I’ve been a member of the Greater Hazleton Area Astronomical Society (GHAAS) since 2002 and I am presently the Assistant Society Director.
I was born and raised in Baltimore, MD where the only things visible in the night sky were the moon and airplanes.
I went to high school at St. Mary’s Minor Seminary in the borough of North East, PA along Lake Erie where on a clear night you could see the Canadian shoreline. This is where I got interested in astronomy. It was the first place I got to see the Aurora Borealis. The campus had an observatory (Boelcke Observatory) which had a large Refractor telescope mounted on a huge concrete pier. (Boelcke Observatory – Astronomical Observatories on Waymarking.com ) I was a member of the astronomy club there until I left in 1971.
I joined the Navy in 1972 but didn’t get much observing in since I was on a submarine. Moved to Berwick, PA in 1978 when I was hired by PP&L to work at the Susquehanna Steam Electric Station in Berwick.
I decided to get back into Astronomy in 2002 and bought first telescope; a Meade LX200GPS10 SCT and joined GHAAS. A year later I purchased a Sirius Observatories Home Dome and established the Walnut Street Observatory in my back yard. (WALNUT STREET OBSERVATORY (tripod.com) ).
Some of the club members were well know Astrophotography experts. This got me interested in deep sky observing and photography. Nothing beats a 4 hour ( 50_ 5 minute stacked exposures) picture of a Galaxy or Nebulae.
I always look forward to the summer months when the club has its public Star Parties. I have a second telescope ( Celestron Nexstar 8” ) that I use for traveling. It’s much lighter than the 10” Meade to set up.
