply, Carl Sagan. I loved the tv series Cosmos, and I love his books. I've never actually owned a telescope, but I go out every night to look up at the stars and take pictures through a pair of binoculars.

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"Sir I have a plan. Mein Führer, I can walk!"

I was six when Halley's Comet last passed us by. It seemed to effect me. I was quite an affected child.

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Yonder is Dubhe seen on Earth tonight as it was in the days of Grover Cleveland's presidency whereas this way is Deneb seen as it was in the lifetime of Muhammed . If one somehow travelled to Deneb at very close to c then whenever you looked back you'd measure Earth as closer to you than the distance you would simultaneously measure between Earth and Dubhe.

Im not really so to say hooked like some people, but iv always been interested in the stars and planets and black holes and other stuff like that. My first telescope was a 60mm refractor from tasco, that my dad bought me when i was like 9 years old. Iv had it for over 15 years now, and i didnt use it much off an on every couple years. I'v seen Jupiter/Saturn,Mars, Venus with it and there moons. I just recently tho bought a 10" dob from Zhumell i actually just got it today and as we speak im using it to look at the moon and stuff. Its still pretty light out so i cant see much else. But the moon looks awsome...

I became more interested in astronomy when i found out what the astronomical distances actually were , and the sizes of the stars ...And we can see those stars at those distances ...Some of those stars might not even be there anymore but the light is just now getting to us ..Wow ...Oh yea ..First scope was a 70mm refractor..

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Stuff i have ...LX90 8in.sct with antares 80mm raci finder on a wedge std. field tripod ....lxd55 5in.achromat ota. with a etx60 finder on a celestron CG5 goto mount...And a bunch of eyepieces

When I was kid, I was into astronomy. I remember watching Cosmos, and having it on VHS, and had a poster of the planetary orbits up in my bedroom. When I was about 12 or so I got my first telescope. I looked at Jupiter and its moons and projected the sun onto a plate to see sunspots. When Halley's comet came by my father took me out somewhere dark (we lived near Chicago) to try to see it, but we couldn't find it.

Through high school I wasn't as much into it, though I was good at math and science. In my final year of high school I got intrigued by Eastern philosophy, and my attention was drawn away from science a bit. When I went to college, I was undeclared. I took a lot of Asian studies classes, but did take an intro level astronomy class. Seeing Saturn for the first time through a good telescope was life-altering! It looked like a cardboard cutout, but it was real. After struggling with it a bit, I decided to major in astronomy or physics instead of Asian studies. I ended up getting my B.S. in Physics, but took a few astronomy classes too. My senior research project was related to the Shoemaker-Levy 9 comet crash with Jupiter.

I then went to grad school to get a Ph.D. in Astrophysics. A mentor of mine from my last year of undergrad suggested I get some "hands-on", i.e., instrumentation, experience in grad school if I wanted a better chance of getting a job, and so I ended up working on sounding rocket experiments -- we did far-ultraviolet spectroscopy. Although I started out my grad school career interested in planetary science, I ended up studying dust and molecules in the interstellar medium.

Since finishing I have continued being involved in both astronomical instrumentation and ISM work. Though I never really became a good 'amateur' astronomer. When someone asked me about the stars or constellations I'd always say "I'm a professional astronomer, I know nothing about the sky." Hehe...

Being a professional certainly has its moments. Launching rockets in grad school was awesome, going to remote places to visit and work on telescopes (including South Africa), and going to the Cape to see the Shuttle up close. But, it's still a job, so there's also a lot of grind and grunt, red tape and busy work.

Maybe too much info there...

I always liked it when I was little, but a few years ago, I got an "Ecological Calendar" that included lots of things in nature to notice every season, including constellations. I started trying to find the ones on the calendar, bought some books, and went from there.

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I want to go back to the moon.
I don't care which rocket you use, whichever one you pick, I'll like it, I swear.
"If you think the LHC will create black holes, you might as well believe Hobbits are at the bottom of your garden."- Dr. Mike Inglis
Rovers forever! - ToSeek

I got hooked on visual astronomy in August, 1957, during an evening at a remote lake in central Florida under a clear, very dark sky. The Milky Way was stunning and Comet Mrkos was clearly visible. As an impressionable 9-year-old, I wanted to see more, and a few months later my father bought a small telescope which gave us great views of Jupiter and its moons. I also started browsing a college-level introductory astronomy textbook which we borrowed from a neighbor.

In Brookpark, Ohio in 1969 I had a great science teacher at Ford Junior High School. Mr Dafffin hosted a campout/sleepover in the school's enclosed courtyard and we looked through telescopes. I got to see Uranus for the first time and I was hooked. I got a 3 inch refractor telescope shortly thereafter. It was also the time of Apollo 11, and a lot of us kids were crazy about space at the time. I was 12 years old.

