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On a snowy evening the thing I had waited for finally arrived, my first real telescope. In the days of my youth I think I remember having a small pirate type telescope that I would look at the moon through. "Yea, that looks neat," I remember thinking as I looked through and saw the craters of the moon. That was the extent of my viewing.
Now, 36 and a father of three beautiful girls, I have a bit more time and patience for hobbies. My wife and I have discussed for a couple of years about getting a "good" telescope. With mouths to feed, however, that kind of money was out of the question.
Through a web site I found a great bargain, a 1000 X 118 reflector scope with a 6mm and a 20mm eyepiece. The price was great, so I couldn't pass it up. UPS promptly dropped it off on a snowy evening and boy was I exited.
Snow, snow, and more snow. Clouds, rain, snow....and waiting. There it sat in my living room, my new toy. I read the instructions about adjusting the finder, setting it up to polar north, and adjusting the equatorial mount. I read the instructions multiple times. I had never heard of these things before so this was a new, and a wee bit daunting, experience for me.
There it was and there I was. And we both waited.
On a Sunday afternoon, around 3:00 p.m., I was cleaning the chicken coop when I saw the first ray of sunshine I had seen in weeks. That sun meant one thing, the skies were clearing. I quickly got out the scope to adjust and train the finder on a distant object about ten miles away. The excitement was unbearable. I left my scope outside to acclimate it to the temps and to prepare for my first night of viewing.
After dinner the clouds poured in and I had to wait. Ah, but good things are worth waiting for. I had never looked through a quality scope before. Never. My thoughts of the pictures I see in books and on web site are that they are enhanced by computer, or airbrushed, or obtained by a multi-thousand dollar piece of equipment at a college somewhere.
Monday night. I drive home from work and the skies are clear. It's cold, but I don't care. The scope goes outside to acclimate. I go in to eat dinner and put the girls to bed. I'm almost too exited to think. After bedtime prayers, I go out into the 12 degree night.
I fiddle with the equatorial mount. The sky is moonless. I point the scope at what my sky chart says is Jupiter. To my naked eye it's merely a bright dot in the sky. My pessimistic brain quickly fills with thoughts of, "What if it just looks like a bigger dot in the scope."
I zero the dot in the recently calibrated finder, look through the 20mm eyepiece, and, lo and behold, there is a fuzzy dot that's round. At least I calibrated the finder correctly.
Still holding my excitement, I slowly work the fine-tuning controls to center the scope on Jupiter. Then, I focus and there it is. I could see a three-dimensional marble surrounded by black. A three-dimensional shadow on the edges so real that I felt I could reach out and hold it in my hand. The gray marble became even more amazing as the scope quieted down and I could see dark stripes traversing Jupiter horizontally.
I still remember what I said out loud to no one in the darkness: "My God. That's Jupiter. It's really there." Later that night, I saw something even more spectacular and amazing, Saturn and its rings.
I know this story sounds corny, but I wanted to share the experience and the excitement. I honestly haven't felt this way about something in a long time. We take a lot of things for granted in life. To actually see with your own eyes, however, a planet suspended in the night sky, to feel what Galileo or Newton or any other early astronomer must have felt, that is worth the price of admission.
If I can pass one thought along to anyone regarding night viewing, astronomy, and telescopes, it is no matter the cost it's worth the price. To know now that I have a tool to look at the never-ending sky is a charm, a treat, and a blessing that I can now pass on to others.
I will never look up in the sky and just see points of light. That Monday night, I became an amateur astronomer and I will forever be one.
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