One way I became interested in Astronomy...

[ewomack]

I was lucky enough to have some friends in Uruguay who invited me to visit them over Y2K, now almost 20 years ago. They took me to a spot up the Uruguayan coast called Cabo Polonio for a week without electricity or plumbing. This week happened to overlap with the new year, so I would be in a very isolated spot when all of those calendars changed from 1999 to 2000. Of course, we all know now that nothing actually happened, but our group didn't know what to expect until about 3 - 4 days when the bus came to take us back to Montevideo.

While in Cabo Polonio, I was able to witness the most amazing night sky I have ever seen in my life. Nothing has yet come even minutely close to it. With no electricity and gazing up at the sky by the coast, I saw stars like I never saw them before. The Southern Cross was extremely prominent and Orion, for a Northern Hemisphere guy like me, was upside down, but one of my friends joked, "now you're seeing Orion the RIGHT way!" A few hours after the sun went down I was even able to see delicate shadows in the sand which must have been from the starlight. I don't remember the moon being incredibly prominent. I sat there for hours just gazing. It was incredible. Now I know a little what people must have felt like staring at the night sky hundreds or thousands of years ago. In the city, at least where I live, maybe a few stars pop out here and there, but it's never at all impressive. Too bad no one had a telescope or binoculars, but it was enough just to stare at that amazing sky without magnification.

I'll never forget it.

[Ozman]

As a child, we frequently visited close family in a small town 30 miles from the small town we live in. Back then there was no children seats or seat belt laws or any of those types of concerns. I would ride home at night laying behind the back seat underneath the sedan's big back glass looking up at the stars. I wanted to know about it all. I've never quit.

[notFritzArgelander]

I grew up in a rural setting out in the Middle of Nowhere, Pennsylvania. So the skies were very, very dark. I was totally unable to appreciate them, though.

Apparently I was dreadfully nearsighted. So my head was always in books learning how to read before I went to school. My folks finally figured out something was wrong. The clues were that I couldn't clearly see things they tried to point out to me: deer in the woods, rainbows, stars, a display at school. So I was fitted with glasses.

It was an astounding revelation seeing the Milky Way the first time, being able to discern individual leaves on trees. I was immediately hooked and a few months later for Christmas 1955 I was gifted a Tasco 40mm 40x erect image spotting scope. I've been trying to see better ever since.

[JayTee]

I grew up 3 miles from JPL (Jet Propulsion Laboratory), my dad worked at JPL. He would routinely bring home pictures from the Ranger, Surveyor, and Voyager spacecraft. It's almost like I didn't have a choice. It seems natural that for Christmas of 1965 I got a 60mm Tasco frac on a rickety wooden tripod. Crazily enough, that scope finished the process of getting me fully hooked into this hobby. Have been ever since.

Cheers,
JT

[helicon]

I've been interested in astronomy since as long as I can remember, even before I was reading astronomy books in the 1st and 2nd grade. My parents gave me the book "How to Find the Constellations" by H.A. Rey and I spent long evenings on the coast of Southern California doing just that. We lived about 20 miles north of San Diego so the skies were suburban/rural transition zone at the time. (Now they are much worse).

[Ylem]

For me it was a 3" cardboard newt in the Summer of 69, I was 9 years old.
I remember trying to see Apollo 11 on the Moon.

[Don Quixote]

I was fascinated as a child reading the story of some men who had watched the stars and according to the story followed one of them to Bethlehem. I had a hard time understanding how they could do that. I have always lived in the country and would look straight up and pick out the star I thought was directly over me and wonder if someone far away could figure out where I was if I told them I was standing under that star. I never had the opportunity to test that childish thought. Now I understand how that could actually be done.
That story may be a myth or maybe not, but it was my earliest recollection of wondering about the stars. My brothers and I dreamed of building our own teleacope. We had a book instructing how to make lenses etc. The dream never came to fruition as a kid, but I always wanted to have a telescope.
And when my children were very young...I bought one for them...wink. wink.

[KingNothing13]

For me it was a 3" cardboard newt in the Summer of 69, I was 9 years old.
I remember trying to see Apollo 11 on the Moon.

