re: administrivia
Robert Preston (rapr@med.pitt.edu)
Fri, 13 Jan 1995 00:20:13 -0500
Hello Seesatters,
I think I'll mainly be "lurking" on seesat-l, gleaning bits of info on birds
and birding out of sheer curiosity. My first bird was by broadcast tele-
vision, Vanguard 1 in an awful scene on the launch pad in 1957...or was it 58.
I was 12 years old. After that I got a toy telescope, and then ground a 6"
newtonian mirror to make a real telescope several years later. Then, the
years passed and many things happened. I eventually became a geneticist. In
1994 I decided to upgrade my 6" telescope by buying ultra-wide-angle eyepieces
the better to see Jupiter and SL9 getting together. Then I decided that,
heck, SL9 might be the event of a lifetime, so I might as well get a decent
scope to go with the eyepieces, even if the money had to be borrowed. An 8"
computerized LX200 SCT was the result. The gamble paid off: unforgettable
views of the impact scars as they rotated into view. That got me hooked on
astronomy again after a 23-year period of total neglect of the sky. Meanwhile
all these birds had somehow accumulated up there, doing all sorts of things I
never imagined. I acquired a used camera for the scope; among other things
I'd like to take pictures that actually reveal shape in the shuttle and Mir,
but these may have to be silhouettes against the sun or moon during transits
since tracking at 400x is non-trivial. However, we'll see what happens. I
have no idea why I care about any of this...the reason apparently lies
somewhere in the future.
--
Robert Preston rapr@med.pitt.edu
Highland Park 40deg28'N 79deg55'W Pittsburgh PA 15206
U. Pittsburgh Sch. Med. S792 Scaife Hall Pittsburgh PA 15261
[vox 412-648-9573 fax 412-648-1916 (W)] vox 412-361-8905 (H)