Hello my readers of the internet, I have a story today. It's the story of me and Astronomy, the first part at least, which is how I got into it, and a few of my first experiences with it. This series could stretch out into who knows how many entries. I plan on telling almost ALL of the story of me and Astronomy. You don't have to read it all, as it is rather extensive, but you can if you want to. Now, this blog post could go either way, it could be amazing and well written and easy to understand, or it could be confusing and incoherent because I'm really tired right now. Wish me luck. I shall start now:
Anyone who knows me knows I LOVE LOVE Astronomy. I mean, look at my blog, there is a NEBULA in the background. How many blogs have nebulae as their backgrounds? I don't really know, but I know mine does. That's not just any old nebula, actually it kind of is, but I took that picture. I took it with a 6 inch refracting telescope in Mayhill, NM. It was epic. This was a 90 minute exposure, at least I think it was. Wait, what am I doing? This isn't an entry about the background picture! This is my attempt to explain to everyone my how I got into astronomy...let's try this again:
Why do I love astronomy? That's a good question. It's hard to put into words. Try asking yourself why you love your favorite thing...It's not as easy to answer as you may think, is it? Let's start with how I got into it. It's a very random sequence of events, and timing was strangely important. In February 2010, during the epic snowstorm, I was at my mom's house, and we were watching National Geographic, specifically "The Dog Whisperer." One of the commercials was for a little miniseries NatGeo was doing called "A Traveler's Guide to the Planets" premiering that weekend. I thought "Hmm, that looks interesting, I should watch that, I don't think I'll be going anywhere as there's a crap ton of snow." I then proceeded to completely forget about it. That is, until May of the same year. I was supposed to be studying for finals when I suddenly remembered that program. I thought "Finals can wait, I wonder when it's on next!" I then proceeded to go to the NatGeo website to find out if/when it's coming on again. To my surprise, it was on then! At least, four of the six episodes were on, and I'd missed one (the Mars one). But, since I was desperately trying to procrastinate (I procrastinate studying by watching educational television, I'm that awesome), I thought "To the television!" And then proceeded to watch the episodes on Venus + Mercury, Saturn, and Uranus + Neptune. <random opinion>If the show hadn't been on then at the time I was looking, I don't think I would have ever watched it, as I would have most likely forgotten about it again, and in turn may have never gotten into astronomy. That is the one day where I'm SO VERY glad I was procrastinating on that specific day at that specific time, or I may not be where I am today.</random opinion>
After seeing the show, the planets (at the time, specifically Venus) were all I could think about. I went to the interwebs to find the other three episodes and watched them with my undivided attention. After that, I was hooked. After finals and school were over, I spent that entire summer reading and learning all I could about astronomy, and at the end of June (specifically June 30th, 2010) I got my very first telescope! The one I still use today. I was SO happy when I got it. What was more awesome, we got it on special or something, so it came with a BUNCH of eyepieces and lunar and planetary filters, so I was set. I was SO excited to use it that night. I looked at Saturn, Venus, and I attempted to look at a bunch of DSO (Deep Sky Objects), but I was still a wide-eyed young lad who didn't know about light pollution, so when I saw nothing I just blamed it on bad alignment and moved on. About a week later, I learned about light pollution. I learned that Pittsburgh has very bad (though not as bad as some other places) light pollution. I also realized that Up North (Torch Lake Village, MI. My grandparents have a house on the beach there) does not have bad light pollution. So, I was all like "OMG (as I wasn't an atheist yet) LET'S GO UP NORTH LIKE NAO" and then we did, albeit like 3 weeks later. My telescope came with us, and it was AMAZING. That was the first time I'd ever seen the Milky Way, and I loved it more than anything I'd ever seen before. Everyone was there too! My cousins, my two uncles, and soon-to-be step aunt. They all loved looking through my telescope. It was awesome. We stayed for a while. Even though all of the Dolans left, the Nuñezes who were there stayed a bit longer. They stayed long enough to see the beginnings of the Perseids, and that was awesome. Then they left and I got to see the peak of the Perseids up there, and it was amazing. Then, I came home, and did a little bit more observing from my various yards, and then Summer 2010 was over, and I was sad. I didn't do as much observing during the school year as I would have liked, but there is one night I will remember for a long time. It was Columbus day weekend and we didn't have school on Monday. It was a clear night so I decided to stay outside with the scope really late. I ended up seeing objects I'd never expected to see, at least at that time of year. I managed to see The Andromeda Galaxy, The Pleiades Cluster, The Orion Nebula, and the Horsehead Nebula all in one night. It was awesome.
So, that was my 2010 astronomy experience, in which I discovered Astronomy. On to 2011, in which...
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