A BACKGROUND
I became fascinated with astronomy about 26 years ago after my father took
me to Jakarta Planetarium and showed me a meteorite that was displayed there.
According to my parents, for a whole week after the visit , I couldn't stop wondering
how was it possible for a rock to fall out of the sky. I asked everyone I met about this,
but no one could answer my question.
Ever since, whenever some one asked me what I want to be when I grow up, I always
said "I want to become a professor of astronomy" I didn't know that it's called
"astronomer". Unfortunately I ended up being a lawyer. Ouch.
Years later (about twenty five years later) a friend of mine, Donald Rosenfield, told me this:
"To become an astronomer, first you get a Bachelor's degree in mathematics
and then a Master's degree in mathematics. Then you get your Ph.D. in
astronomy or astro-physics. Then you work in an observatory on the kinds of
problems chosen by the observatory director. An alternative is to be a
Professor at a university, where you teach those subjects that you can get
your department chairman to agree to let you teach. As an amateur astronomer
you choose what parts of astronomy that you wish to concentrate upon without
somebody telling you what to do. I was lucky in that as Director of the
Planetarium I got to choose my subjects there and in the classes I taught."
My favourite part of his message is "As an amateur astronomer you choose what parts of astronomy that you wish to concentrate upon without somebody telling you what to do." I love it :-)
When I was in the sixth-grade I bought a pair of Zenith brand binoculars using the money
I has saved. I hid the binoculars for two weeks, because I was afraid that my parents would
get mad if they found out I spent my money on "things like that".
Fortunately, when they finally found out they didn't get mad, they just shook their heads.
So, I spent as much time as I could under the starry sky armed with those binoculars,
without really knowing what I was looking at, or what I was doing.
I used to climb the kitchen roof and looked into a dark, light pollution free sky.
I would wonder if there's another kid like me, up there on another planet
watching the stars just like what I was doing, you know a kid's imagination.
For a long time, I just enjoyed the night sky without really knowing what I was doing.
My family wasn't rich, so after my first visit I never visited the planetarium again until years later. The planetarium was 15 km away from our house, to get there I had to take a bus (had no car nor a driver to drive me there) and I couldn't go there alone for my parents wouldn't allow me to.
Come to think of it, it's a kida funny ,isn't it? I thought the planetarium was so far away. It's 15 km away, took me an hour to get there. I didn't know that the stars are farther away. I didn't know that the light from the stars and other sky objects took years, thousands of years and millions of years to get here.
Astronomy literatures were not available back then, maybe they were available in a library somewhere, but I didn't know. Even today if you go to any bookstore here
and search for astronomy books you won't find any.
Aside from the Time-Life book that my
father bought, titled "Universe," I had no other resource of knowledge for astronomy.
By the way, my father is a great guy. Instead of taking his children to a cinema or amusement park
he bought us books, which were more expensive than tickets to an amusement park.
He subscribed to the Time-Life book series, which was really expensive then. The subscription for the series was one fifth of his salary. So our library was filled with books of this kind.
As I said earlier, I did my observations without any objective. It wasn't until 1986 when comet Halley returned, that I had my first observation with an objective, i.e. to see the comet.
I spent many nights patrolling the sky searching for it. I had no guidance on where to look. The only guidance I had was an article in a local newspaper, which said (if memory serves me)to look for the comet somewhere in Centaurus.
I had no idea where the constellation is, until one night one of my neighbors
came up with a planisphere (boy, was I surprised to know there's such a thing called a "planisphere"). We searched for the comet together, using Alpha and Beta Centaurii as the reference stars. That's why I remember Centaurus. Unfortunately we couldn't find it.
It took me a few more nights before I finally saw comet Halley. When I saw it , I was somehow disappointed because it wasn't as spectacular as I had expected. It looked like a fuzzy ball, not spectacular, but at least I saw it.
In 1992 I first heard of Amateur Astronomy and the people known as backyard astronomers.
My cousin Emiko, who lives in the US, and knew about my enthusiasm in astronomy sent me a book by Terence Dickinson, the "NightWatch". Prior to that I had always though that astronomy was only for professionals working in observatories. I had no idea that astronomy is a hobby for some people and that it can be enjoyed and done from your backyard.
I read the book over and over again. Using a pair of binnoculars I borrowed from a friend, mine could no longer be used, I spent my time under the starry sky and learned my way around the heavens.
The book opened my eyes and opened a window into the universe.
Nevertheless, my activity as backyard astronomer was limited to identifying constellations,
watching meteor showers, and observing the sky with the binoculars.
It never crossed my mind to own a telescope.
Then one day while at a bookstore I saw
"Astronomy Magazine".
I bought it. It was a February 1993 issue and I bought it in December.
I was amazed when I saw the telescope ads. I'd never known that
a telescope can be bought by anyone. So I set a new goal, buy a telescope.
After a year of saving, I finally bought myself a scope, an 8" Meade SCT.
I waited a month for the telescope. When the scope finally arrived, I had to wait for
another three months before I could use it. The scope arrived in the middle of the rainy season.
With this scope, I observe the night sky whenever I have time. I have been able to teach myself my way
around the sky, though I can not do it as often as I want to.
About a year ago, when my office finally installed the Internet, I added my magazine subscription with "Sky & Telescope." With these two magazines and my scope I enjoy the wonders of the heavens.
I used to be a proud owner of Meade 8" SCT (the picture up there), I still
have the scope, but now I'm a prouder owner of a 5.6" f/4.9 mirror that I made
myself.
The telescope is not finished yet, soon I hope. If you want to make your own
telescope, you can go directly to Telescope Making
That's a little story about myself.
WHAT THIS PAGE IS ABOUT
The purpose of this page is only to introduce amateur astronomy to anyone
who happens to visit my page, but has never heard of amateur astronomy before.
For those of you who are already amateur astronomers I hope this page
can be useful for you as well
In the following pages you can read about observing the night sky. I wrote
it in accordance with my experience so it doesn't necessarily mean the best way to
observe, but this is the way that works for me.
There are many other more experienced
amateur astronomers out there. Go to their pages to learn more about Amateur Astronomy and buy yourself some astronomy books.
If you have any ideas, tips or comments on what I have described here or have better ways to do your observations (I'm sure you do, because there ought to be a better way to do it), please let me know.
Links to other sites on the Web
Astronomy Magazine
Sky & Telescope
The Astronomical League
Messier data base
Herschel 400
International Dark Sky Organization
© 1997 bob@bahana.co.id
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