The three inch refractor on an alt-az mount. It was marketed by K-mart at the time. I have no idea who the original manufacturer was, but it had serviceable optics. I got to see the moon and planets with it, and it worked great for partial solar eclipses as I used the projection method.

Later I joined the US Air Force and ended up selling the telescope to a sergeant after the 1977 solar eclipse. I was too busy with the military and a part time job to do astronomy.
I was also busy with model rocketry at the time.

I gave up rocketry in 1984, and family responsibilities kept me from doing any hobbies until 1997, when I purchased a serious telescope, a 10 inch Schmidt Cassegrain.
Shortly thereafter I became a volunteer at Mt Wilson Observatory, and worked there as a telescope operator from 2002 to 2007. I got to play with some serious equipment there, far beyond what I could personally afford: a 24 inch telescope with an SBIG ST-11 CCD camera, a 14 inch telescope with an Apogee CCD camera, and a Meade 16 inch LX200.

From 2000 to 2008 I became involved with a local astronomy club that has over 800 members. I learned a lot from that association, and after moving to New England, I have found the climate here to be not as good for observational astronomy.

So, a lot of the astronomy I do now is virtual, on the web...

My experience was similar to Tucson Tim's: a freind of mine borrowed a crappy 60mm Tasco refractor. After several nights of fiddling with the flimsy mount, I finally got my first ever look at Saturn. I was hooked instantly; and decided right then I was going to get a good telescope.

Reading science fiction since I could read. One big impression was going out at night to look for passovers of the Echo balloon.

In high school there was a copy of Jean Texerau's book "How to Make a Telescope" in the chemistry lab. I bought an 8" mirror blank and grinding stuff from Edmund Scientific. I remember the first time I got a bit of a polish on it (not silvered yet) and took it outside to look at the moon. Kinda did it.

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If they can get you asking the wrong questions, they don't have to worry about the answers.

Seems like a lot of us got our start with a 60mm refractor.

Yes sir! That also was a big influence on me.

@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!

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Mars Society.

Reading Sci Fi certainly was a big factor in my interest in astronomy as well. Watching Star Trek (the original series) reruns when I was about 10 certainly helped too. I'm not sure, but I think the first SF I read were those old Star Trek log 1-12 books when I was around 10 as well. Those were basically the ST episodes in book form.

As a teenager I heard the news announcement about Spunik1 being launched and thought - how does that thing stay up there. Got a book about astronomy and orbits and things. Saved up for a telescope (3" refractor). Then I had to forget about all that stuff and go out and get a job. Just kept a bit up to date with books and TV shows (watched Moon landings with 90 year old aunt who said "The pictures aren't very good, are they")

When I retired I got back into Astronomy and started studying. Will get DipHE in Astronmy in a few months. Hope to get BSc by the time I'm 70

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/onyE

Being a Brit, Sir Patrick Moore has had a huge influence on me.

My sister drew me a picture of Saturn when I was about 4 years old. That was me hooked.

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Beer, the cause of and solution to, all lifes problems

Oddly, Sir Patrick Moore almost turned me off of astronomy as a kid. He was not all that old himself at the time so just getting started writing himself. I had built a high resolution 6" f/12 that even 55 years later will equal a top 6" APO and was having a ball seeing features on the moon even the 200" couldn't photograph. So I picked up his book on the moon. Can't recall the title. It cost a small fortune to me anyway. It told how nearly all moon craters were volcanic without ever mentioning most astronomers considered this theory weak. Since I'd read two other books from the library that listed both arguments I knew he was distorting current knowledge. But what really hurt was I was seeing features smaller than in his books drawings of various lunar features yet larger ones in the drawings couldn't be seen. I figured it was me and I was a lousy observer so didn't belong in the hobby. Fortunately, lunar orbiter images were becoming available and I had access to the originals not the junky ones making it into the newspapers and Sky and Telescope magazine. These showed I was right and the drawings in Moore's book very wrong. I never trusted him again. I should have looked to later books before making such a judgment but I've never been able to shake off the distrust that very wrong moon book instilled in me.

I do still love looking at old astronomy text to see how we learned what we have and how wrong ideas were corrected. But these books all give a fair view of the state of the knowledge at the time, this moon book didn't even though it had just been published.

I'm glad he brought so many into the hobby. Probably few had my experience. But for me the experience nearly turned turned me away from the hobby.

Rick

I thought that the Soviets used Moore's Moon maps. Did they just not need greater accuracy?

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Yonder is Dubhe seen on Earth tonight as it was in the days of Grover Cleveland's presidency whereas this way is Deneb seen as it was in the lifetime of Muhammed . If one somehow travelled to Deneb at very close to c then whenever you looked back you'd measure Earth as closer to you than the distance you would simultaneously measure between Earth and Dubhe.

