Coping with aperture fever
This has all happened to me. I got aperture fever, and I beat it. I see now that one needs to think carefully about the future of your life with telescopes — and your diminishing capacities to use big ones — as you become older. When you are older, perhaps less is more.
Aperture fever! Eeek! Aperture fever is a serious problem for many amateur astronomers, and I wanted to alert as many fellow amateurs as I can about this problem.
The problem I am describing is insidious and usually starts when one is young. The typical life history of the problem is like this: Let us say, you are 11 years old and you have become interested in stars. You tell your parents and, for your birthday, they give you a 60mm refractor telescope Mom got at a department store. You open more presents, and your aunts and uncles have given you four astronomy books. You start reading these books and you find amazing wonders — you can hardly believe what you are reading! Planets, stars, galaxies — you even discover that there are things called Black Holes. And…wonderful pictures of beautiful things!
In one of the books, there is a map of the night sky. You take your little ‘scope out in the backyard and there is the moon! You put your ‘scope on the moon, shaky and inadequate tripod and all, and you see craters on the moon! You find Jupiter and Saturn, but they are a bit underwhelming in your small telescope, but you are changed forever.
Time moves on, and now you have been to college and landed a good job after graduation. You have an income of your own. Your old 60 mm scope has been lost somewhere, but you remember what you saw with it, and you buy yourself a six-inch reflector. The equatorial mount is a deep puzzle at first, but a friend of yours has one and teaches you how to use it.
Two years pass and over this time you use this ‘scope almost every time you can. After years of using the six-inch, you wonder, “What could I see with a bigger ‘scope?”
You buy a 10-inch reflector, and it is amazing! It is a bit heavy to cart around your backyard and quite a load to take to a star party. You use that 10-inch for many happy years But, at a star party, you look through someone else’s 16-inch telescope. Wow! You tell yourself that one day, you will have one of those.
You are middle-aged now and you have that 16inch. You have accumulated about every gadget one can own to support your hobby, all guaranteed to make your viewing of the night sky “much better” — or so the ads claim. But … you notice you have begun using this humungous ‘scope less and less — even on nice, clear nights. You have traded away your earlier ‘scopes to get the 16-inch, and you can’t use them anymore. It occurs to you that perhaps the big ‘scope is just too cumbersome for you. In fact, it is a telescopic monstrosity! In a nightmare, you dream that this monster falls on you, pinning you helplessly under it!
Now, you are getting elderly. You have less muscle mass and many aches and pains. Your old back is just not up to dragging that 16-inch around the yard at all. You have seen many wonders with it, but not many new ones lately and it is just a lot of work to trudge out and observe with such a big ‘scope. You, my fellow amateur, have developed aperture fever and it has a hard grip on you!
You wonder what to do. At the latest astronomy club meeting, a bunch of other amateurs relate that they got aperture fever too and one of them has a solution — chill down! Instead of using bigger and bigger ‘scopes, move the other direction and use smaller and smaller ‘scopes. Hmmm…
After some thought and many consultations with those who have recovered from aperture fever, you sell the 16-inch and buy a really good 4-inch refractor. You learn astrophotography and are very surprised at how just a 4-inch will result in wonderful images — if you take the time to learn how to take the pictures.
Now, life in the backyard is a lot easier. You have a camera, and it weighs very little. Your little 4-inch is easy to set up and use. You have discovered how to take good pictures of wonders in the sky with it, and you don’t have to have a monstrosity to do it. Bliss!
This has all happened to me. I got aperture fever, and I beat it. I see now that one needs to think carefully about the future of your life with telescopes — and your diminishing capacities to use big ones — as you become older. When you are older, perhaps less is more.
I have included a picture, taken after a snow earlier in the year, of the modest equipment I now use. Most of the images that appear in this column are taken with this little 4-inch. Sure, there is a learning curve to doing astrophotography, and one must persist despite many a mistake — at first.
However, I moved from absolute dufus with astrophotography to having much real fun with it in only about a year. You, fellow victim of aperture fever, can do the same.
Saturn and Jupiter are coming into easy view. I hope, soon, to have images of these planets to share with you.