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Curt Hall's
Amateur Astronomy Site

Welcome

You have found, either on purpose or by chance, my amateur astronomy website. I hope that the content you find here will be of some educational benefit, or that you will at least find some inspiration that may lead you to a passion you knew not existed. This website is mostly an assembly of links that I personally found to be informative in respect to my favorite hobby.

I, like many of you, am a backyard astronomer. We are the dedicated few who prefer to spend our free time looking up at the stars on any given clear night, no matter what the season, even if we are challenged with sub-freezing temperatures, vermin (skunks, opossums, racoons... etc.), obnoxious street lamps (light pollution), mosquitos and spiders, among other "hazards" and "inconveniences". We tend to spend too much money on our hobby whether it's a new eyepiece, filter, software, magazines and books, or even that "big" telescope we've always wanted.

We're constantly yearning for the chance to view that 'faint fuzzy' in our eyepiece, knowing that perhaps it is a distant galaxy who's light has traveled millions, or even billions of lightyears to finally reach us, and realizing that it actually took that long for those photons to reach their final destination -- the eye of a curious earthling who may be wondering if there is just perhaps someone... looking back.

About Me

I've been interested in astronomy since I was a kid. When I was 11 yrs old my parents purchased a 60mm spotting scope for me. I saw the rings of Saturn, Jupiter with it's moons, double stars, and the moon for the first time with that little scope. I lost interest for a while as I was growing up, but then a few years ago something renewed my passion for astronomy -- Comet Hale-Bopp. I dug out the old 60mm scope, took one peek, and... well, you know the rest. I've since upgraded to the Meade 4500 Newtonian and am looking forward to when I can upgrade to the 10" LX200.

Content

To the left of this page you'll notice a frame which contains links to information pertaining to different catagories of astronomy. Simply click on any link that interests you.

The Telescopes category shows links to four of the most popular telescope manufacturers -- Celestron, Discovery, Meade, and Orion. There are other scope makers, but some of those are considered to be high end equipment and for the sake of economy I felt that these four were the most practical regarding affordability.
The Solar System category shows links to planet information as well as our Moon, comets, asteroids, and the Sun (among other objects).
The Intergalactic Objects category links to information about celestial objects in our own galaxy - the Milky Way.
The Extragalactic Objects catagory links to information about objects that are outside of our Milky Way - galaxies, supernovae, quasars... etc.

I hope you enjoy your visit. Don't forget to sign my guestbook at the bottom of this page. Email me if you find any dead links or if the site isn't working properly. I'll fix it. Thank you so much for spending time here. I sincerely hope you drop by again.

Wishing you clear skies...

Curt