My Journey

For some people it comes in fleeting bouts of curiosity. The feeling of wonder and for some, overwhelming realization of just how small we really are. It may have stemmed from a documentary, school project or maybe you owned or got the opportunity to take a look through someone’s telescope at the distant stars, planets etc.

For others it's more of a connection to the cosmos that digs in under your skin from a seemingly small and inconsequential moment in your life that you won't truly appreciate until you are older. Personally I remember the moment it hit me. I was about 9 and we lived in a col de sac, I was sitting on the curb of the road with a friend after we had been playing with his remote controlled truck. The batteries had just died, we were bored.

I decided it would be cool if we could catch sight of a shooting star, so we lay back on the grass and stared at the night sky, I remember clearly that there was no Moon out that night and there were stars. So many stars! I remember thinking "surely one of them will become a shooting star" not realizing at the time that "shooting stars" are meteorites. Alas, we did not see a shooting star BUT we did see something! One star in the masses was MOVING! Drifting against the backdrop of stars...

I was so excited! I raced inside and told my mum what I had seen, this turned out to be a satellite. My mum explained to me what it was and a bit more about space. I couldn't help but be amazed that I could see it with my eyes from earth! So quite a bit I would be gazing up at night time in wonder looking at all the specks wondering which ones were stars and which were satellites.

I got older and interests came and went, but the night sky has always been a part of who I am. When I was 14 or so my mum got a telescope for Christmas. It was a Tasco 50mm refractor, looking back it was a wobbly piece of equipment more designed to crush any hopes for budding Amateur Astronomers, at the time it was like being handed the universe.

My mum and I spent quite a few nights out on the driveway looking up at the night sky in wonder. Specifically I remember looking at a Star that appeared to have 2 balls orbiting it, I immediately thought "Aliens". However it was Vega a bright main sequence star in our northern skies (Australia)

Now I am 34 and last year bought my very own first telescope, a Saxon 10" Dobsonian that I named "Alfred" after my late Grandad, Alfred McGee. I also have about 6 lenses. I love it. I take my kids out to dark skies and blow their young minds with the size and scale of the universe. They know more about the night sky than I did at 14 years old and they are only 4 and 6!

Star Gazing brings people together, it opens your eyes and mind to the absolute vastness of where we live and what is out there. If it so interests you, delve deeper and looking into what transpires to create our cosmos and what potentially happened to result in Life as we know it. Think about what I have written and ponder your own journey's beginning. Where were you, how old you were and why does it stick in your mind?