How did you get into astronomy?

[Manok101]

As a little kid I was really into it, then forgot about it for a long long time, then I had a very difficult episode last year, and started looking for a new hobby that would if not cure me at least get me off the cycle I was in, I needed something relaxing, and remembered as a kid the telescope we used to have, much smaller than either of the two I currently own, but it got me hooked back then. I remember the pleadies and saturn the most. One day on a whim I just started with a pair of my dads binocs and started looking on the front porch, or wherever I felt like looking, the first constellation I saw was perseus, which is still one of my favorite constellations to look at. How did you get into it?

[gareththegeek]

I was always interested in space as a child but never got a telescope or anything. Then last year someone gave us a free telescope (only a cheap one but I wasn't complaining ) We managed to catch sight of Saturn and I was hooked so I unloaded my savings into an ED refractor and haven't looked back. Now if someone could just invent a weather machine...

[nightfisher]

for me it was about 15 years back, i had a great friend that was a keen astronomer, he had built an 8 inch newtonian and it was a lovely scope, though i never looked through his scope i got intrigued and bought a small (st80) scope, and never looked back, though i sort of lost my way for a few years and only got back into it last year

[russ]

I was always interested in space, rockets and the space shuttle when younger. Plus mum liked the Sky @ Night. So probably watched that from the age of 0 while she did the ironing on a Saturday afternoon.

Real interest sparked at the age of 12 with a pair of binoculars but then really kicked off at 13 with a Tasco refractor for Christmas '84. It was nice and clear that Christmas day night and a nice moon too.....still remember it like yesterday.

[SeedyF]

It was 1997 when comet Halle Bopp came round. I went out in the garden every clear night just to look with the naked eye. It amazed me.

My wife then clicked if she bought me a scope I would go out in the garden for hours on end and give her peace

[PeterM]

Kind of by accident. My wife and I moved to a village, the skies are noticeably darker than we'd been used to and when I would go and feed our rabbit at night I'd often spend ages in the garden just gawping upwards. So she bought me a scope for Christmas one year with a copy of Turn Left at Orion, and I've never looked back.

[Staffy]

I have worked as a deck officer on ships for the last twenty-odd years and so always had a working navigational knowledge of the stars - although this skill is seldom used these days thanks to GPS. My interest grew though a couple of years ago when I was actually travelling as a passenger on a cruise ship with my fiancee who worked onboard. It was a Baltic cruise and the weather was lousy for the most part and so I visited some talks on astronomy given by the Cruise Director, a very keen and knowledgeable astronomer and also a great presenter. At the end of the cruise I went home and suitably enthused, found my nearerst telescope shop and bought my first scope. I have looked up a lot since then but I've never looked back.

[garethmob]

well im only 22 but i first got really really interested into astronomy with hally bop fascinated me

about a year later we had a substitute teacher in my school dave thomas he was a physics teacher he was fantastic loved talking about it even brought a planetarium into the school hall for us all to look at i was even invited at the opening of the faulks telescope!

it turned out a few years later dave thomas was the leader of USK astronomical socity and a guest speaker at ebbw vale's and thanks to him iv been here ever since gazing at the stars i bought my first telescope the mead etx 70AT when it was brand new first came out could never really get it to work ironically until recently

memory s of the stars watching meteor showers and the different astronomical events will never leave me!

[gareththegeek]

The important thing is that no one on here is looking back

[Photosbykev]

a few years ago I was given a Televue 101 telescope but after a quick play I gave it away because observing didn't really interest me and to be honest observing still doesn't interest me that much.

Last year I took a stack of images of the milky way with a DSLR and I was hooked and I now seriously regret giving the telescope away lol

[Mr Spock]

Um, it was about 1968... I couldn't stop looking up and wondering.

About that time I tried to make a telescope out of some old camera lenses. Couldn't see a thing! All I got was a complaint from the neighbour opposite that I was spying on her - lol. That psycho still lives there, and still thinks all my astro kit is for spying...

[russ]

a few years ago I was given a Televue 101 telescope but after a quick play I gave it away

blimey, i wish someone would give me a TV 101 :)

[xyz]

Was always interested as a school boy, member of the school Astronomy club etc. and watched Sky at Night religiously. Left it aside for many, many years took up and dropped other hobbies and then for my 25th anniversary of working for the same company (largely in the space business) my colleagues gave me a Celestron Astromaster 90 AZ. Bingo, the interest was re-kindled, I have now moved up to a 8" Dob. and nash my teeth at every cloudy evening.

[bish]

My earliest memory of being interested in astronomy was when I was 6 or7. We had some really old encyclopedias in a cupboard and I used to spend ages looking through the space section (and probably the bit about dinosaurs too). Several years later I saw the Sky at Night and Patrick Moore really fired my enthusiasm. I got a smalll telescope at about 13 and was fascinated with the moon but wasn't very good at finding much else! When I did my A levels and went to University astronomy was left on the back burner and then I started picking up books and mags again in the mid 90's (my mid 20's). My interest came and went until around 2005 when I settled down more and now it's my main interest all over again.

