I have always had a fascination with the night sky, I vividly remember looking at the stars way back in 1978 as a youngster of 10 years, I didn't have any optical equipment, it was the unaided eye are nothing but I was still fascinated, wondering what were the strange fuzzy blobs that I could see dotted here and there.
In those days light pollution was not so much a problem as it is now, the nights were dark and transparent and I could see a surprising number of objects with the naked eye. A little later I was given my first optical instrument a pair of 10x50 binoculars and to my inexperienced eyes the universe suddenly opened up: those fuzzy blobs I had previously seen only with the unaided eye were now transformed some appearing as featureless ghostly nebulosity, others revealed as clusters of stars and the Milky Way exploded into a myriad of stellar points, I knew how Galileo must have felt.
By the time I acquired my first telescope a small 60mm refractor of dubious quality mounted on a rickety wooden tripod which seemed to shake before you got anywhere near the eyepiece I was totally hooked, even this small instrument with its limited light grasp and magnification could resolve most of the brighter clusters into their component stars, show detail in the brighter nebulae and reveal many hundreds of galaxies though only has fuzzy patches, also hundreds of beautiful double stars opened up to my gaze for the first time.
As the years passed I became more proficient using astronomical equipment and progressed to larger telescopes: 8.75 inch F6 Newtonian reflector and then a 12 inch F5 Newtonian which showed fainter objects, my main instrument now is a 10 inch reflector on an EQ6 pro mount linked via laptop through the Ascom software. I also use a Watec 120N+ Astro camera delivering a live feed through the telescope onto the computer monitor which allows much deeper views of the night sky.
This could be the story of anyone starting to get interested in the night sky, all that is required is a healthy dose of enthusiasm and adventure to voyage among the stars from the comfort and safety of your own back garden.
In those days light pollution was not so much a problem as it is now, the nights were dark and transparent and I could see a surprising number of objects with the naked eye. A little later I was given my first optical instrument a pair of 10x50 binoculars and to my inexperienced eyes the universe suddenly opened up: those fuzzy blobs I had previously seen only with the unaided eye were now transformed some appearing as featureless ghostly nebulosity, others revealed as clusters of stars and the Milky Way exploded into a myriad of stellar points, I knew how Galileo must have felt.
By the time I acquired my first telescope a small 60mm refractor of dubious quality mounted on a rickety wooden tripod which seemed to shake before you got anywhere near the eyepiece I was totally hooked, even this small instrument with its limited light grasp and magnification could resolve most of the brighter clusters into their component stars, show detail in the brighter nebulae and reveal many hundreds of galaxies though only has fuzzy patches, also hundreds of beautiful double stars opened up to my gaze for the first time.
As the years passed I became more proficient using astronomical equipment and progressed to larger telescopes: 8.75 inch F6 Newtonian reflector and then a 12 inch F5 Newtonian which showed fainter objects, my main instrument now is a 10 inch reflector on an EQ6 pro mount linked via laptop through the Ascom software. I also use a Watec 120N+ Astro camera delivering a live feed through the telescope onto the computer monitor which allows much deeper views of the night sky.
This could be the story of anyone starting to get interested in the night sky, all that is required is a healthy dose of enthusiasm and adventure to voyage among the stars from the comfort and safety of your own back garden.
