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About Me

Hi, I my name is Graham Christie. I am from Courtenay, a town about 3 hours north of Victoria on Vancouver Island. I have long been fascinated by the night sky, but at the beginning of this school year, my fascination became a passion. I was taking an astronomy course at UVic as sort of a fun elective. Within the first few weeks of class, we had our first lab.

It was a great one. We went up to the observatory on the top of one of UVic's buildings for a taste of the night sky. We first learned the stories of the major constellations, and had the pointed out to us. We then took our first look through the 8 inch telescope on the viewing deck. We looked at a few stars, some very blue, some very red, we looked at a binary system, one blue and one yellow, we looked at the moon, almost full at that time. The most interesting thing we looked at though was Jupiter. It just amazed me that looking into the sky I saw a little yellow dot, and then with the telescope, I could see a planet with moons, and stripes. It just sorta blew my mind a little bit, especially because I had just read a book about navigation several hundred years ago, and how it was possible to use Jupiter's moons as a clock, and use that to find out where on the earth you were.

For the last part of the lab, we went into the dome and were able to use the nearly brand new 32 inch telescope. It is a beauty of a machine. It slews very fast, tracks impeccably, and makes incredible images in its eye-piece. I think it was this telescope that really got me hooked. The best thing is that every wednesday night, there is an open house, and all the telescopes, weather permitting, are available to the public. Since that first lab night, I have gone to nearly every single open house, and have sort of turned into a de-facto volunteer.

During the semester, I brought down from Courtenay my mom's father's telescope, a nice little 4.5 inch reflector. It is nice to be able to look at whatever I want whenever it is clear. I am also in a second astronomy course, with the same great professor.

In short, I really love the night sky, and as I really love photography, I have decided to make this blog. I dont really know how to blog, but I am hoping it will come to me as it goes on.

Cheers!