Introductions: How did you become interested in astronomy?

[GaspareSilverii]

Hi to all! : D I am a boy lover of photography, electronics, astrophysics and astronomy .. and I hope to learn something here with you!
Gaspare Silverii from Italy!

[owlice]

Welcome to Asterisk, Gaspare!

[OLT]

How, indeed.

At about age seven, as the stars were coming out on the Mohave Desert in Southern California, my father mentioned I might be able to see the moons of Jupiter. He gave me his binoculars, made sure I had the strap around my neck and I spent the next few hours looking at the moon, then Jupiter and Mars. I still recall waking up in the wee house of the morning, after the moon had set, and crawling out of the tent in the dark to resume looking, only to be shocked by how bright the moonless sky had become. The Milky Way in all its glory was stretched out above me. There was a slight glow to the south west in the direction of Los Angeles. Of course today much of the Mohave is as bright as Los Angeles use to be 60 years ago. But the memory has stayed with me. "A first moment of lasting excitement."

Terry - W6LMJ

[Prospero]

Of course today much of the Mohave is as bright as Los Angeles use to be 60 years ago.

**
Ah nostalgia, '56/57 now there was a solar cycle to remember, the present one should be ashamed of itself !

But I am surprised ! Please amplify !! Living in the crowded island of the UK one tends to think of (dream of,) 'wide open spaces' like the Mohave ? as ideal for astronomy.
So from what you are saying, perhaps not !

One interesting development over here, this side of the pond, is that a lot of local councils (municipalities? is that a translation?) are switching off general lighting (roads, parks buildings etc) after midnight till about 6am (mainly because of cost experiments, but also some "dark sky" campaigning)

Quite kinda spooky really to go into the middle of the local town and have a clear view of the milky way, andromeda galaxy and sporadic meteors overhead !
Not to mention the low profile of surrounding buildings compared with large trees in surrounding countryside obstructing the view from my conventional 'dark' sites !
and a stable concrete/tarmac base for my tripod !!

**
Oh sorry, I wandered off topic before I had begun !, it is an age thing !!
I got started when my dad gave me a long focus lens (planoconvex I think from an opticians basic?)) and I dismembered an opera glass for an eyepiece (negative)
I found and plotted the movements of Uranus amongst other things. And the colours were spectacular ! Never did find Pluto (hardly surprising it turns out !)
I later learned that its was a Galilean setup, boned up on chromatic aberation, built a 6inch newt,
and never looked back ,

[Oar]

Thank you for this beautiful 2014 calendar, a good friend of mine told me about your web-site. what a joy, and so generous! Olivia .

[Bill Davis]

I have a request. I have never seen an aurora and the depictions of them thru APOD have so far always been time lapse. I would like to see what an aurora is like in real time.

[geckzilla]

I have a request. I have never seen an aurora and the depictions of them thru APOD have so far always been time lapse. I would like to see what an aurora is like in real time.

As far as I know, this can only be simulated due to limitations of photography or video capture. Here is one such simulation:

Click to play embedded YouTube video.

Every "video" I have seen of the Aurora has been a sped-up time-lapse. This is because the aurora is too faint to record on a video camera, so long-exposure still images are stitched together and played at multiple frames per second. I wanted to show the graceful dance of the Aurora as it really happens, so if you have 11 minutes spare, take a look and let me know what you think! This is still individual images, but I've faded them together at the speed they really happen to give something closer to reality.

Other than these sorts of videos, if you want to see them in real time you will have to make plans for the northward trek to see them with your own eyes.

[Beyond]

OR, you could try AURORA MAX Live.
http://www.asc-csa.gc.ca/eng/astronomy/ ... onnect.asp

[geckzilla]

OR, you could try AURORA MAX Live.
http://www.asc-csa.gc.ca/eng/astronomy/ ... onnect.asp

This image is refreshed every 10 seconds.

A useful tool for seeing current conditions but that's not a very smooth interval.

[Beyond]

It's been a long time since i visited there. When there was an actual aurora going on, it wasn't refreshed every ten seconds. And of course they have replays of them in the archives. Things are always changing, but not always for the better.
Oh yeah, used to be when i went there, you could hear crickets. Mood music, i guess.

[BMAONE23]

Sarah
welcome to the starship asterisk
Happy posting

[Bigdaddy]

When I was ten and saw the moon through a telescope for the first time. Put a digital camera to the lens and got a 1/100000 pic.

