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Tell Us Your Story About Your First Telescope
I was just sitting here thinking about my first telescope that really turned me on to astronomy. It was a homemade three inch newtonian reflecting telescope in a stovepipe tube on a homemade mount. My grandfather helped me build the pedastal for the mount. I have fond memories of working down in his basement in Cleveland, Ohio. The focuser and eyepieces were old Edmund Scientific and Criterion Mfg scraps that people gave me. The first thing I looked at was the first quarter Moon. I almost fell over at the view. I was hooked. I used this scope for a year, then purchased a RV-6 Dynascope in November of 1972. That was my first variable star scope.
What is your memory of your first telescope? Tell us about the scope and the impact it had on you. Do you have any sweet relationship building experiences you'd like to share such as mine with my grandfather working on the mount?
It has been my experience at star parties and amateur astronomer get togethers that this can be one of the funnest topics to talk about. Just thinking about my first scope makes me feel young again.
Chris Stephan
Robert Clyde Observatory
Sebring, Florida USA
I think I was only about 10 years old when my parents got me a 3 inch reflector from Edmund Scientific. It had a finder scope and a Barlow lens. I remember going outside sometimes for hours at a time in the backyard looking at everything. I was baffled though why some of the Messier objects, like Andromeda, didn't look the same as they did photographed in books - lol.
Great topic, Chris!My first scope was actually a 30mm Skillcraft Newtonian reflector on a "ball mount." As you might imagine, it shook in the wind, to say nothing of when a 12 year old's nose would bump into it!Still, what I observed, at that point, was significant. Moreso, I actually still have my observing logbook from that time when I was 12. In it are drawings of Jupiter and the four moons. Saturn and the rings make an appearance, as do a few double stars. There are even plans in the notebook to try to find variable stars such as Algol, but they never seemed to come to fruition.I observed 10km north of Rome, NY when Griffiss Air Force Base was heavily operated. Still, even given that, I remember darker skies when I was a kid, and somehow the Moon didn't seem to wash the sky away as much as I think it does today.Astronomy was a solitary occupation then because I was the only person in my family who understood what I was doing. And I was a solitary kid anyway.=====My first variable star scope was a 150mm Dobsonian that my boyfriend at the time completely surprised me with for my 35th birthday. While I haven't taken any observations with it since I moved to Boston, I was lucky enough to have a football (soccer) field near my apartment in Ithaca. I'd been looking for a scope for a good while up until my 35th birthday and managed to take several people at star parties somewhat aback with my questions. Most folks, apparently, want to know how large the mirror of a scope is, or what its magnification is. I wanted to know how much it weighed! I knew if it weighed too much I'd never get it out to the field.It is with this scope that I've taken all the (telescopic) visual observations I have in the AAVSO International Database.----Doc Kinne, [KQR]