[Lvas] What Was Your First Telescope, And When?

[Fred Rayworth]

All,
 
Just thought I'd try to get some activity going here, as it's been rather dead lately.
 
So, I'm just curious what experiences all of you have had out there.
 
What was your first telescope and when did you get it? What could you see with it?
 
As for myself, my first scope was a SEARS 60mm refractor on an altazimuth mount. After trying to see Sputnik through that ship spyglass back in 57, I had a fascination with the sky. My mom and dad finally gave in and got me that SEARS scope for Christmas, I think, and it was about late 1965. It was so long ago, the eyepieces actually had metal barrels.
 
Outside of stars, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, and the Moon, I couldn't see much of anything with it. There were two reasons for this. One, the crappy eyepieces. The only one that bordered on decent was the 20mm Kellner. The 6mm and 4mm were like looking through soda straws, which at the time, was what I expected all telescopes to be like. The 20mm Kellner had a "huge" field, but I couldn't see anything like the photos on the box!
 
I once got a 4" carpet roll, made a massive mount, and stuck the scope inside that roll to make it look bigger. The psychology of that "huge" scope was one thing, but the physics didn't do anything for what I could see through it.
 
Needless to say, if I didn't already have a super interest in the sky, and especially Uranus and Neptune (at the time and that's another story), I might have given up. Then a friend at school told me his dad had some telescopes and invited me over. When he said his dad's biggest scope was 12", I thought "ooh wow," that's not as big as mine. I had no idea that was the diameter!
 
That night I went over for a visit, he pulled out a box-tubed 8" f-7 and showed me the Lagoon Nebula. I acutally saw purple color! As I grew up, I never saw that kind of color again, even in a 28". Guess it's what age does to the eyes.
 
Well, that's the start of my story. How about you?
 
Fred Rayworth
_________________________________________________________________
Instantly invite friends from Facebook and other social networks to join you on Windows Live™ Messenger.
https://www.invite2messenger.net/im/?source=TXT_EML_WLH_InviteFriends
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://lvlug.org/pipermail/lvas/attachments/20080608/fcfe64b6/attachment.htm