Sky & Telescope - February 2024 - 84

COURTESY OF THE AUTHOR
FOCAL POINT by Clarence G. Underwood
Becoming an
Amateur Astronomer
A lifelong fascination with the heavens leads to an impromptu
office star party, launching a hobby of outreach.
WHEN I WAS young, I had several
encounters that helped lead me towards
a lifetime of interest in astronomy. I
grew up in a housing project in Brooklyn,
New York, and one of my earliest
memories as a child was of my father
taking me up to the roof of our building
and handing me a solar filter. He
told me to hold the filter up before my
eyes and look at the Sun. As I did so, he
explained that what I was seeing was a
partial solar eclipse.
My next experience occurred when I
was walking with him one moonlit evening.
He pointed up and asked if I could
see the Man in the Moon. Well, I know
now that there are other things there,
too - a woman, for instance!
Later, in school, I remember a field
trip my class took to the American
Museum of Natural History. I was fascinated
with everything, especially the
planetarium. The star show was, literally
and figuratively, out of this world.
When I was somewhat older, poking
around on my father's shelves, I
found an old telescope. We lived on the
top floor of our 14-story building and
enjoyed views of Manhattan to the west
and the Atlantic to the east. Gazing east
through the telescope, I saw a bright
object in the sky. That turned out to be
my first telescopic view of Jupiter.
I went to college in Santa Barbara,
where, in addition to walking out to the
cliffs to watch sunsets and occasionally
seeing Mercury or Venus, I had my
first memorable encounter with Saturn.
On the roof of the physics building,
amateurs would sometimes set up telescopes,
and during one of these events,
u Clarence Underwood prepares his 60-mm
refractor for projecting the Sun.
84 FEBRUARY 2024 * SKY & TELESCOPE
I observed Saturn for the first time,
through a Questar scope. As everyone
agrees, it was stunningly beautiful.
Still later, my wife, whom I had met
at college, surprised me one Christmas
with a 6-inch reflector. When my
My boss directed my
co-workers to come out. I
had my very own star party!
mother came to visit us right after the
birth of our first child, I was delighted
to show her the Ringed Planet through
that telescope.
Years on, while living in the San
Francisco Bay Area, I purchased a Sears
60-mm refractor. I used to load the
scope into the car and record sunspots
during lunch at my job working for
AT&T. I'd set up the scope outside, look
at the Sun, and take notes, sketch, and
sometimes photograph.
I was out one morning on a break
while a partial eclipse was in progress.
My boss happened to be outside at the
time and was captivated by what she
saw through my scope. She told me to
stay put, then directed my co-workers
to come out to see the eclipse. I had my
very own star party!
That was the beginning of my outreach
hobby. Soon I picked up a 90-mm
refractor, and from then on I'd sit out
in my front yard every Halloween and
show trick-or-treaters and their parents
some celestial object of interest.
I treated my own kids to such sights
as well, of course, including Halley's
Comet on its return in 1986.
As you can see, becoming an amateur
astronomer was a natural progression
for me. Over the years, I've
read many books and magazines about
astronomy. I joined the Eastbay Astronomical
Society in Oakland, California,
and have attended lectures, done
outreach, and even published astronomy-related
poems in The Refractor, the
society's newsletter. The journey has
certainly been very interesting.
¢ CLARENCE UNDERWOOD is a
recently retired substitute teacher who
lives with his wife, Regina, and their dog
Chewy in Northern California.
Sky & Telescope - February 2024

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Sky & Telescope - February 2024
