What Got You Into Astronomy?

[StarryEyed]

As a child we would have summer holidays in Ireland visiting relatives. In august coming back an night in the pitch black my uncle would make me stare out of the window counting shooting stars. I guess I was about ten or less and distinctly remember one night after arriving home that we all took a short walk down the country lane to get away from the house lights and WOW a billion stars I coylnt possibly count lit up the sky as if someone turned the light on in a dark room. Cris crossing satelites and dazzling planets when my uncle said we needed to go back in I said I wanted to stay a bit longer....................................................... Then I saw Carl Sagan and Cosmos then I discovered Patrick Moore and the Sky At Night. My mother used to let me stay up and watch that late in a Sunday night!!!

Now this is a funny thing I told my mother I wanted a telescope and she couldnt really aford it so with the help from my uncle I came to own a 60mm Tasco and saw Saturn with it. I owned the telrscope for some time and eventually that got passed back to my unclw.

Thirty years later I am still looking at the night sky missing both Carl and Patrick. This year for MY birthday I bought my uncle an 8 inch dob. Didnt tell him just ordered it and had it delivered to him in Ireland were it arrived yesterday. I figured I owed him a telescope.

I was out tonite looking at Jupiter thinking what a wonderful thing to be able to see.

Regards Kevin.

[carastro]

My Grandmother bought me a book called the World of Astronomy when I was 9 years old (still have the book to this day). 

I didn't know anything about astronomy before this and suddenly there was this whole universe to discover. 

Was absolutely glued to it and read it from cover to cover several times and by the time I had finished I knew how everything worked etc

Watched the Moon landings. 

OK Astronomy has moved on a lot since 19XX    but it gave me the basis of understanding and I've had an interest ever since, joining the astronomy class at grammar school and looked through a telescope.

Unfortunately boyfriends, marriage bringing up children and a singing career got in the way until Hale Bopp made an appearance and then my dormant interest became re-awakened and I've not looked back since.

Carole

[Paulo83]

After being made redundant as a warehouse operative about 18 months ago, I needed an excuse to wear my thermal long johns again. My current job doesn't give me that opportunity, so buying a telescope gave me a valid reason for staying out in the freezing cold for a prolonged period of time. 

Plus that Brian Cox geezer on the BBC is a pretty cool guy and I wanna be the next keyboardist in D:Ream.

[StarryEyed]

More chance of being the next man on the moon!

[DRT]

I am a 1965 baby so some of my earliest memories were of my Dad enthusing about the moon landings. I was hooked on space from a very early age and recall reading a book named "The Solar System" over and over again and drooling over the pictures of the gas giants. I also remeber watching Carl Sagan on TV pretending to be an early Brian Cox

For whatever reason it took me almost five decades to buy a telescope and attempt to see these wonderful objects for myself. I wish I had started much sooner

[Killie]

My dad was probably a bit of a space geek but what really did it was as book on the solar system he bought me from the school jumble sale when I was 5.

Since then I have just embraced the night skies.

[Robny]

My uncle got me interested, he always used to point out constellations, planets ansmd stars. I think most of the family got fed up of hearing it but I was amazed from an early age and wanted to know more.

I have a series of old astronomy books he gave because I shown interest and I still have them now.

Now...I share what I know with him, kind of returning the knowledge

Thanks to my uncle this interest of mine has cost a small fortune, but he had nothing to with astrophotography - that's my own doing and pain.

:blink:

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[Astro_Baby]

Some insane idea I would be able to see stars and planets - clearly deluded on that score living in the UK and should have known better - now moved on to another hobby.

[Graham Darke]

My grandfather. I vividly remember him telling me the stars were Suns and that was it, I was hooked. I remember the first thing he showed me through an optical instrument, The Pleiades, in his binoculars which I still have. He gave me my first telescope. He made his own 6 inch reflector using the empty tube from the middle of a roll of carpet. He took me to the Royal Observatory Greenwich and the London Planetarium as a kid. Little wonder I got so obsessed...

[Goonrdolly]

two people patrick moore and carl sagan

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[Tddun]

Saw Venus and Jupiter together on a winter evening when returning home from College. Didn't know what they were at the time, and being so bright and close together I was intrigued to find out! And then..

[pixelsaurus]

Probably a combination of my father taking outside one night and showing me Sputnik ( I was 5), and my mother's copy of Sir James Jeans "The Universe Around Us". By the time I was 8, I had it well and truly read.

[DRT]

Probably a combination of my father taking outside one night and showing me Sputnik ( I was 5), and my mother's copy of Sir James Jeans "The Universe Around Us". By the time I was 8, I had it well and truly read.

How could you see Sputnik without an App to tell you where to look?

...and wasn't it about the size of a melon?

[jonbarr87]

Laying in the backyard as a kid and just gazing (naked-eye) and then asking what all the bright stars were. Then seeing the faint blur in Andromeda and wondering what it really was. Next day at school, I got an astronomy book and found that it was M31, a whole other galaxy! That sold me right there! Going on 20+ years of "active" gazing now Then the joy of random passer-by's and the kids when they see the moon or Jupiter, Saturn, M42 through a scope...... It's just amazing. 

[pixelsaurus]

How could you see Sputnik without an App to tell you where to look?

...and wasn't it about the size of a melon?

Apps in those days were printed on newsprint and had names like "The Daily Telegraph". Must have been a real big melon at 58cm   . From memory, I think it would have been around mag 3 but I could be wrong. At least LP wouldn't have been an issue of a city of probably 20,000.

[Knight of Clear Skies]

I've always had a interest, but the discoveries in the outer solar system such as Sedna and Eris were what really captured my imagination and got me reading.