It all started when...

As long as I can remember I have always been interested in space, space exploration, and science in general. As a child of the 1960s this was easy to do since this was the moonshot era and space news, astronomical discoveries being made (now that we were a spacefaring species) were in abundance, not that I really had any context about it all at that point–it was just cool.

One year around 1965 my parents gave me the Larousse Encyclopedia of Astronomy for Christmas and at 360 or so oversize pages it was by far the biggest book this seven year-old had ever seen. Nevertheless I was fascinated by the pictures and their descriptions and the whole experience started my mind thinking along logical/scientific lines in basic ways at an early age, something that has been truly beneficial for me all throughout my life.

Fast forward forty plus years and I look back at that book and realize I was looking at 360 pages of mostly "We don't know"! What's Jupiter made of? "We think hydrogen mostly but we don't know". What's the surface of Mars look like? "We don't know". They had a picture of Mars in the book with the caption: The best photo of Mars ever taken… It looked only slightly better than a pic you could take today by holding your iPhone up to the eyepiece of a 10" telescope!

Career History

So with all this early science fascination I became a professional astronomer, scientist or astrophysicist, right?
Wrong…

In fifth grade you had to start taking music classes or sing in the choir (God forbid) so they handed me a trombone. It wasn't love at first sight or anything but I had some great teachers in junior high school and above and really started getting fired up about music in seventh grade or so, eventually going on to graduate college with a bachelors degree in trombone performance, which I'm pretty sure is the world's least sought-after diploma. (I'm convinced now that when they hand you that thing in fifth grade there should be an issued disclaimer in the instrument case: "Kid, you're gonna like this, like it a lot! But don't end up liking it too much, it's just going to end badly for you…")

Somewhere along the way through college I became aware that a career of nothing but trombone playing was going to be a rather spartan existence (Quick: name a trombone player… See?) and found that learning recording engineering would be a nice confluence of music arts and electronics and would have a reasonable chance of earning me a living if I was good enough. So I became a music producer which I still do here in Hilton Head although the nature of the business is quite different than it was in the 80s and 90s.

Scope In

I had a telescope when I was a kid, it was from that hallmark company of scientific instrumentation: Sears! It was just over two inches in diameter (a classic design for cheap scopes) on a shaky wood mount and came with two overpowered eyepieces (a typical bad decision of scope manufacturers of the day so they could advertise "high power" which is actually useless on a shaky, unguided mount) but nevertheless I found a way to view some things from the driveway, mostly the Moon, planets and bright stars since I didn't know what else I could see or where to find it. I saw some good lunar eclipses over the years and always had a passion for trying to take pictures of things through the scope, once getting a decent shot of some sunspots by holding my Instamatic film camera up to the eyepiece (with a solar filter in place of course) which went in a newsletter I made (circulation: 3) which I realize now was an early precursor to my fascination with desktop publishing and astrophotography.

I wasn't a fiend for observing back then but as I got older I never completely lost touch with it either even having my Mom ship me the same, now twenty year old Sears scope to me for Halley's comet in 1986. Well it didn't take me very long to realize I was ready for something better now that I was an adult and five years out of college.

I found one rather quickly as luck would have it and still have the same scope today (more or less) 30 years later, the complete story of which I tell on the next page down because I think the story is educational as to the kind of gear that's out there to buy and what it's good for.

After having the new scope a year or so my friend and mentor Mike Perry and I joined an astronomical society and I eventually started publishing their newsletter which I did for about eleven years; the circulation was up in the hundreds now instead of three! I found out that you could do these Astronomical League (A.L.) sanctioned observing projects and took about a year to observe the complete 110 object Messier Catalog which to this day is pretty much the "Top 100" things to see with amateur telescopes. You had to keep a log book and do a little sketch of each object and then send your notes in for evaluation and if you passed you got a certificate and a little pin for your hat or tie or wherever. I highly recommend doing this kind of project because it will force you into areas of the sky you're not already familiar with and that really extends your learning.

Channeling my inner Carl Sagan

As it turns out, when you're in an astronomy club you end up hosting events for the public through “open houses” and public stargazes on "National Astronomy Day" and such to provide a public service and recruit new members. My background in music performance made me comfortable in these public situations and I discovered I had a talent for making hard-to-understand things understandable and talking about the sky with a good balance of nuts-and-bolts science info sprinkled with just enough "awe and wonder" to keep it interesting.

Over the years I was able to get a good handle on what kinds of things would make people say "Oh my God!" when they look through the eyepiece and use that knowledge when I pick objects to look at today at my stargazes also keeping in mind at least half of the people there have never looked through a telescope before and certainly can't observe with any level of detail until they get a little time in at the eyepiece.

Recent History

In 2015 at the age of 58 I decided to make a "pretend retirement" maneuver and relocate from Cincinnati to the Hilton Head area where, at least in theory, I could play golf year 'round!

Along with that I was pondering which of my marketable skills would be fun to pursue down here. I was able to wrangle an introduction to Greg Shumaker, the assistant activities director at Marriott VacationClub SurfWatch resort who had a science background in college and was eager to start up a weekly stargaze for their guests, with the Marriott being committed to providing a great experience for their owners beyond giving them a place to stay for the week.

Well the program has been met with extremely favorable comments with some people saying it was the highlight of their trip! I find that very gratifying and the stargazes became so popular during the busy summer months that the Marriott went out and purchased a second telescope so people wouldn't have to wait so long for their turn at the eyepiece. In addition other Marriotts got wind of the event and pretty soon I was doing stargazes 3-days a week!

I eventually came to the decision that I needed to "brand myself" and after doing a little 'crowd-sourcing' on Facebook ended up with "Bill the Sky Guy" fan page where I could interact with my guests, both current and past.

This website was created because I would be asked many of the same questions regarding getting started in this hobby or how to better use equipment people already had, what's good to look at in the sky etc. so I decided to write down pretty much everything I know about telescopes, observing best-practices and the like in a central place where people who are just getting going with astronomy can go to get a boost of knowledge or contact me directly with a question or comment.

I also was going to be needing a place to display my astrophotos as I started to get the hang of that.

Please have a look around and would love to hear your comments about what you think should be included in a site like this.

To borrow the famous tag line from Jack Horkheimer, "Keep Looking Up"…

Bill Gwynne
aka "Bill the Sky Guy"
Hilton Head Island
August, 2020