HansenAstro - History

History

I've had many people ask me how I got started in astronomy, so I thought I'd go ahead and add a page that includes my history, short as it is time-wise! Pictures of most of the equipment discussed here can be found on the Equipment page.

The Beginning

Like a lot of folks, I always had a passing interest in just looking up at the stars in general, and I usually paid attention to the big stories like eclipses and things. But what kicked off the bigger "obsession" was a chance morning in November 2004 when I got up a little earlier than normal because the dogs wanted out. I went out on the back porch with them, it was just after dawn twilight began so a little light but not all the way, and noted two bright objects very close together in the East. I knew enough that Venus was usually bright in the sky either in morning or evening so figured one was Venus, but wasn't sure about the other; I thought maybe Saturn. For some unknown reason it actually captured my attention and imagination enough that when I got to work, I looked it up and found the other one was actually Jupiter.

In the course of searching, I came across 3-4 good sites that had weekly "what's in the sky" e-mail newsletters and subscribed to them. I started looking in the sky more in the evenings, and when I got up early enough in the mornings. At that point, all I had was some little bitty "opera" type binoculars, cheapies at that. I actually didn't get real binoculars until a couple of weeks into December, got some 10x50s after reading some articles on one of the magazine websites, and also bought a couple of books and subbed to a couple of the magazines.

I made it all the way until the end of May 2005 before I finally got the itch big time to get a telescope. That's a pretty big deal for me; usually when I get into a new hobby, I go whole hog pretty much right away. LOL I made it 6 or 7 months this time. I also wasn't going out with the binoculars *every* night, especially in the spring, but in mid-May I was on vacation at my mom's in New Hampshire and had taken my binoculars because I knew her skies would be darker than mine plus had taken a couple of my magazines to read; I didn't get much viewing at her house due to clouds, but the couple of nights I had a little time, I could definitely see more than at my house, and that coupled with looking at pretty ads in the magazines got the scope bug going.

The LX200

So I did some research online and ordered a scope right at the beginning of June 2005. I first got a 10" LX200GPS. Long story short, the LX ended up being a lemon due to several problems, but it took about a month before I had a local retailer check it out for me because I thought it was just newbie error, stupidity and clumsiness.

The online vendor where I got the scope was pretty good about helping work with Meade to get them to take it back and authorize the vendor to issue a refund, although it took a little while (on Meade's end).

The RCX

By then, everyone was backordered on 10" LX200's but my local retailer had the 10" RCX in stock so I decided to get that from them because they could check it right there and make sure it was okay out of the box (that was before I heard about all the problems people have since had with the initial run of RCX's...I've been lucky and had no problems with mine).

6" Hardin DSH

In late June 2005, Hardin announced they were getting out of the retail dob business and essentially did a blow-out of their dobs, and sold the 6" Deep Space Hunter dobs for $99 -- that was one of those "why not get one, it's a steal!" kind of deals, so I got one of those. But I hardly ever used it and eventually it was given to friends for their daughter.

The Rest

Since getting the RCX and the DSH, I've accumulated a few more telescopes as well. I think I've become a scope junkie! Check out the Equipment page to see what else I have and to see pictures.

page last modified 2/17/2007