Astronomy has been a life long interest. It started when I was a kid and read about stars, planets, and space travel. Later on I started reading science fiction and it just sharpened my appetite. Unfortunately I grew up in a big city and it was hard to see even the most obvious constellations. Later on I was introduced to telescopes through Sky And Telescope Magazine and advanced books from the local library. Eventually I got to own a telescope and do first hand observation. The sky is much better in person than through the pictures in books!

A lot of the links below will take you to observatories that I've visited. At the end there's a link to some personal projects.

As an undergraduate I got to experience my first real telescope: Johns Hopkins University.

Since I've retired we've traveled quite a bit across the United States. Along the way we've been lucky to visit a number of astronomical observatories and related sites. Here are images from a few of these visits:

Yerkes Observatory August 2011

Stellafane Springfield, VT August 1971

The largest observatory we visited was the Very Large Array. April 2010

Mauna Kea February 2008

McDonald Observatory, Ft Davis, Texas April 2007

Sunspot Observatory Sunspot New Mexico March 2010

Lowell Observatory Flagstaff AZ September 2013

Maine solar system model September 2007

Some adventures with personal astronomy