Best,
BD

[jsanchezjr]

Well, this is my first post here so I'm glad to join this forum. I'm a very amateur on all this but I have so much interest in all that is out there. And sorry for my english, is my second language

[Megalodon]

My true persona (more or less) is Nancy. I live in the delightful little village that is Spring Green Wisconsin, near Frank Lloyd Wright's amazing Taliesin (shining brow), the Wisconsin lower water way and good people of all persuasions. I think it possibly be considered a northern Taos or Santa Fe. Scenery is great. I'm in heaven and after 58 years, I found my real home.

I guess I can blame every thing on my parents. My mother always found the delightful wonders in life. Dad provided the expansive science knowledge and his latin names for every living thing he encountered. He was home schooled by his mother, my very formidable grandmother, stong, intellegent, firm and loving in her own way.

She is the one who gave me my first astronomy book when I was five. I do remember, vividly, one night we went up to the top of a hill, out in the country west of town, climbed up on the Buick and saw one of the summer meteor showers cranked up to full blast. Thanks to my family, I tested out of Astronomy my last trimester in school with an A. With that, I had 22 credits that grading period, and on the Dean's list.

Due to my family, I have interests in everything, but there is nothing more spectacular than seeing the night sky, especially with glorious Orion in the sky. It holds so many treasures!

[jsanchezjr]

This is my story: I'm 36 years old, my job software developer and live in a urban area in Puerto Rico near the capital, San Juan. We are here w/o many dark places, so much light pollution. So if you want to see a full blast night sky you will need to go very inside the Island. I see a full starry night only once(and thanks of a black out...) so I don't see to much of the grates celestial wonders. But since I've been affiliate to a astronomy association here in PR(about a year ago), I could see and meditate on some of these creation that are out there. Here, in my opinion, is a perfect place for me to expand my interest in this amazing field. Great explanations, scientific concepts but easy to understand. So, I can't wait to explore this whole place

[lauradaltry]

Hi, I'm excited to find this site. My father worked in navigation and guidance for NASA for the first manned landing on the moon in 1969 and throughout the Gemini missions, so astronomy and space exploration were a huge, fascinating part of my childhood. Laura Daltry

[jjjnettie]

Hi,
I've always had a passing interest in space and astronomy, fueled by my relentless consumption of science fiction books and tv shows. But it came to a head when my two youngest boys studied Astronomy in Primary school in 2004. The school had an Open Night with an amateur astronomer giving tours of the night sky through his scope. My first view of Omega Centauri knocked my socks off.
I bought the boys their first telescope that year for Christmas, but it was me that got hooked instead.
After spending a couple of years observing and trying to do some sketching, I finally gave in to the "dark side" and started astro imaging.
Over the years I've been fortunate enough to have had a modocum of success with it too. An article commissioned on the topic for a US mag in 2009, a couple of covers in the UK for The Astronomer, then I was shortlisted for the Royal Observatory Greenwich "Astronomy Photographer of the Year" in 2012. In 2013 I was approached by NASA to supply 2 images to use in their display at the Goddard Spaceflight Center's "Visitors Centre".
I'm quite proud of my achievements in the hobby so far, especially considering the equipment I use is fairly basic off the shelf gear.
I'd like to show other women out there that Astronomy isn't the "boys club" that it was a few years ago. There should be more of us out there on the field, giving them a run for their money.
Cheers,
Jeanette Lamb

[objetivonocturno]

We are a group of 4 photographers that interest in astronomy because we begined to take night photos, and landscapes with stars and milky way

[KiethHoyt]

I became interested 12 years ago when my dad bought a 12" Meade telescope. Overtime we have built a dome in his backyard, added so many accessories to take pictures and long-term images, that it has become a pretty penny. The kicker for me was when I looked through the lens and saw Saturn's rings. The realization of how beautiful the universe is struck me, and I have been hooked ever sense.

[ellesmith]

My interest in Astronomy was generated before I was born.
My Dad was Army Air Corps - "Smitty the Flight Mechanic" - guys in the skies! It sounds like a children's book and might be.
After the war, his wife and all three children loved science and technology and would read and study and know the stars. Easy to pick out the constellations on the hills and at the harbor in my home town on any clear evening! The men talked flight and important sci-tech men were Dad's friends and at 6, I knew things.

One Christmas Dad and a helper, with the rest of us as assistants, built a three dimensional Christmas Star, its wooden ribs and stand covered with crumpled foil for strength and reflective faceting and Outdoor Christmas lights of the late 50s. Such a show, atop our home till January 6th, was not so common then, so people came to see it from all around! Each year, the anticipation grew as we'd change the foils, lights and colors, all of us doing any part assigned with delight!
REACH FOR THE STARS ! One of the boys on the block became a pilot and hero. I was blessed to study Astronomy one further in college under NASA's Phil Stern and found it easy and "in my element". My brother a skydiver and red beret in Viet Nam!
That Christmas Star was work but it was worth it because it was a SIGN - a prophet and prophecy - because a few years later the same hands of my Father made more foil art! This time, though, you saw it, too! It was the first mylar foil for NASA , the stuff we see in the Lunar Landing Module Photos from July 20, 1969.

