My First Telescope

My First Telescope

For some reason, Warren seems to find the fact that my novelty clocked in at a mere three inches terribly amusing in Episode 30 of 'Round The Archives', but many years ago I was very pleased to receive something with very similar measurements.

Patrick Moore always used to say that anything under three inches would prove to be a disappointment, and I must admit that in later life I have always wondered what results I'd get with something considerably larger, but the bigger they are, the more you have to pay for them.

I'm not sure whether my parents though I'd get much use out of my first (and so far only) telescope, but living as I did in the middle of nowhere, I was blessed with very clear skies compared with my more urban location these days.

So I was overjoyed to be able to see the craters of the Moon in more detail than I'd ever imagined. The rings of Saturn and the moons of Jupiter suddenly became real things that I could observe on chilly nights and all that stuff that featured on 'The Sky At Night' and 'Cosmos' suddenly took on whole new dimensions.

Orion has always been a favourite constellation of mine for its appearance to the naked eye, combined with all the interesting stuff that's going on around his belt area, when you get your telescope out.

I read as many books on obervational astronomy as I could get my hands on, as well as hunting for magazines in WH Smith whenever we visited major conurbations such as Salisbury, Poole or Wimborne.

On a clear night you could even tell where these towns and cities were by the orange glow of light pollution they cast into the sky. In fact, if you lived in even a small town, you were at a noticeable disadvantage when it came to spotting meteor showers or Halley's comet.

In one of those annoying things that the the solar system sometimes indulges in, the 1985/86 return of Halley was far inferior to its 1910 appearance, so I felt a real sense of achievement when I caught my first sighting of it. Positively identifying it involved observing for several nights and spotting a faint blur that moved against the stars. It took a fair bit of patience, but I managed it, even though I was glad to get back into the warm most of the time.

Astronomy is one of the few branches of science in which the amateur at home is in with a chance of making useful observations, and it's always been an ambition of mine to finally get around to getting my hands on something measuring six inches or more.

And I should point out that when it comes to telescopes, girth trumps length any day...

(Written by Andrew Trowbridge)