#1 Mars Watch 27 August 2003 at SPOC. The line to the then only operating 16" Ealing had a 4 hour wait. Ed Erickson's 11" Celestron, with a polarizing filter was positioned near the walkway and had the best view of the Red Planet. Could see a number of surface features that none of the other telescopes at SPOC that night could pick up. That gave my wife the all-important go-ahead for me to upgrade to an 8-incher. Two weeks later I had just as spectacular of a view thru my newly purchased Meade LX-200 (without a filter,even) #2 Witnessing the Orion Nebula at 4 a.m. in the early autumn from Escalante State Park. A lot of detail that I had never seen before in the nebula was clearly visible. #3 I had my telescope set up in my front driveway early one morning when the newspaper delivery person came by. I was just beginning a slew and the noise of the motor plus the fact that the telescope seemed to be slewing in the same direction as the carrier was moving, scarred him. He thought I had sort of high powered automatic weapon that was tracking his movements. He fell to his knees and kept mutttering "oh no, oh no". When I asked what was wrong, he realized his error, got up and ran to the vehicle that was being driven by one of his parents. ________________________________ From: Chuck Hards <chuck.hards@gmail.com> To: Utah Astronomy <utah-astronomy@mailman.xmission.com> Sent: Saturday, February 4, 2012 2:00 PM Subject: [Utah-astronomy] Your most memorable telescope event What was your most memorable astronomical, OBSERVATIONAL, telescope event? For me, it was seeing Jupiter with all four Galilean moons, circa 1967. It blew-away the mind of this (at the time) 9-year-old amateur astronomer. I was hooked, instantly. Thank You, Maker Of All Things. I was nine years old, IIRC. 18th Avenue in SLC, on the back balcony of my best-friend in 5th grade. Good people, they don't know what they truly did for me. I am humbled at their generosity. (A secondary shout-out goes to the late Gene Roddenbery. Star-Trek actually spurred my astronomy interest, as did the US manned space program...yes, I got to see Neil Armstong step on the moon in real-time in my parent's living room. WOW!) Number two was seeing Saturn's rings, probably within a few months of my Jupiter revelation. :-) And you? :-) _______________________________________________ Utah-Astronomy mailing list http://mailman.xmission.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/utah-astronomy Send messages to the list to Utah-Astronomy@mailman.xmission.com The Utah-Astronomy mailing list is not affiliated with any astronomy club. To unsubscribe go to: http://mailman.xmission.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/utah-astronomy Then enter your email address in the space provided and click on "Unsubscribe or edit options".