It all started when I asked my aunt for a book on the astronauts. Instead, she got me a book on astronomy. I was disappointed at first, however, once I began flipping through the pages an entirely new universe opened up to me.
My interest in astronomy was boosted again when my older cousin Mary sent me a photograph of the Andromeda Galaxy. She had taken the black and white photograph at university. She wrote on the back, “This is a photograph of a galaxy called Andromeda. See what you can find out about it. This is one of the galaxies we studied at university - Mary.”
Inspired by the photograph, I continued checking out astronomy books each time the bookmobile visited (I lived in the country). And he diligently scanned the skies searching for the Andromeda galaxy with his parent’s 7x50 binoculars. One night I actually found it! I had no idea if it was even anything you could see with binoculars, yet I hunted it down anyway. I remember trying to show my grandmother, but she really didn't understand what the big deal was.
For Christmas 1978 my parents bought me a $20 refractor from Canadian Tire. Despite a shaky mount, the optics of the 50 mm peashooter weren’t bad. With it I was able to see M42 and (of course) the rings of Saturn. Unlike alot of these "starter scopes", this one was limited to 40x, which was a good thing. Had it been some crazy 500x thing, it would have been totally useless.
Shortly thereafter, my mother purchased a a 3” reflector from Edmund Scientific. I remember it being shipped on a Gray Coach bus or something like that, all the way from Toronto! It was amazing. I used that until my teenage years when my interests moved on to other things, like girls, and generally just having fun!
I remember back in 1978 looking at Jupiter, Mars and Saturn over the course of the winter and spring. I was only 10 at the time, but I can still picture where they were in the sky. One of the books I found the most useful to locate them was simply called "Constellations". My mother picked up this book for me at The World's Biggest Bookstore in the fall of 1977. Around the same time I received my first telescope, a $20 Canadian Tire 50 mm refractor. With it I could see the moons of Jupiter, the rings of Saturn and the Orion Nebula. Good times!