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How To Spend $60K on Home Astronomy
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Mark Heithoff A $25,000 Mewlon (bottom), controlled by a laptop, is the heart of the Walker observatory
He started so modestly, building a $100 telescope out of some pipe fittings and mirrors. But today, Gary Walker is in the big leagues of amateur astronomy. He's spent more than $60,000 on two home observatories, a half-dozen telescopes (his largest has a foot-wide mirror), and a high-end digital camera. When it comes to Walker's heavenly hobby, only the sky's the limit.
The focal point of the 58-year-old engineer's stargazing is the two-story lookout he designed and built at his New Hampshire vacation home. (He bought the plot for its dark skies.) A 300-pound telescope – the $25,000 Takahashi Mewlon reflector – looks out through a 5-by-14-foot slit in the roof. Downstairs, Walker uses a laptop loaded with star charts to control the scope. An old Mac processes images from the camera, specially designed to pick up the faintest starlight. Observation hours begin after dinner and run until dawn. One marathon session stretched over nine nights. "I took a picture of a quasar 8 billion light-years away," he says. "The universe is only 13 billion years old."
A onetime president of the American Association of Variable Star Observers, Walker launched a program for amateurs to assist in tracking tiny changes in objects like dwarf novae. "Seeing a star get brighter than the week before, there's kind of a high," he says. Thanks to the Web, the effort has expanded from a handful of fanatics to 100-plus watchers worldwide. The association's database, which contains more than 10 million observations, helps the pros weed out stars that aren't worth their time.
It's not unusual for amateurs to make important discoveries in astronomy, and Walker admits that he'd like to have a piece of the heavens named for him. "I enjoy contributing to science. Someday, hopefully, a discovery will come along," he says. "Although I don't do it for that. I still enjoy the brightness of stars."
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