Who amI?

I was born in 1955 in Rotterdam, overschie, that's in The Netherlands.
Burgemeester boumanlaan 149 c.
I lived in Rotterdam till I was 8, loved to play in the "spaanse polder"
and then my parents moved to Breda.
It seemed at that time to me a good idea to go with them.  :-)

My Brother Paul was very interested in airplanes, and he wrote sometimes to the US-Airforce for fotographs of airplanes.
Sometimes the US-Airforce included some pictures of rockets, and he gave them to me.
Through these foto's I got interested in space travel, The Mecuri, Gemini and then the Moon landing of the Apollo-11 in 1969 when I was 14 years of age.
Soon I wrote also to the USA for foto's, even to the dutch scientist Gerard P. Kuiper in Arizona.
Sometimes he send me foto's and extractions about space-programs to study the moon etc, a very nice man :-)
           
Click to enlarge....
I also wrote to ALL the major US observatories, requesting fotographs, etc. etc.
Hilarious what you do for some foto's when you're young :-)
LICK OBSERVATORY, 1968

As you can see, I already had an Administrative Office :-)
PALOMAR, 1968
GRIFFITH OBSERVATORY, JANUARI 1970
The Royal Astronomical Society of Canada, 1970
My father took me sometimes to the "Volks Sterrenwacht Simon Stevin in Oudenbosch", in The Netherlands

There we looked through the big 30-cm Macsutov telescope.
(Dutch: In een toenmalig klooster werd door twee broeders de 'Volkssterrenwacht Simon Stevin'opgericht.
In 1969 kregen ze in het klooster zoveel bezoekers dat de sterrenwacht naar een eigen terrein.
Dit vonden ze in 1969 ook. Dit is het terein aan de Bovenstraat te Hoeven, waar nu Quasar gevestigd is in het voormalige gebouw van Volkssterrenwacht Simon Stevin)
Now it's located in Hoeven, and it looks more like a convention centre, making money is more important that promoting Astronomy to the public, very sad :-(
In that time I was extremely impressed by the Polarex Telescopes, that I saw at the Observatory in Hoeven.
But as always, I had no money to buy such a perfect telescope.
For the prices: see here
I wanted to own a telescope, so at the age of 12 I got a  single lens of a pair of glasses (the thing on your nose) and a 25-mm Ramsden eyepiece.
My parents bought me the lens, at the local spectacle shop and I ordered the ramsden eyepiece at the Observatory Simon Stevin if I am correct or at "stichting de koepel".
The eyepiece was about 25 guilders,  about 11 euro in today money, about 15 US dollars.
I was very happy that my parents paid for the eyepiece, because it would take me months to get that amount of money :-)
(at 12, what is your weekly allowence in 1967? 20 cents a week? )

Here follows the extreme difficult design of my first telescope.........
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(Just an example of how my first telescope looked like 
Together with a cardboard pipe I made it into a telescope.
The lens had a opening of 3 cm.
The lens had an F of 1 meter so the magnification was 1000/25 = 40 times

With that I started to observe the sky, and believe me, you do NOT need more to get hooked. Abre Los Ojos, Open Your Eyes, that's all !

I observed, holding the telescope in my hand, and peeping through it outside my bedroom window....Thats all
In 1968 (13 years old) I bought a "15 cm lens grinding package" of "Stichting  De Koepel" in The netherlands, and I started to grind my first telescope mirror.
Click for enlargement:
    
This is an old foto of that 15 cm telescope on the roof of our shed in Terheyden, a village near Breda in Holland.
The mount is made of 2 bycicle steering axes welded together, if you sneezed, the telescope would vibrate for hours !!  :-))))))

In the meantime I kept buying the "Sterrengidsen"  :-)
In 1973 (18 years old) I started to build a 20 cm Newton, of which I also grinded the mirror myself.
Here I am working on the mount, I was unemployed and living in the "nieuwe prinsenkade" in Breda
This picture was taken around the year 1974
Yes I was a hippy with long hair ;-)

Here I am standing in the garden in de "Kolenbranderstraat"  in Breda, with my 20-cm Newton.
It was 1976 or 1977... I just was enlisted in the army, a complete waste of time :-)

Later I sold the 20 cm newton, and I  bought a Dynamax 8

During my study I was a Disc Jockey at DISCO BAR "De Schuur" in Breda :-))))))
Started 1977 till 1986


(9 years of study, drinking and.....   :-)
1986 till 2007.........If you can remember them, you were'nt there !!!!
(Mariage, kids, jobs, business........)

LOL
2007: I wanted a hobby again and I decided to start again with Astronomy

2007 - 2009:  Construction of a Dome for the newly bought 14 inch meade with a Losmandy Titan.
2009: Moved to live at a more quiet location and started building a roll-off observatory
Losmandy Titan sold and ordered a Paramount ME !!!!
2009:  The Paramount has arrived!!!!!





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