my first telescope was a 3" refractor
on a azimuth mount. The kind most kids
start with. It was a present from my
Mother for my 13th birthday. i can still
remember how amazed i was at seeing the
craters on the moon and the rings of
Saturn!

i grew up in a 30's farm house in Orange
County, California. It was dark enough
back then to faintly see the Milky Way.
i still recall orange groves everywhere.
In fact, i can still remember driving
along Interstate 5 in back of the old
station wagon and smelling the orange
blossoms.

Irvine Ranch was a farm not a city!
It stretched from the coastal
mountains to the beach. Newport Beach
had no buildings over 3 stories high.
Oh yes, it was still a place where one
could enjoy the stars.

i even remember the shop in Long Beach
where Cave Telescopes were made & sold.
These were great scopes and had the best
mirrors.

But in time the little 3" had showed me
all it could and went into the basement.
It wasn't until 1986 during the return
of Haley's Comet that it finally saw light
again. Now it sported a nice dint on the
tube and a lot of scratches. But when
i took the dust covers off the objective
was in great shape!

We drove out Santiago Canyon road in
January with some friends and found a
group of people set up in a roadside
turn out. i eagerly put the scope
on its tripod and with someone's help
saw Haley's Comet for the 1st time.

That night i looked through some larger
scopes and was hooked! The next day i
went and bought my first Sky & Telescope
magazine so i could learn more. The sky
charts for the comet were great and i
followed the comet until it was gone.

i also found out that there were amateur
astronomy clubs listed in the magazine.
This was when i decided to join the
Orange County Astronomers and get more
into the hobby.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orange_County_Astronomers

In 1987 i joined the Orange County
Astronomers and was sent my first
news letter. In it they listed the
next Star Party for the Saturday
nearest the New Moon that month.

The OCA's dark site is 90 miles
away in Riverside County, near the
small town of Anza. We drove up
into an area 25 miles NE as a crow
flies from Palomar Observatory.
In fact we could see the 200"
telescope's white dome just over
the next ridge.

Here i was amazed once again by
the night sky. The club had been
up and running for around 10 years.
They had the club's Kuhn 22" cassegrain
in a roll off observatory. This was
hand built by Bill Kuhn in his garage.
Bill and the scope even made it into
the old Telescope Makers magazine.

At the time John Sanford was President
and Wayne Johnson was Vice President.
They ran the 22" like pros, Wayne even
discovered a number of Supernovae with
it. I recall John was glued to the
C-14 in the SW corner of the observatory
most of the time. They were the best of
host and everyone had a great time!

_________________________________________
 
 

After a year of being a member of the
Orange County Astronomers i was in love
with the dark sky. So i started to look
for a place where i could build my own
observatory.

In January of 1989 i bought my 1st house
it was not next door to the OCA but was
close by. The place i feel in love with
was 2 miles out of Anza's village
center. It sat 4,200 feet on Table
Mountain, the eastern most section
of Anza Valley.

The view to the west is hay fields in
the Winter and potatoes in the Summer.
Then off on the horizon sat the beautiful
rock and jagged peak, Cahuilla Mountain.

To the East loomed Santa Rosa Mountain
and then desert below. The North was
just fields with a ranch or two then
Thomas Mountain 6,500 feet tall, and
peaking up from behind it San Jacinto
at 10,000 feet.

The view to the South: The observatory
dome on top of Palomar, just three
mountain ridges away. But by far the
BEST view was the Milky Way. To walk
out my front door and see the Milky Way
made me feel like i was in the best
place on the planet.

By the Spring of 1989 I had completed my
own observatory, housing a C-11. i was
so happy to roll off that roof and
search the night with my Sky Atlas
2000.0 to the sound of coyotes howling.

i left the fast growing suburbs of Orange
County in 1989 and bought my first house
in Anza Valley where it was dark and i
could do my astronomy.

Now the trick was how was i going to get
by? All i had was a lawn mower and a pick
up truck. Before i bought this place under
the Milky Way i worked 2 jobs. Mowing
lawns during the day, then at night
degreasing large dealership garage
bays. This gave me the down payment
on my rural property with a 15 year
mortgage. But i was nearly broke.

my wife worked selling Insurance off
the hill and i mowed lawns on and off
the hill. It took 2 years to really
start making some good money, like
with anyone building a business from
scratch. The Landscape business was
like poker, "i kept the High cards and
tossed the low ones (Re: my accounts)."
After time i only did rider mower
work on large horse ranches and
even moved up to a tractor with
a brush hog and did large 5 ac.
fields too.

It was great, in time i did all the big
places in Anza, the Bank, Post Office,
even had the contract with Anza Electric.
At night i looked through my scopes,
during the day i did my landscaping.
With no time clocks to punch i finally
had it made.

i never ran an add in the papers, it
was all word of mouth. i showed up when
i said i would show up, i treated their
property like it was my property. Always
going the extra mile, and even had a
sliding scale for the poor and the
retired folks who i worked for.

At this time i was still going out to
the Orange County Astronomers dark site.
By now living under dark skies made me
a pro. Going to the star parties no
longer required the 100 mile drive.
i was 15 minutes away, and just loved
the small town life. Not to mention my
scope had an observatory, so no more
hassle with set up and tear down.