Today I am finally doing up final drafts of the Astral and aero images as part of the art = and APOD is part of every day. Do you think this story is a good one to share - all true!

[ellesmith]

Hi, alll

New here - again.
I found you a few years ago and enjoy APOD daily widget on my mac for years.
My Astronomy backgrond is below and I invite you to enjoy it.

I AM NOT MARKETING HERE - I edit at Wikipedia sometimes and would do this for Starship Asterisk.
NASA and space friends are friends in a heartbeat. Ask me.

I am in arts lifelong - topics that blend the two would be fun for me, as well.
I had one at the WhiteHouse and doing arts shows on this topic probably now and forever - my life more and more each year. Ask me.....

My Astronomy life? Happy to learn and share and research on all these topics

- aero history in my homestate with "WhiteHead's planes", Connecticut USA life in the stars art on view now -
- on thru WWII where my Dad did for AAC in US / UK and Morocco as "Smitty the Flight Mechanic" .
- on to Sikorsky's helicopter, since one of his team was our next door neighbor and his daughter my first best friend , thanks to "Operation Paperclip"
- on to the DuPont Coated Fabrics plant where his hands made NASA's first gold mylar for the Lunar Landing Module
- on to my Astronomy classes with Phil Stern and his protege, the Rhodes Scholar Mike Balzano
- on to APPLICATIONS - I never got to do my outreach during our own children's growing years , but kept Phil Stern's textbook on my shelf, till it was stolen...will find a copy I hope. He was on the radio in my hometown, but all his things are un-findable for some reason - I am being the sleuth and will find him once again, though he is certainly no longer living.
- on to NASA online outreach and Jane Houston Jones, distributing things in my community about the Saturn campaign
- and on to Extra-terrestrial coloniztion - our hope for the future!

[Ravensfan]

I had a passing interest when I was a teenager but became fascinated later while in the U.S. Air Force. I was a weatherman and the first half of my USAF career (23yrs) I was a Weather Observer and spent countless nighttime hours looking at and contemplating the sky. If there was one thing that really got me into Astronomy was Carl Sagan's COSMOS series. I was totally hooked after that show & book.

[CharliePatriot]

Fascinating stuff. Have a question; is the Rosetta still attached to the comet.? Haven't heard about it for some time now.

[geckzilla]

Fascinating stuff. Have a question; is the Rosetta still attached to the comet.? Haven't heard about it for some time now.

http://asterisk.apod.com/viewtopic.php? ... 07#p239407

[Boomer12k]

4th Grade...introduction to Astronomy, and did a report on Mars. 6th grade, first telescope. The old white, TASCO Refractor model. Renewed interest with friend in 8th grade and beyond. Goal on Career Day...Become an Astronomer...but I forgot that goal, and went into Music for College...just as well, not very good at MATH.... In college did slideshows for Science projects, with JAMES BOND MUSIC....cooooool... Used to take my Tasco out to a site and try to find Mars.

Next scope was a Jason Refractor, wanted to have something that tracked, but generally only used the slow motion dials. Nice little scope... but I HUNGERED for more detail, and I wanted to see GALAXIES...and know that is what I was looking at. In 2006, I moved up to serious amateur with the 10inch Meade LX 200 with GPS..and the thought..."OMG!!! WHAT HAVE I DONE????". It was the largest scope that I could handle alone. It sits on a homemade cart, by a friend, and I can move it out to the end of the driveway. But, while I could see a galaxy, and knew that was what it was...there was only a slight faint patch...DULL!!! NEED MORE DETAIL....enter Photography, (which is really what it takes)...OK, so it is just the cheaper Meade DSI 2 color camera, but it fit the bill, (for now). And have been doing what little I can, for the enjoyment of it. Next goal someday...better camera. Also DSLR camera to take night sky pictures of the galaxy, and such...and some filters for hard to see objects.

*** in the late 80's or early 90's, there was a show on Public Broadcasting on a college. They had a 24 inch scope, and it was hooked up to a CCD camera...and there, on a small monitor was a LIVE SHOT of a GALAXY, REAL TIME,...and THAT was what gave me the idea THAT, "THAT" is what I wanted some day. *** It was the inspiration for my goal.

Clear Skies...
:---[===] *