Here’s a great story from Alex Roman, who, as he says in his tale, has been in the club for coming on 5 years now. Alex is an active observer and has frequented Binbrook many times, often observing with one of his teenage children who are always welcome.
I hesitated to send this story out at first, because I appear in the story, but it’s not about me, it’s really about Alex and about sharing a great hobby with others who enjoy it as much as you.
And now, here’s Alex’s story… ___________________________________________________
“The year was 2015. I like to go to McQuesten park in Hamilton for taking a walk with my dog. One evening I saw a bunch of people with some telescopes and other weird equipment. I start talking to one of the guys, asking what are they doing. He said to me they are part of an astronomy club and they are observing the sky. I saw his little white telescope and I said: “I too have a telescope and I could come with my telescope in a few minutes.” He replied: “Well, by all means, please bring your telescope and we’ll observe the sky together.” I said ok. Then I start laughing because I had a real telescope and my telescope was bigger than his.
So after a few minutes, I brought my masterpiece. I start unpacking and the guy said: “You have a beautiful Celestron C5+ telescope. You can see a lot of things with it.” In the mean time I saw him with a huge tube on top of his “little telescope”. And I asked him what was that? And why you have 2 telescopes? He said very politely: the “white telescope” is a german equatorial mount. THIS is my telescope. Lol. Why german? Why not french or dutch equatorial mount I thought myself?
Anyway I setup my system with a cheap $29 tripod and my (now) little scope. I was struggling with my setup and I could hardly see anything. Out of focus; objects were moving too fast. I was frustrated. The guy then asked me if it’s ok to piggyback my scope onto his telescope. Well, after he did that I look through my C5 and looking through my eyepiece, things were not moving at all. He told me that his mount is moving in the same way as the earth. Yeah, ok, whatever. At first I didn’t understand all the mambo jambo he told me. But in the end he showed me how to take a picture of the moon with my iPhone and he was very patient with me. That’s when I got hooked with astronomy. Thank you big guy.
Oh, and by the way, his name is John. John Gauvreau.”
Alex
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| Well, once the blushing goes away I’ll finish this email. Thank you to Alex for sending in this lovely story. Alex was already in the hobby and enjoying his own scope, but the story shows how he found his way to the HAA and how we found a great new member. It happened to be me that Alex ran into that night, but it could have been any of our members and he would have had just as good an experience. If you would like to share an observing experience just email me and I will be happy to feature you in a future email. Keep an eye out for the next email which will outline some upcoming club activities. |
Take care and stay safe.
