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Michael A. Stecker |
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Alson Wong, M.D.
Rancho Cucamonga, California U.S.A. |
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My first observing instrument was a pair of 7x35 Bushnell binoculars which I received as a gift. The images weren't very sharp and were quite astigmatic, but it was enough to get me started on objects like the Moon, M31, the Pleiades, and Hyades. I bought my first telescope, an Edmund Astroscan, during my second year of college at the University of California, Irvine in 1982-83. This scope was a nice instrument for learning how to find and observe objects through a telescope. With the Astroscan, I was able to find and observe nearly all of the Messier objects. During the fall quarter of 1983, I took a course at UCI in observational astronomy taught by Dr. Wallace Tucker, who was then splitting his time between UCI and the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics. The next quarter I became a teaching assistant for the course, which gave me unlimited access to the school's observatory, which contained a C-14, C-8, and C-5. In 1985 I attended my first big star party, the Riverside Telescope Makers Conference near Big Bear, California. After graduating magna cum laude with a Bachelor of Science in Biological Sciences, I started medical school at UCI. The time demands of medical school left me little time for observing. While doing my residency in pediatrics at UCLA Medical Center, I bought my second telescope, a 10" Coulter Odyssey. My first opportunity to use this scope under a really dark sky was at the 1991 Texas Star Party, where I was astounded at how clear and dark the skies were. It was at the 1991 TSP where Barbara Wilson and Steve O'Meara made the first visual observations of a gravitational lens through an amateur telescope. I happened to walk past Barbara's scope just as Steve was stepping down from the ladder, but I was having so much fun looking through my new scope and through Brian Skiff's 6" Astro-Physics refractor that I didn't stop to take a look (one of my biggest astronomical regrets).
In 1993 I started my
current job with the Southern California Permanente Medical Group, and in
1995 I saw my first total solar eclipse on a cruise in the South China
Sea. In 1997, as
Comet Hale-Bopp
became increasingly prominent, I started piggyback astrophotography and
began to observe with the Riverside
Astronomical Society, which I joined later that year. In 1998, I began
taking prime focus film shots with my
C-9.25, and
in 2002 I started CCD imaging with an ST-10XME. In the past few years I
have traveled to solar eclipses in
Turkey (1999),
Zambia (2001),
Australia (2002),
Antarctica
(2003), and
Egypt (2006). Areas of interest
Sky & Telescope |
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Alson traveled to Chile in November 2003
before flying over Antarctica for a solar
eclipse. While in northern Chile he visited three major observatories: the
Very Large
Telescope on Paranal, the Inter-American Observatory on Cerro Tololo, and
the
Gemini South Observatory on Cerro Pachon. He also spent an evening
observing at
Mamalluca Observatory near La Serena, and did some sightseeing in Southern
Chile
including Torres Del Paine National Park. |
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