I can not remember when I first got interested in astronomy. I remember that since I was very young I asked my parents to buy me a telescope. When I was twelve years old, my parents were passed on to a free zone of Manaus burn money that they had won (at the time I lived in Pará) and I was soon asking them to bring me a telescope in the bag.
Days later, my mother called for Manaus, warning that they had bought a guitar. But he saw that I had not accepted this gift well. They spent two more days and they called advising that they had bought a tennis racket and again heard complaints. They even bought a kit dive before finally buying a small 40mm telescope. The major result was the revolt of my brothers because my parent had bought so many things for me.
Unfortunately, today I learned that you should not just take a telescope to his son if he wants to practice astronomy and think everything is resolved. The little one of 40mm was a disaster, with a very dim view of the Moon and unable to show the phases of Venus, who, through it, remained only as a very bright star. Join the money of all present, would certainly have been possible a telescope at least adequate. But I can not criticize them. It was a time without internet and a closed economy and buy appropriate equipment forAstronomy in Brazil was nothing like what it is today. They probably bought the best equipment that was available. And in the end, unfortunately I ended up using the telescope only to spying on people passing on the street in front of my house, especially the females.It took many years. I grew up, went to college, got a job and one day I decided to enter a website called Travel the Solar System (http://www.vssbr.com/). This site may now seem utterly poor, with no notion of basic concepts of usability and web designe, but at the time was what reborn my interest in astronomy when I was becoming a philistine. I spent weeks thrashing the site in my monitor until I decided to simply print the entire contents on my printer service.
As might be expected, I would not take so long to back the dream of a telescope. And as is typical of me, I had to start scratching their heads. I bought a Tasco telescope with 50 mm, such that you may have seen beautifying storefronts in malls. Now I realize the horror that was the one instrument. When you use a telescope of truth, will never be able to use a cheap product again. At least the Tasco telescope has been able to show me the moons of Jupiter for the first time and also the rings of Saturn, although in a very precarious and always after a major effort to align and stabilize the unit.
Over time, I could buy a decent telescope, a 90mm refractor I could bring the United States through a site that not work anymore with telescopes. The 90mm refractor is a lovely machine, able to split the rings of Saturn, see the polar caps of Mars or even see the shadow of Jupiter's moons on that planet when they pass in front of him. I managed to take my first pictures of the sky with this telescope, but I kept suffering from lack of knowledge. One thing I learned at that time was practicing astronomy: knowledge is worth far more than good equipment to have a good night's observations.
This is a small "brief summary" of my life practicing astronomy, until today. It's a hobby that captivates me this forever, which sometimes, by necessity, or practical reasons I pull away, but was always one of the most fascinating things I've seen to do. I imagine that if there is a God, he must be very proud to see some of his creations, even the most humble, admiring and trying to understand his work, asking yourself how they got there, they are alone and where they go.
