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What got you into astronomy?
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| StarDroid | Date: Tuesday, 27.05.2014, 14:47 | Message # 1 |
 Observer
Group: Newbies
United States
Messages: 2
Status: Offline
| See thread title. I can easily remember being a nine year old kid back in the early nineties, reading books about the Solar System when my fourth grade class went to the library on Thursday. I don't remember exactly what got me into it to be honest but I do know that it did and still does have an influence on me. Just seeing those planets, their moons and reading about how far away from the sun they were. I was always like, "How can these planets be so huge and be so far away? How can the Sun maintain a gravitational hold on a celestial body so far away?" Those books taught me about humility, really: the Earth is so huge, relative to us, but to other planets - not so much.
Then when I got older I started getting more into astronomy, into reading about galaxies and such. I remember reading about how the Milky Way is 100,000 light years across, and how, by no means is it a huge galaxy. And even with around 400 billion stars, there were many, many galaxies out there that put our Milky Way to shame. Can you imagine, a galaxy 65 million light years away, and 450,000 light years across, potentially containing over a trillion stars? Can your mind comprehend that sense of size and scale? Mine cannot. I remember reading about the massive, endless voids between galaxies, millions or even billions of light years of just...empty space. The thought of that mystifies and terrifies me if I sit and think about it for too long.
But the question was, what got you into astronomy? I guess the answer now is: everything really.
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| RockoRocks | Date: Tuesday, 27.05.2014, 16:56 | Message # 2 |
 World Builder
Group: Users
Belgium
Messages: 674
Status: Offline
| Well, when I was 6 or 7 years old, I first got really interested in space. I previously had a variety of other interests (aircraft, flags/geography, monkeys...). I don't remember much of it, but I do remember reading various books and I also got some special kind of interactive 'board', which had a lot of trivia about the planets of the Solar system on it (Pluto is classified as a planet on it). It contained amount of moons, distance to the sun, diameters, mean temperatures etc. of all planets. Apparently I was able to remember a lot of it at the time. However, I was back then sometimes very scared by certain objects in space, like black holes, supernovae, meteors and other objects that would be dangerous (if they were near Earth). And even though I now know that the danger these things pose to Earth is almost zero, I was then sorta frightened by it. My fear of it, and other things eventually lead to no longer being interested in astronomy (at least that's how I remember it).
However, approximately one year ago, I somehow got interested again in astronomy and space (this also lead to my overall interest in science). I do not really remember what got me into it again, but Celestia played a role in it. I used the program very much, and liked it a lot, I downloaded tons of addons for it and even made a few.
But later on, I found SpaceEngine, on a post on Tumblr (can't remember where), and I liked it a lot. I eventually made this forum account too, along with tons of spaceships... my interest in astronomy and science has been there for a while and will likely not go... 
I will be inactive on this forum for the time being. Might come back eventually
AMD AR-3305M APU w/ Radeon HD 1.90 GHz 6,00 GB RAM
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| midtskogen | Date: Tuesday, 27.05.2014, 21:30 | Message # 3 |
 Star Engineer
Group: Users
Norway
Messages: 1674
Status: Offline
| I can't say I've ever got deeply into astronomy. It's just something I've always been exposed to, as it is an interest of my father, who did a master's degree in astronomy, has built is own observatories and reflectors, and spent countless nights observing variable stars.
NIL DIFFICILE VOLENTI
Edited by midtskogen - Tuesday, 27.05.2014, 21:50 |
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| Unnamed | Date: Wednesday, 28.05.2014, 01:03 | Message # 4 |
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Space Pilot
Group: Users
Mexico
Messages: 116
Status: Offline
| I got into astronomy a few years back when i saw a star comparasion video, but then i forgot about it.
I don't remember how i found it back or something to make it interest me.
Intel® Core™ i5-3210M CPU @ 2.50GHz 2.50 GHz 750 GB hard drive 4 GB RAM intel ®HD Graphics 4000 1GB video; oh and i use a lot of commas
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| Watsisname | Date: Wednesday, 28.05.2014, 02:54 | Message # 5 |
 Galaxy Architect
Group: Global Moderators
United States
Messages: 2613
Status: Offline
| I'm not entirely sure how/why my interest in the natural sciences was sparked; nobody else in my immediate family is involved in them. My mother was an editor for the CIA, my father was a marine who went on to work for the Department of Defense, and I have an older brother who does theatre lighting. All I know is that by age two I showed more interest in playing with numbers than with toys, and enjoyed reading nonfiction books more than being told children's stories. I wanted to learn everything about how the world worked.
My parents nurtured my curiosity by providing me with books on weather, chemistry, physics, space, mathematics, etc. One day I came across a book on the solar system and was totally mesmerized by images of the planets taken by the early generation of spacecraft. I was amazed at the fact that there were whole other worlds out there, each very unlike our own.
Eventually I came into possession of a small telescope to play around with. Of course I had no idea what I was doing -- no sky charts or knowledgeable adult to guide me or anything. The moon wasn't out either, so I just pointed it at random stars, of which one particularly golden one happened to be revealed as a disk with a thin line running through it.
"Holy crap I just found Saturn." And I was hooked.
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| Starsky396 | Date: Wednesday, 28.05.2014, 17:57 | Message # 6 |
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Observer
Group: Newbies
United States
Messages: 2
Status: Offline
| SpaceEngine got me into astronomy. Still learning the ropes however.
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| Billy_Mayes | Date: Wednesday, 28.05.2014, 19:57 | Message # 7 |
 Pioneer
Group: Users
Finland
Messages: 485
Status: Offline
| I've always been interested in it. I had two great space books when I was very young,
and my dream job was to be an astronaut.
It slightly faded over time, until I got into playing Kerbal Space Program and Space Engine, that re-ignited it.
AMD Phenom II X4 955 3.2 GHz Quad-Core - AMD Radeon HD 6950 2GB VRAM - 4GB RAM - 1680x1050 75 Hz Samsung screen
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