Looking into the Past

“9/26/90- Fog, everywhere but up”

    I have been searching through my slides and pictures for shots taken at the Wagman Observatory and of our club. The Amateur Astronomers Association of Pittsburgh (AAAP) is rapidly closing in on its 100^th anniversary. Hopefully, the pictures I find can add to the club's history. Their observatories, the members, star parties and events they held are all included in my search.

    As I am doing this, I am also winnowing down my collection. Do I really need 10 shots of a partial lunar eclipse taken 15 years ago? Are the slides filled with dots of mold really worth saving? Let me tell you, the wastepaper basket has been getting a lot of use lately!

    While searching I have also come across a lot of pictures that I want to save. I have also come across many that cause me to wonder.

    I found some pictures of the desk in the Wagman Observatory, taken before the addition had been added. One was just the desk and the others were of me, writing in my journal. The colors were red and black. I attempted to enlarge the picture to see what I was writing or what was on the sky atlas open beside the notebook. The pictures weren’t sharp enough to see any details.

    I continued copying slides but my mind kept returning to those pictures.

It wasn’t until later in the evening that an idea hit me. The date was noted on the slides! I could look in my journals and see what I had written. This unfortunately would involve another trip up to the attic. This isn’t the easiest thing to do these days.

    A day or two later, I made the trip. I went through the cubbyhole in the closet and up a sketchy set of rungs into the space under the rafters. I knew exactly where they were kept, in the bottom drawer of a file cabinet. I pulled out the one I needed and then after a moment’s thought, grabbed the entire pile and brought them downstairs with me.

    Looking through them, I found the journal I was looking for and turned to the date in question. There it was! The page in the pictures! Reading the entry, I found out that the evening was foggy. The sky overhead was clear, but it was rapidly disappearing. I had taken some photos of Mars and the Andromeda Galaxy. I had also dropped my camera, breaking a filter and a shutter cable in the process. (8:21PM if you’re interested)

    After closing the roof because of the approaching fog, I took a couple pictures of the desk to check whether the camera was still working. This was a film camera, no digital stuff yet.

    This wasn’t the first time I ever dropped a camera, believe me. I get a chill just thinking about it. Hopefully this occurrence helped me become even more careful with my gear!

    I find it fascinating to leaf through these notebooks. There are times when I can remember the exact day and event listed in them; all it takes is a simple sentence. Of course, there are so many things written down that I have completely forgotten. (Such as the time my car battery died after a Christmas Party at Alleghany Observatory) I enjoy looking at the simple sketches I made and am sometimes amazed at the detail in some of them. The items stuck between the pages are another exciting thing to look at: pictures, newsletters, notes and lists.

    Looking at my journals, I see that the collection isn’t complete. There are more than a few missing. I guess I’ll have to make another trip up to the attic.

    Whether or not these journals will ever be anything other than a reminder of the past is yet to be seen. I definitely am glad that I kept them. They are filled with memories of not only stellar observations but memories of family, friends and good times I’ve had under the stars. They also remind me of some of the mistakes I’ve made, such as dropping cameras. Oh yeah, I need to remember those also, no matter how foolish they were.