[X] My Assistant

[dvandorn]

I recorded an interesting documentary this last Thursday, and I'm just now getting a chance to watch it. (Gotta love these digital video recorders...)

It's entitled "Seeing in the Dark," and it discusses the current state of amateur astronomy, with some nice information about its history. The biggest, most interesting thing is how many amateurs are now pulling their data from remote sources; there are tons of "time-share" 'scopes out there, which are financed by hundreds or thousands of eager amateur users, that collect photons onto digital camera systems and deliver their images to the amateur investigators via the internet.

It ran on PBS. I would hope it gets re-run at some point.

-the other Doug

[dvandorn]

My own memories from childhood include the 3" reflector I got for Christmas in 1969. The most dangerous thing that happened to me in my youth was using the sun filter on that scope to look at sunspots. I was gazing intently into the eyepiece, watching with fascination as the sunspots slowly slid across the sun's face, when the filter cracked with a loud snap and full, magnified sunlight came streaming through the eyepiece.

Darned good thing I flinched when I heard the crack, or I'd be blind in one eye right now.

I also remember using that same scope to study Comet Bennett in 1970. It was the first comet I ever saw that I can remember (Ikeya-Seki having disintegrated close to the sun before coming around to be visible to those of us in the northern hemisphere), and I was (barely) able to see the tiny dot of the nucleus within the coma.

As a slightly older teen, I was a member of my home town's astronomy club, which included rights to check out the keys to the club's 8" reflector located about 10 miles outside of town and away from most of the light pollution. I was able to find the valley at Taurus-Littrow on the Moon with that scope, as well as seeing Syrtis Major and Sinus Meridiani on Mars. Plus a wondrous view of banded Jupiter and its attendant moons, and ringed Saturn. I also for the first time was able to directly see structure in the smudge that is M31.

It's been a long while since I have actually looked into the eyepiece of a telescope... but those childhood experiences molded my interest and enthusiasm for the rest of my life.

-the other Doug