Bar-rio Window

It's summertime and my nephews are spending a lot of time at my place, which I welcome until I hear the mantra they chant many times on most days: I'm bored, bored, bored!

The challenge to keep them occupied and entertained is a great one and just the other day as i made a mental list of activities that might make their summer more meaningful, I thought of the telescope. There is no better way to keep their minds and hands busy than to own and have them learn to use a telescope, and with great excitement--as much from myself as for my nephews-- I could not wait to buy one.

There are two kinds of telescopes it turns out. A refractor telescope uses a lens and a reflector uses a mirror(s). Since I have some experience handling a mirror in the mornings before heading out to work and a lens when it comes to my eyeglasses, I did not place much importance on lenses vs. glass, although Im sure that these basic parts contribute hugely to the workings of the telescope. I went ahead with my purchase based on price rather than telescope anatomy. My own advice paid off and I am now the proud owner of a reflector telescope and what a bargain: original price 200.00 dollars, but I bought it for 80.00 bucks! Just as a sidenote...the salesperson, a guy, told us it was really "cool" to buy a telescope. I agree.

Arriving home from the sporting goods store, my nephew began with impressive patience to assemble the parts(which took him away from my hands for about 2 hours), only to find out that the entire instrument cannot be hooked up to a computer and so we would be on our own, basically, to try and locate anything worthwhile in the skies.

And on our first attempt to zoom in and focus on the first bright object in the hazy and dirty skies of los angeles just after sunset, we succeeded and located something very peculiar. I could not tell if the object was the moon or a planet but it was in the eastern sky, right above a tree, and whatever it was/is, it seemed to move rather quicky as the image in the telescope appeared clear and round. the object moved away from our view and left us with pregnant curiosity. What a thrill it was to have no knowledge of this heavenly body before looking through the eye piece and end up with no gained knowledge of it afterward. We were left puzzled.

the first night at celestial observation was both exhilirating and frustrating. We could not tell which objects were stars, planets, wayward asteroids; we needed answers. We were in luck. the help we needed was just a short drive from our home.

I grew up in the area and never heard of the observatory located only a few minutes away from my home and built long ago. My childhood hometown known as east los angeles continues to reveal amazing facts; it's a land of many wonders.

to provide a bit more background-- a few weeks ago, i drove my nephew to Monterey Park to find the stargazing facility and as we drove up a steep street, we pulled into what looked like just another ordinary community park. a little further into the parking lot, it comes out of nowhere. perched on a hill and a bit secluded in the center of a residential area, is the sight of a midget observatory, dome and everything...seriously, to see an observatory situated in a local park where gangsters tag its walls with logos and rants like the following: "paco got f@#$%$# by mars"..."saturn never dun nothin for me, culo..."..."i'm earthbound cept when I smoke the grass"...is one of this planet's unexplained mysteries.

My nephew-who had complained all the way to the location- was quietly surprised as we pulled up and parked. We entered the place to find a lot of old retired JPL workers and strange space junkies working on hand-made telescopes and basically running the place. A stairway leading up to the telescope got our hearts beating with anticipation as two little old men followed behind us and began operating the dome and setting up the telescope. They were as excited to see us as we were to find them. Our encounter seemed to close huge galactic distances between strangers of the earthly kind.

They smiled and we smiled back. They spoke of the skies as we politely indulged them. One man showed us a few lensed as the other had a hard time opening the dome.

to be continued...