[PortableAstronomer]

For me it was from Physics lessons at school, from Newtonian laws force/mass/acceleration etc, and also some relativity and quantum stuff that I'm sure they don't cover in schools these days. I remember a question in my school exams where I was asked to calculate the wavelength of radiaton of matter falling into a black hole (x-rays of course) from the energies involved.

That gave me the insight to appreciate the scale of things out there. Never looked back since.

[Photosbykev]

blimey, i wish someone would give me a TV 101 :)

so do I now !! but I don't think it'll happen twice lol

[Psychobilly]

I was standing otside a shop selling telescopes when it all went dark.....

The next thing I knew I came round with a sore head empty pockets and boxes of gear piled up around me...

Seriously (or stupidly) I thought it would be easy to add deep star fields to nightime city scapes....

Now I think I have got 7 or 8 mounts , 5 or 6 scopes 6 DSLR's and boxes and boxes of junk... bit vauge on what I have eneded up with altogether because there's stuff out on long term loan all over the place ... and a silly shed in the corner of the front lawn...

Billy...

[russ]

so do I now !! but I don't think it'll happen twice lol

lol probably more chance of a lottery win ..... but that would be nice. Could have a fleet of TV 101's.

[Luke]

The missus and I were looking for a zoom lens for an SLR in Jessops, and we saw they had a telescope in there. We were curious about what you could see through it. I think we paid £30 for it.

I was a tad disappointed that stars looked like dots through it, but the moon was amazing, and I saw M31 through it. That was it, I was hooked.

I'd had no idea before that you could see GALAXIES and the like.

The mount was very light so wobbled easily, but I will always love that scope for those first amazing views!

I'm quite lucky that the missus is just as nuts about astronomy as me, it was great to get into the hobby and learn together.

[eriwig]

Always been interested in Physics from when I was wee - my mums favourite memories to share are the ones of me coming in to her and my dad when I was about 6 telling her all about quantum physics cuz I'd put my tv on dead early in the morning and had sat watching the OU programs! lol

Then thanks to some brilliant teachers in school I was well and truly hooked and the idea that we are such small parts of something so huge we can't even grasp it always give me tingles. I had planned to specialise my degree in astrophysics but ended up switching to pure and applied maths instead (long story!)

Would always spend the clear nights gawping up at the sky but just never had the nerve to go and spend the money on a telescope.. not sure why given my interest but hey! Thankfully my hubby took note and bought me my first scope for xmas just past and I've loved every minute I've been out since

He already knows this is going to turn into my main expense but as he plays Warhammer 40K for his hobby and has spent a fortune on buying Star Wars collectables he can't complain!

[BinocularSky]

I cannot actually remember not being interested in astronomy. My earliest memory was being incredibly excited by the Sputnik launch and listening when my Dad jury-rigged some radio kit to hear it, and desperately wishing I could see it -- but becoming aware of how much was up there. Reading Dan Dare in the Eagle played a part in keeping me interested, but the main thing was being dredged up under fantastic (for at least half the year) tropical skies. From the age of about 8, I obsessively drew stars, planets (all with rings!), comets and space-rockets on every bit of paper I had.

[LukeSkywatcher]

I'm nearing 37 now and i cant honestly ever remember NOT looking up at the stars.

[chard]

I grew up under dark Australian skys and never looked up.

Now that I want to see what's up there I have to do it from inner London. Hmm.

[Nexus 6]

I had a vague interest for a long time, but apart from getting a Tasco scope when I was around 14 I never really got too involved.

4 years ago I decided to buy a scope and get some observing done, it was one of the best decisions I have ever made, I really wish I had carried on as a youngster, must have missed some great events over the past 30 years!

[Astro_Baby]

I had a scope bought for me when I was about 11(ish) my memory is a bit hazy that far back. It was a good quality refractor but on a wobbly Alt/Az mount. Dad was always keen on anything to do with science/space/engineering and I suppose I am my father daughter. Dad knew a fair bit about constellations from his hobby which was sailing.

Back in the 60s when I was a child I was fascinated by the space race, landing on the moon, probes to outer planets. It was all heady stuff and back then I wanted to be an astronaut. School soon knocked that out of me and in truth I am too thick but brilliant with spanners - so NASA/ESA if you ever need a Soyux fixed you know where to come

Anyway I guess I forgot about space and stuff in my later teens then I met a guy who was my fiancee for a while and he bought me a telescope, this is way back in 1979(ish) period. Scopes were mega bucks back then. He bought me a 4.5" reflector on an EQ and I got back into it for a while. Then I found I had no time and the scope lay under the bed forgotten about, lots of different men, travel, half a dozen different careers and being a rock chick got in the way plus some bad habits and a passion for fast men with tats

About 4 years ago my partner and I bought a flat and when we moved in there was an empty space in the lounge and other half thought a telescope might look nice. They were thinking brass and rosewood but I thought we may as well have something functional and started reading and I guess the bug came back. Partner now wishes they ahd kept mouth shut or bought something like a light or flower display