I'm an amateur astronomer.  This telescope is my 12.5" Newtonian Reflector that I have been observing with now for almost 40 years.  The mirror was ground by the legendary Alika Herring and was purchased from Cave Optics in 1960.  My father had a machine shop and we spent my senior year in high school building this from junk laying around his shop.  The mounting is a German Equatorial with motorized drives and gadgets all over.  The telescope now weighs over 1100 lbs because I keep adding things to it.  (such as the 6" Russian-made Maksutov-Newtonian shown on the near side).  I also added digital setting circles to it not long ago.  The whole thing comes out the back of a custom-made trailer on a winch-like mechanism that I will need to describe in a series of pictures.  I'll do this when I get time to work on this web page. It takes about 20 minutes to set up and about 30 minutes to pack up.  No lifting or heavy effort is involved.

Visual observation of the universe is something I never tire of.  Few people really know what can be seen from a dark-sky site with a telescope like the one shown above.  With the exception of arms of galaxies, I have never seen a photograph that captures the stunning nature of the cosmos like a view through my telescope.  Photos ALL show stars as blobs.  Imagine a view of a globular cluster with its thousands of stars, each a little mathematical point of light!  With the introduction of nebular filters, the gas clouds and planetary nebulae display a breathtaking beauty that photos just do not capture.  Considering the effort (and luck) it takes to accumulate the equipment, get to a good site, develop the skills for visual observing, and stay up all night after a grueling week of work,  it is no wonder that so few have experienced all this. Once hooked though, there is no going back.

This photo was taken by Bill Van Orden in December, 2002 during a cold sunset at a dark-sky site in western Arizona.  The sky was clearing and I had just put on 3 layers.  As soon as the photo was done, I got into a parka and turned on the electric socks.  Another great Saturday night trolling the cosmos while listening to Bruckner symphonies.  You are looking at a chap in paradise.