Science has been a major part of my life since around 1962 when I bought my first telescope through the mail. I paid $3.95 or so to Criterion Manufacturing Company for a 26mm diameter objective, an eyepiece to give maybe 40× of magnification, and a series of concentric tubes that slide over one another to focus.
I spent the first hours after receiving my telescope examining everything that I could see from my bedroom window. I checked out the surrounding houses, birds, the IPI water tower, the railcars sitting on the nearby tracks, the Anheuser-Busch Brewery in Newark, and even the stones in the driveway next door.
By nightfall I was a practiced observer and trained my telescope on any and all celestial objects that looked interesting. Naturally, the moon was my first target and I was lucky to have nearly half a moon to look at. I had seen the craters before using my dad’s binoculars but now they looked so big, but less sharp. My dad pointed to a bright object in the sky and said, “That may be Saturn”.
Balancing the telescope on the porch railing I quickly discovered the advantage of a solid telescope mounting. Despite my best efforts the tiny image of Saturn danced constantly around the center of the field. Nevertheless, there was Saturn with its rings. That was all it took to wet my appetite for more.
At the time it didn’t occur to me to ask my dad how he knew this was Saturn. Since then I figured it out. He knew the stars reasonably well and simply knew that the bright object he was pointing out to me was not a star and had about the right brightness and color to be Saturn. Now, even I can do this easily.
As the weeks and months passed I learned about many aspects of observing that can only be appreciated by another observer. For example you learn to dislike the full moon. Not only does the full moon look relatively featureless through a telescope, but its presence in the sky pretty much destroys your chances of being able to see dim objects like nebulae or galaxies. I also began to suspect that telescopes are cloud magnets.
My original Criterion telescope is long gone but a few years ago I saw a slightly earlier version of this telescope for sale on eBay. I could not resist the temptation to buy it. It is almost an exact duplicate of the telescope I had and even has the odor of phenolic resin like my original one had. I have this telescope in front of me right now as a reminder of that life changing event.
I could probably think of more to say about this but I need to end now. I see something out the window and want to take a closer look.
2 comments:
Don't forget about your Celestron and the great big telescope languishing in storage right now. I keep remembering the first time I saw your big telescope... It was being used as a clothes tree in your room when it wasn't in use for star gazing. I thought that was so funny. Practical though...
"...the odor of phenolic resin..."
Haha, that's our Bob! I really like astronomy, I just don't have anywhere to really store the rig I'd like, but perhaps someday I'll have a house out in the woods and I can turn the attic into a converted observatory. That'd be a good use for my millions. Today I went up to Grammy and Grandad's house and looked at wild turkeys through binoculars. That was mighty cool in itself.
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