My fascination with the night sky started in the most ordinary way — with a cheap telescope from a small hobby shop in Brookside, Missouri. It was rickety, the mount wobbled, and about the only thing I could manage to see was the Moon. Yet even then, something about the quiet glow of that cratered surface stayed with me. I didn’t know it at the time, but that small, frustrating telescope was the first step on a path that would shape much of my life.
Everything changed when I attended a meeting of the Astronomical Society of Kansas City (ASKC). That night I met real observers — people who talked about galaxies, star parties, and telescopes with mirrors large enough to gather the light of worlds unseen. Their passion was contagious. I soon bought an 8-inch Celestron Star Hopper Dobsonian and began making trips to Powell Observatory in Louisburg, Kansas. The dark skies, the hum of conversations at the eyepiece, and the sense of shared curiosity lit a fire that’s never gone out.
Over the years, I upgraded — first to a 16-inch Dobsonian, then to a Meade telescope that brought the deep sky to life. But one night at Powell changed everything. I watched David Young and Larry Robinson working with a Meade Schmidt–Cassegrain equipped with a CCD camera. The computer screen flickered with faint starlight captured in real time — a glimpse into the invisible universe. That moment hooked me. From visual astronomy, I turned toward digital imaging and asteroid hunting.
Soon I was learning everything I could about CCD cameras, telescope automation, and image reduction. My backyard became a test lab — cables, mounts, and the soft whir of motors under a Kansas sky. What began as a hobby grew into EverStaR Observatory, a small but fully automated setup dedicated to exploring and recording the heavens. From that backyard, I discovered minor planets, built systems that could observe through the night unattended, and shared my work with others who dreamed of doing the same.
But astronomy has its seasons, too. After years of chasing faint moving dots through endless CCD frames, I found myself craving the simplicity of just looking up again. That’s when the idea for the AstroTrailer was born — a mobile observatory that could travel to dark skies and rekindle the joy of pure visual observation. It was a return to the feeling I had at the very beginning — the wonder that comes from standing beneath the stars and remembering why I started.
“Every improvement taught a lesson — and every lesson found its way into the next iteration.”
— EverStaR Observatory Archives, 2001
Today, my journey through astronomy continues — not driven by discovery counts or new gear, but by gratitude for the adventure itself. From that shaky little telescope in Brookside to the EverStaR Observatory and AstroTrailer, I’ve learned that astronomy isn’t just about what we see. It’s about what it awakens inside us — patience, curiosity, and a quiet sense of belonging to something vast and beautiful.