These drawings weren't moon maps but amateur drawings Moore considered the best available. I never saw the moon maps referred to. They may have been very accurate.

Rick

John Glenn's orbital flight. I stayed home from elementary school, watched TV, and marked his orbits on a globe with a crayon in real time.

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"I'm as accurate as any psychic. And I'm a cartoon!" -- Squidward

"Arrrgh, the laws of physics be a harsh mistress!" -- Bender

Apollo was about 15 years after I got into the hobby and was into astrophotography. So this is a bit off topic but one thing some of us did at the time was look for water dumps from the capsule on the way to and from the moon. We had a club member (high school student) who was a math whiz (he's now a math professor). He calculated the trajectory for our parallax and give us a time line. We'd then follow that tracjectory with the scope. No way we'd see the capsule except for a very rare (think I saw 2 in all missions) specular reflection from the craft in is rotisserie mode. But for the two days they were closest to the earth the water dumps were very obvious. I never caught one in the process but by listening to the news could tell when one had happened then I'd run to my 10" and look for it. They were nice little moving nebula. The first day the motion was very obvious, slower the second day and often very faint.

I find it interesting that those that believe the moon hoax either don't know about the amateurs that followed Apollo or ignore us. Those that point out their errors never mention us either. Phil you are ignoring those of us that actually watched these water dumps that the hoaxers claim never happened.

For Apollo 8 I also assembled a 5 foot moon image made from dozens of prints of mine taken of the moon cut and pasted to a board. I then put a string across it to show the orbit of the capsule. One network tried to find it using a 22" Celestron SCT (anyone remember when that was their flagship telescope?) at some facility in Denver but seeing was awful and their camera way too light insensitive. I knew not to try with my 10" but did move a bead along that string when they were orbiting on the earth side of the moon. A step up from Aurora's crayon but no more effective. It just gave me some sense of what was happening.

Rick

Since my first reply was a bit flippant I should add that real reason the hobby appeals is the satisfaction of learning what's always bugged me. Before I found the atlas of the universe website I'd not come across a presentation of the "geography" of the universe, something you learn without trying through preparing for observation. When I was a kid I once asked my teacher how a magnet "knew" another magnet were nearby so they could interact. She didn't know and it was only years later when I read up and found the answer for myself that I had any confidence that I could teach myself anything.

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Yonder is Dubhe seen on Earth tonight as it was in the days of Grover Cleveland's presidency whereas this way is Deneb seen as it was in the lifetime of Muhammed . If one somehow travelled to Deneb at very close to c then whenever you looked back you'd measure Earth as closer to you than the distance you would simultaneously measure between Earth and Dubhe.

One of my Kodak moments had some schadenfreude in it
Ever since the early 1970s, I anticipated the solar eclipse 08/11/1999 in Europe.
I was in Munich at that time, a nice observation place, but the big eclipse parties went to Stuttgart. It was very cloudy everywhere - how cloudy you see in the attachment.
Stuttgart was completely overcast.
Munich too, more or less - except for a small window in the clouds at the Sendlinger Tor.
That is where I watched the eclipse and got even more hooked on astronomy

Attached Images

ecloud.jpg (2.6 KB, 8 views)

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Mars Society.

I remember my dad telling me about the probe Giotto that was going to intercept Halleys Comet. We stayed up till the early hours. I think it was 2 am or something, way past my bedtime but i was loving it!
I used to see meteors and sattelites in the night sky while holding a light on some part of the engine bay of his mark 2 escort too. Quite often my stargazing would be interrupted by a request for more light on the carburettor or something!
My first and only (for now) telescope was also a 60mm refractor, which i still have and i managed to see the rings of saturn on a frosty january night. Boy did that knock my socks off. And the moon, man i could stare at her all night!
Then i got into photography and took photos of Hyakutake and Hale Bopp (i think, i'm not sure, about 1995??) with some ilford 3200 iso film.
I'll always love stargazing and i hope to impart this love of it to my sons.

I've always been amazed by the planets, our solar system and the universe. I've watched many a "Cosmos" and most of the current Astronomy based specials today. I recall going to the observatory as a kid and being awed by the planets, our solar system, etc. I've owned an inexpensive 60mm telescope for many years and used it to check out the moon and for not too clear shots of the planets (never could quite make out the rings of Saturn or Jupiter's bands very well). Recently, I picked up an Orion 150MM Mak-Cas telescope and have seen great images of the moon and Jupiter so far. I have lots to learn and am looking forward to checking out our solar system and any "deep space" objects I can capture. I was showing a friend sat passes the other night - he was amazed we could see them overhead with just our eyesight in the night sky.

Cheers

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Scope: Orion SkyView Pro, Mak-Cas 150MM Telescope