While observing last fall’s total lunar eclipse, I was reminded of several of my previous celestial observations.
The first was many years ago, when a fellow worker was telling me about the telescope he had built. He had bought a mirror blank, ground it himself and sent it off to be silvered. The company that did the silvering told him it was the best home-ground mirror they had seen. He then took a machine shop class at the local junior college and built the tube and mount for it.
When I told him of my interest in astronomy, he invited me to his back yard for a viewing session. It was a great experience. We talked of an upcoming lunar eclipse and he suggested we film it. Weeks before the event, we took a series of photos using different exposure times to determine which was best to capture the eclipse.
On the night of the eclipse, we attached the telescope to the mount, loaded film into the camera and mounted it on the telescope, and then waited for moonrise over the San Fernando Valley. We took photos of the full moon before the eclipse started and then additional photos every few minutes as the eclipse progressed. When the eclipse was over, we still hadn’t run out of film, so we took some shots of Saturn.
It struck us that we had taken a lot more pictures than the roll of 36 should have allowed. The camera was taken to a dark closet and opened; we discovered that the film had not been properly engaged when it was loaded into the camera. We had nothing on film. At least we had the trial photos taken earlier, and bittersweet memories of the eclipse that had come and gone for us.
In 1986, I took my telescope and 4-year-old granddaughter and headed for the dark skies near Big Bear Lake, where we were treated to a view of Halley’s Comet. I wanted her to see it then so that she would have a chance to see it a second time when it returns in 2061.
In March 1997, I read that Comet Hale-Bopp would soon be visible to the naked eye. On the evening of March 27, I gathered my two cameras, three lenses, some film and a tripod, and stepped out the back door in search of a place where I could try my hand at photographing the comet. There it was: Between a church steeple and a tall tree in the adjoining cemetery was the comet, clearly visible in the twilight. I set up the tripod, attached the camera and took several exposures with a cable release, to minimize camera movement and try various exposure times and types of film.
Later that night, I moved to a spot that was somewhat sheltered from the streetlights and had a clear view of the comet and part of the cemetery. Over the next weeks, until April 15, I tried seven different types of film, countless exposure times and many venues. One of my favorite spots was a closed campground where the park ranger would unlock the gate so I could get in and photograph the comet over the lake. I got one shot of it reflected in the calm water. At times, it was a struggle to change lenses and film in the dark, especially the two nights when the temperature was below freezing.
The telescope is gone now, passed onto the younger generation, and the film camera sits on a shelf with other antiques. But I still have my memories of various star parties and my own observations, some good and some not so good.
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