As a child, I was always fascinated by science. Instead of the newest video games, I wanted things like the full set of Encyclopedia Brittanica. I wasn’t (and still am not) past the “Why, why, why?” phase of being a toddler. I had questions and books had answers. Unlike others, I wasn’t content just knowing that a ball rolls faster down a bigger hill. Why does it go faster? How fast can it go? How far will it roll after it reaches level ground? Eventually, I started to make sense of the world around me.
Then, one day, I looked up. I looked up and, suddenly, nothing made sense anymore. Why don’t these two balls in the sky roll back down? How are they up there? Where’s the hill? I’ve tried to learn everything there is to know. But every answer presented a dozen more questions. And I’ve been lost in this rabbit hole ever since and will spend the rest of my life digging deeper into it rather than clawing my way out.
After a lifetime of excuses for not getting a telescope, I finally decided that the kid in me who never grew up deserved that telescope I promised him all those years ago in grade school. I wasn’t far into the learning process when I discovered that people were putting cameras on them. I was dumbfounded. How, after all these years of being obsessed with space, did I not know that any Joe, Bob, or Sally could slap a camera on an amateur telescope and take a picture of a GALAXY?!?!? The seed was planted. There was no turning back. As a kid, I would often stare at pictures of galaxies completely mesmerized at the endless possibilities that exist in a vastness of worlds so unfathomably huge. Now, I can do the same with my own photos. Astrophotography might be one of the most difficult things I’ve ever attempted in my life. It’s also the most rewarding. There’s a satisfaction in overcoming something so difficult.
It also keeps the kid in me looking up.
And it also ensures that he never stops wondering why.
Hobbies
I used to be a musician in another life….before astrophotography took over.