My mom got me a 3" cardboard Newt for Christmas in 1986 - I remember being so excited - never really learned how to use it though.

And, at the time, I was SURE I had seen Uranus and Neptune with it. Now, 33 years later, I know that I did not.

[mcolbert]

I think that for me it was a slow maturational development into the state of astronomy . There was no revelation on the road to Damascus, but more like, as I grew and saw more of the world and its populace, Blake's "no man is an island" came to the fore and events in the night sky and the approaches in understanding the universe in which we live reflected better the nature of we humans compared to studies in psychology, psychiatry, philosophy etc.

[Larry 1969]

I was always deeply interested but young and broke.... There was a "star party" at my local observatory some 25 - 28 years ago and I and some friends went.
There was a lunar eclipse and they were saying during the event you could see the rings of Saturn. SIGN ME UP! I'm super excited!
That night started out pretty cloudy so my friends and myself found our way to the local bar. I was 21 - 24 or so. We got a bit loaded and left at about midnight.
We stepped outside and it was pretty clear! LET'S GO!!!
We get there and there are amateur astronomers everywhere. We make our was to the two big telescopes. One focused on the moon and the other on Jupiter.
The moon was less than spectacular. I did notice the image was inverted and the host told me that that was because there were an odd number of optics in that scope..... Cool....
Then on to Saturn! I see what appears to be a star with a line straight through it..... How VERY disappointing! I was convinced that I would NEVER be able to see anything cool......
Fast forward 25-28 years. My (now 21 year old) son expresses an interest in the hobby. We save our money and my wife matched what we saved and called it our "Christmas present"!
We got a Skywatcher 10" collapsible GoTo Dob last year and all I can say is "WOW"! I'm not sure what went wrong at the observatory all those years ago but we're hooked now!
I just started imaging a few months ago and that's a lot of fun too! Now that we're interested, we read a lot about it and all the MIND BLOWING stuff out there!!!!!

[Max Nomad]

Like Larry 1969, I was always deeply interested in Astronomy but young and broke. Back in college I had this dream of mounting a small telescope on my roof and covering it with a glass dome (yeah, yeah, I hear ya; I didn't know what a real DIY observatory required). For years the telescope remained on my "gonna buy one someday" list. A few years ago I was looking for a possible gift to get my niece and nephews. I had found one of the Travel Scopes. The plan was to buy one for them, one for me, and then I could learn with them and walk through using the scope. After a conversation with my oldest nephew he talked me out of getting them this gift (they live in Los Angeles). I decided to go ahead and get my scope anyway. It took less than an hour to get hooked. And to keep from spending ridiculous cash I also made the promise that I wouldn't buy any more scopes until I finish the Astronomy League's Messier Program. Living within city limits under Bortle Scale 7-8 skies it's been a bit slow going; I don't mind the trip.

Whether with the scopes or binos, stargazing has become a form of meditation for me. Although I have a dedicated astronomy laptop and menagerie of astronomy apps on my phone I still tend to stick strictly analog while navigating the skies. If nothing else, star-hopping demands patient persistence. Add in the ritual of the set up and it becomes an awesome way to unplug from the Matrix.

[helicon]

For me it was a 3" cardboard newt in the Summer of 69, I was 9 years old.
I remember trying to see Apollo 11 on the Moon.

My mom got me a 3" cardboard Newt for Christmas in 1986 - I remember being so excited - never really learned how to use it though.

And, at the time, I was SURE I had seen Uranus and Neptune with it. Now, 33 years later, I know that I did not.

My first scope was a 30x30 "refractor" with a draw-tube focuser. KInd of looked like a pirate's scope. Of course, at 30x impossible to handhold, so I used the flimsy tabletop tripod. I did manage to see the moon and Jupiter, but that was it. My next scope was a 60mm f/12 refractor on a wooden tripod given to me by my uncle by some unknown Japanese manufacturer. Actually the image quality was OK. With that one I was impressed with the Orion Nebula, the moon, Jupiter, and Saturn as well as the double cluster. It came with two .965 eyepieces which I still remember. A 20mm Symmetrical and a 10mm Ramsden.