Living in Anza my landscape business
had no competition to speak of. Now
with things going so good i was in
the position to add on to the C-11's
observatory and get a bigger scope.

By 1991 i was getting a server case
of aperture fever. Just up the mountain
from Anza is the beautiful Mountain
town of Idyllwild. This is where
the legendary Coulter Optics
was located. They made the most
affordable dobs on the planet
and always ran adds in Sky &
Telescope.

So for $995 dollars i bought the
17 1/2 inch model and installed
a pair of digital setting circles.
Now i had my dream scope! The new
big dob had its own observatory,
with a 11 X 11 roll off roof.
This sat right next to the C-11's
observatory and made it easy to
go from scope to scope.

With the big scope, i could really
resolve those globular clusters
and hunt down those faint galaxies.
The galaxy clusters were just so
much fun to do. And in a few years
i had seen nearly every object
plotted on the old Sky Atlas 2000.0

By now everyone in Anza knew me as
"The Astronomer". It was known as
the place where people could come
by for a look through "a real big
scope".

i loved going to the Orange County
Astronomers Star Party with the new
17 1/2 inch. Just put that big red
tube on a mattress in the back of
the pick up, strap her down and go.
At this time it was the biggest
scope in the lower pad area and
always gave the best views.
_______________________________________

By July of 1994 i had my two observatories
up and running for 5 years. The Hubble
space telescope was up and running too.
Every scope on the planet big and
small was ready. Yes, the most awesome
spectacle any astronomer could ever
imagine: Comet Shoemaker-Levy 9.

It was discovered just 3 mountain ridges
away from my Anza observatory, by the team
working on Palomar mountain. Even today
i can clearly recall the first evening
of the first impact. It hit the back
side just around the limb and took
only a few minutes to come into
view by Jupiter's rotation.

It was a large well defined black and
gray circular blotch, that had a very
deep black semi circle under it, like
a shock wave. From July 16th until
July 21st 1994 i sat with my 4" f15
Unitron, a C-11, and the 17 1/2 inch
dob and just marveled!

i made well over 100 sketches of the
impacts and their changes into August.
i was totally amazed as was the entire
astronomical community!

In September 2005, 10 years after SL-9
hit Jupiter i had the great honor to
meet David Levy. We met under the
southern skies, on the shores of
Lake Titicaca, at 12,500 feet in
the Bolivian Andes. There i presented
him copies of over 100 detailed
sketches that i made of his comet.
Along with all of my detailed notes
and descriptions.Funny thing, when
i handed the logbook and sketches
to him he had on a shirt that said:
"My Damm Comet Crashed!".

Then in Japan on January 30, 1996,
a amateur using six inch binoculars
was out to check on a comet he had
found in '95. As Yuji sweep the area
he found yet another comet, that would
later be known as the Great Comet of
1996, Comet Hyakutake 1996B2.

By March-April of '96 this was a huge
monster! It's thin tail as seen from
my observatory in Anza was at times
an honest 50 degrees long! The nucleus
and coma had details that i had never
seen in any comet before. The jets,
the hoods, the streamers off the head
were mind blowing. The sheer size of
the head was two or three times the
size of a full moon. Just flat out
jaw dropping!

As i sat there with this new monster
comet and both it's naked eye view
and the image i was seeing in the
17 1/2 dob at high power. i could
not help but think how truly awesome
this thing was. And how in such
a very very short time it had come
down on us. i mean, from Jan. 30th
when it was 1st spotted until March
only weeks later when it was LARGE,
until early/mid April when it came
so close to the earth it made me
shutter.

Remember this is on the heels of
Comet Shoemaker Levy 9's extraordinary
crash into Jupiter! my mind was
totally reeling! i could easily
take that image that i was looking
at in the big scope and transpose
that on the sky of a comet coming
straight in at us. i could imagine
the fear that humanity would be
under. But as an amateur astronomer,
sitting in his own observatory, i
thought to myself what a spectacular
way for an "Observer" to go!

What else could you do i thought,
this has been such a life long
passion, sit back and realize
that this is the best way to go.
While everyone is in terror just
partake in the most awesome sight
imaginable!

In July 1995 two Americans found the
next Great Comet. Known as The Great
Comet of 1997, Hale-Bopp. By March
of 1997 everyone knew we had yet
another naked eye comet to feast
on. From March through May the
Great Comet was both a morning
and evening object.

Its tail was bright and fan shaped
with both red blue & green color to
it. As with Hyakutake, i took many
piggy back photos on the C-11
with 100-200mm telephoto lenses.
And some great tripod shots with
a 50mm set up with mountain ridges
and pine trees in the foreground.

Again i can not help but think of
how great my timing was to be in
just the right place at the right
time! How could i ever have known
that when i took that huge step
in moving away from the city,
that these events would come
to pass?

i just wanted to leave the rat race
and be with nature under the Milky Way.
The way that things turned out with a
comfortable observatory under great
dark skies was just too much!

All i can say is, Every Day's a
   B O N U S ~ D A Y !