As I write this, it's early morning. A thin crescent moon is rising, framed between a brilliantly shining Venus above, and Saturn and the star Regulus below.
By the way, at the outset I should mention that the official observing food of Astronomers are Fig Newtons.

Growing up I didn't do terribly much in the way of science. I was identified early on as a "special needs" child in the public school system and special certainly doesn't mean anything good in this case. Aside from a few rare, bright patches, I could have been better served without the benefit of my public education.

The exception to this was astronomy. As a small boy my father used to bring me out to look at the stars. He bought a large 6inch telescope and I have many happy memories of us sitting outside (though often in the cold) looking at the planets and stars. It was, perhaps, this early activity that set the stage for things to come later in my life. This interest was, unfortunately, blunted somewhat through the Amarillo school system. However, all things come to an end and eventually I left high school for the local community college. As poor as my public school experience was, my interest in learning, and ultimately science was quickly rekindled by some wonderful professors. Along with this personal renaissance, came a renewed interest in amateur astronomy. And it is some of the anecdotes from that time that I wish to tell you.

I developed a few friends, similar in age, that enjoyed taking that telescope out. At one point our favorite spot to go observing was down in a little nature preserve canyon called Buffalo Lake. We found it rather late in the year about the time when the park would be closed after hours. So we called the park ranger's office and obtained permission to go observing. He didn't seem to mind us being there. We were quiet, didn't litter or drink, and certainly were not there to poach game with a telescope. Earlier that year, an electronic gate had been installed at the entrance. The gate closed automatically everyday at 6pm, preventing people from entering and tire-spikes made sure to keep people out once they'd left. Fair enough, we just needed to be in before the gate closed.

Well, one day we were late getting there and the gate had closed before our arrival. Now, every good amateur astronomer back in the day had a copy of the Sky Atlas 2000. It contained huge maps of the night sky that would fold out, and as any good group of observers, we had a copy between us. However, our copy, for a small extra fee, was officially the "Field" version of the atlas. Until this moment, none of us fully appreciated what this meant. In our moment of need, I realized that the field version of the Sky Atlas 2000 was more than just an atlas. In fact, it was also a gate key. Let me explain.

By angling the approach of a car to a set of tire spikes, you can have it so that only one tire goes over the spikes at a time. As such, you can then carefully, and slowly drive one tire up, place your copy of the Sky Atlas on the spikes, drive that tire over, and then move the Atlas to protect the next tire. I recommend having at least two people to do this. Anyhow, it worked! It was a happy time indeed as now we could come and go from the park as needed. So on those very cold nights when we'd run out of coffee & Fig Newtons, or needed an extra blanket, we could just go get one without fear of the entrance gate being blocked.

One fine afternoon, we managed to get to the gate just before it closed. We quickly drove the car under the gate and within seconds the gate began closing behind us. We got out of the car and cheered our good fortune. We also hopped back over the gate and ran up to place our admission fee in the park money box. Though we might be there after hours and skirting the gate system, we certainly wanted to pay our share for use of the park. About that time a game warden/wildlife official drives up and is in a foul mood. He gets out and explains how he has just caught several guys that have been poaching animals. "That's good" I think, not realizing that by "just caught" he meant right now and that by "poachers" he meant us.

After a good deal of threats on one side (I'm gett'n tha Sheriff), and a good deal of explanation on the other (It's really quite impossible for our telescope to actually fire any sort of ammunition at a deer regardless of how hard you try). We avoided out right arrest and only received a small fine, plus permanent expulsion from our favorite observing site. It mattered not that we had permission from the original park ranger. Nor that we were good enough to go back and pay our fee.


There was the time, while looking for a place to go observing that we picked up a hitch hiker. We were out in the middle of nowhere and a guy is standing on the road trying to get our attention. Now, there's 3 of us and only 1 of him, and he looks about our age and in need of assistance, so we stop. He just needs a quick ride to town as his car is broken down. No problem we think, and off we go. It's only after 10 or so miles that he explains how his buddies (who were also out with him) we hiding in the bushes. They were hiding so we wouldn't see the fact that they were armed with rifles. While it's certainly true that we would not have stopped had we encountered 3 raving lunatics waving rifles at us from the side of the road, this also almost caused us to dump him back on the side of the road. Sigh...

At one point I began trying to take pictures through the telescope. This was long before digital cameras and required quite a bit of work to get a camera mounted at the correct position. It also meant that you didn't get to see the pictures immediately, but instead had to carefully record what each exposure should have been and then wait for the film to be developed.

Getting the film developed actually turned out to be quite a problem. Most places that process film have someone that checks to see if everything on the roll should be developed. The first time I turned in film for development(3 rolls of it), all I got back were a few pictures of the moon. The kind attendant explained that all the rest of the film just showed "little specks of light" and "blurry light" so they decided not to develop them. The next time I tried to do this, there was a further problem because the employee could not tell where exposures began or ended. So I started taking "blank" pictures with a flashlight down the telescope so that every other picture would be clearly defined making it possible to locate exactly what I wanted in between. I explained all this to the film store and eventually everything got sorted out and I got the pictures developed that I wanted.

That worked great for about a week, then the store went out of business.

So for my next batch of film, I took it into the local walmart (everyone has a local walmart don't they?), the same place where I would stock up on Fig Newtons for our nightly excursions. So as to avoid enduring the entire process over again of training someone how to develop my pictures through trial and error, I decided to cut it short and attempt, through explanation, to get it right the first time. I asked to speak to the person that would develop the film because I had a special request. I began with, "I need you to develop these pictures regardless of how they turned out or what they look like."

Now, in hindsight, maybe that's not the best way I could have started the conversation. She immediately picked the film up, threw it at me (a mere 4 feet away from her), and yelled, announcing to the entire world within earshot, "YOU SHOULD BE ASHAMED! WE DON'T DEVELOP THOSE KINDS OF PICTURES!" It took a full 2-3 seconds before I realized the error inherent in my approach. The fact that I turned beet red did nothing to help my cause. Regardless it was too late and despite a few protests on my part, I was quickly escorted from the store by a manager and asked not to return (neither for photos nor fig newtons). They didn't need my kind of business. It was interesting as most people just pointed, stared, and quietly discussed my offensive photography amongst themselves. I think it would have been easier had they at least laughed. sigh...