ASTRONOMY
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Amateur Astronomy has seen substantial growth in the past few years. Why?
Many people would attribute it to the influence of modern technology, the space age, and frequent media coverage of astronomical events. While these things certainly help, I believe there is more going on here than first meets the eye.
Amateur Astronomy provides a means where we can fulfil one of our most basic human needs, the need to explore. Realize it or not, we are all explorers, and our exploration of that which surrounds us began at birth. Many people feel that the age of exploration is basically over. There aren't really many places left where the average person can go that haven't already been visited by someone.
Or are there?
All it takes is a gaze into a clear night sky to realize that we haven't even begun to really explore yet. Comparatively few of us will get the chance to travel in space in our lifetimes, but it is still wide open to exploration through observation. To observe the heavens is also to travel back in time. The andromeda galaxy is visible to the naked eye, but is over 2 million light years distant. When you look at it, you are seeing it as was over 2 million years ago, not as it is today.
Amateur Astronomy is also gaining importance from a scientific point of view. Limited funding for professional astronomy has greatly reduced the number of traditional observatories in operation in the past few years. Most of the funding that does remain is used to build only a very small number of large, specialized facilities. There simply aren't enough professional instruments around to cover the skies well enough. If it weren't for amateurs, many recent astronomical events would have been discovered much later, or perhaps would not have been discovered at all.
I decided I wanted a telescope when I was about 14. Like many young people, the catalog store refractor telescope was about the only type of telescope I was aware of. I got one, and set out to explore the heavens with high expectations. I quickly discovered that the little scope wasn't going to show me images like in the photographs I'd seen. Amazingly, I used that scope for several years, even though the images through it were dim and shaky.
I've spent a large portion of my life here in the mountains of central Pennsylvania. This area has always had fairly dark skies, although not as dark now as I was when I was 14. Years after the novelty of the cheap refractor wore off, I discovered that I could get fantastic views of the Milky Way, numerous star clusters and a few other bright nebulae and galaxies that I'd only read about previously. I had no idea that these things could be seen without a telescope! I had discovered that the joys of dark sky observing did not come with a 600x toy telescope - rather, the real beauty of the night sky was often best seen with low magnification that provided much brighter and steadier images.
In 1986, the event that I'd waited for since childhood came, and I was determined to see halley's comet. I got up early one morning and managed to spot a very small faint smudge near the south-east horizon with my 7x50 binoculars. I was pretty sure that I'd seen comet halley, but I was really disappointed (as many others were) with the view - after expecting something much more dramatic for many years.
Just a few years later, I discovered that my next door neighbor had received a 6 inch reflecting scope (A Criterion RV-6) as a retirement gift from the school he had been the principal of. I offered to help him set it up, since I had read a lot about equatorial mounts, and he really didn't know much about telescopes (neither did I, really). We enjoyed some great views of the planets Jupiter and Saturn, but we never managed to setup the scope outside of town so we could escape the street lights.
After just a few more years had passed, I really started to get the itch to buy my own telescope. I decided I wanted an 8 inch newtonian reflector, but, I wasn't quite ready to spend $800+ for a new instrument. I noticed an ad for a used telescope classified shopper (Starry Messenger) in Astronomy magazine, so I subscribed. In the first issue, I found an ad for a Criterion RV-8 for $400.
I bought the scope, and did a little restoration work on the tube and the mount. The scope looked quite nice when I was done.
The RV-8 provided a lot of enjoyment for deep-sky observing, but always seemed to lack something on the planets. I later discovered that the RV-8 had a bad mirror (somewhat rare for a Criterion, I'm told). It was grossly under-corrected, being almost spherical in shape. I have recently taken this mirror out of the scope and set about improving the surface figure.
More recently, I got the bug to build my own telescope. The RV-8 was a bit heavy and clumsy to load and to setup. I decided to build a 6" dobson mount
scope.
The 6 inch scope has given very sharp images of planets, and does a decent job on deep sky fuzzies. I spotted comet Hale-Bopp with this scope several times while it was still between magnitude 11 and 10.5.
I observed my first bright comet (de Vico) in October 95, and was impressed with a tail which stretched several degrees across the eastern sky near the constellation of Leo. I also acquired a pair of 11x80 Comet-King binoculars recently, and have found them to be just as useful as bigger telescopes for deep sky observing.
I've found real enjoyment by attending "star parties". These events are camping trips where lots of amateur astronomers get together in one remote location to enjoy the splendor of deep sky observing at its best. Star parties are excellent opportunities to observe through other types and sizes of telescopes. Often, owners of larger scopes show up and provide a treat for those with smaller scopes (and budgets). Here are a few pictures taken at some recent star parties that I've attended.
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I've found almost as much enjoyment in building telescopes as I do in using them to observe the wonders of the night sky. I've built three scopes so far, which includes grinding the polishing the optics for each one. I'm now working on my forth instrument, a 20.1 inch newtonian that will be somewhat more sophisticated that my previous projects. For more on this scope, and the others I've built, take a look at this page.
