I received my first decent refractor telescope and a printed sky map when I was around 10 years old. "Lucky" to live in the last village in whole Europe without street lights (up until mid 90's), the night sky was brilliant. Astro information was scarce at the time and the Internet was still more then 10 years away. I learned star hoping and... more often good luck brought me to the objects visible at my focal length. The first time I saw Jupiter and it's 4 moons through my eyepiece, I jumped out of joy. Few days later I repeated the jumping seeing Saturn :) and inviting every single neighbor walking by to take a look through my telescope. My first Astor outreach, I suppose...
In my 30's I was lucky to spend several years under the southern night sky at high altitude. Unfortunately without any visual aids other then binoculars and my own eyes. Those are my most impressive memories of the Milky Way. Now I am living 1/2 of the year under a light dome and face the Pacific Northwest weather and the other 1/2 year I enjoy a bit better skies in the Californian desert. I try to image as many nights as I can and if conditions are not the best I still spend several hours doing EAA. The fascination the universe had on me as a kid never left me.
Job
Retired...but with lots to do.
Hobbies
Astrophotography. The rest of the time I spend on my Discord Server helping friends and with my supporting wife.
