My first solar scope (150 F/8 unaluminized reflector)

[DeepSolar64]

Rusted, WoW, I bet that 5" refractor was a joy to use but heavy to set up. Back in those days 12" was a big scope. Few went beyond 16 inches.

How many here started out with a small refractor, particularly a small department store refractor? I received a Focal ( a K-Mart brand ) 50mm F11.6 refractor for Christmas back in 1978. It had one cheap 12.5mm eyepiece which gave about 50x. I would use my brother's 10x50 Traq binoculars to find things, especially DSOs and switch to the scope for a closer look. It was the Focal 50mm that got me started into astronomy. It gave me my first views of Jupiter, Saturn, Mars, Venus, Sunspots and of course the Moon. In 1982 I bought a Traq 60mm which had much better optics. It turned out to be a really good performer with it's only real shortcoming being it's .0965 focuser. I still have it today and it is occasionally used for white light solar with Baader film. It originally came with a small eyepiece mounted solar filter.

http://skytour.homestead.com/files/sod.html

I also notice so many of us are seniors. Older astronomers who remember a past age. Before mass produced Chinese telescopes. Back when most were made in Japan and the USA. And yes, many more of us made our own!

I also think of the autobiography of the late Leslie Peltier. Starlight Nights. https://archive.org/details/StarlightNights/mode/2up An ode to simpler times, darker skies and bygone days.

[EGRAY_OBSERVATORY]

The history continues and so interesting.

Terry

[DeepSolar64]

I would love to hear the history of others here on how they began their hobby of astronomy, photography and what equipment they started out with. Pedro started an excellent thread here!!

It doesn’t matter if it is a newbie or an old timer. Let’s hear it!!

[Rusted]

My first telescope was a 30x30 all brass drawtube thing for Christmas at ~12.
It would not show the Moon, nor much else sharply, at 30x!
So I removed the erecting lens and used it at low power, upside down on the moon.
I mounted it on a Meccano stand with wormwheel slow motions.
So I could look up though my attic bedroom skylight.

My first "real" ATM at 13-14 was a 60mm 0.5 diopter spectacle lens in an aerial telescope hung from the washing line post.
I chose a 1/2" 12mm simple eyepiece with RAS thread and glimpsed a colourful and very wobbly Saturn at foolishly high power!

Seeing through a pair of Ex-gov. 8x40 binoculars for a few seconds, in my mid teens, was a real eye opener!
Then I had a school chum who had a nice but largely unused, 6" f/8 on a cast iron altaz. I was only allowed to see the Moon once!

It took me more than two decades to get my first decent binos.
Now they have charity/thrift shops where you can buy them for small change.

I've spent most of my life making optics, telescopes and mountings.
Mostly due to abject poverty from having far too many other hobbies.

[DeepSolar64]

Many of us have humble beginnings I think.