A First Venture Into Astronomy

This week's post, the first on this new blog, is inspired by finding this old, tattered paperback book in my library:

Ever since I was a kid in elementary school in the 1960s, I've had an interest in the stars and planets.  I recall going on many class field trips to a planetarium at a local high school and being enthralled while watching the fascinating projected sky-gazing presentations. 

Of course, my classmates and I found it very funny when we learned that Orion, the Hunter had a huge cloud of gas under his belt, and that there was actually a star named 'Beetle-Juice'! 

Fortunately, I was able to move beyond these banalities and take a more serious interest in all things astronomical.

Around this time, National Geographic Magazine published an issue that contained a large pull-out Map of the Heavens. I glommed onto that map and it became my prized possession, enabling me to go outside on clear evenings to learn to identify the constellations, and figure out what parts of the sky in which I could follow the bright planets.

My folks happened to pick up on this interest, and before long I had this book. There is a huge amount of information crammed into this small package.

Thumbing through its pages, I've noticed that the book was written in a day when galaxies were still referred to as 'spiral nebulae' and 'island universes', and the Mount Palomar 200-inch Hale Telescope was the state-of-the-art in professional astronomy. 

We've learned so much in the intervening years...

Nevertheless, this little paperback edition became my astronomy 'bible'.  A short time later I had in my possession a small refractor telescope mounted on a very wobbly table-top stand. The aperture of this instrument couldn't have been more than 25mm, but I made do with it.

Armed with these items, I managed to make some marginally meaningful observations and learn how to navigate the night sky.

These early forays into the cosmos lasted well into my junior high years, but had pretty much waned by the ninth grade.

By that time, however, the groundwork had been established for what would come a few more years down the road.

That's for a future post.....