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[ionguy]

I live in a city called Santo Domingo in the Dominican Republic. I live with my wife and three kids and besides astronomy also love music,hi-fi gear, and fine musical instruments. I'm a recording engineer. We are 17 degrees north latidude so I've had my share of Omega Centauri which is truly spectacular. The sight that got me hooked when I was eleven, was Saturn through a sears 2.5 inch refractor from my neighbor across the street. I still keep this vivid impression in my mind. From there on my Biology teacher in high school, noting my interest, lent me an Edmund Scientific catalogue which I Knew by heart, especially the 6 inch reflector specs which a year later became my grade-passing present when I aged 13 in 1967. With that fabulous optical device the heavens clicked in focused sharpnes, the red spot in Jupiter was seen in true color red and the four moons could be easily discerned in transit in front of the planet. I still remenber a fabulous occultation of the pleiades I woke up to see around 4:00 AM EST a long time ago. Twenty years later I made my first mirror thanks to the AAA's optical division in Hayden Planetarium, Thank you John Peters! I just restored an 8 inch Cave cassegrain scope from 1967 and am working on a fabulous Thomas Mathis mount to hold a 12 1/2 inch cave f/7 mirror from 1970 to be probably donated to the Local Astronomical Society in a very dark and elevated country site. Right now we are working in facilitating the first possible observatory in the country which could even have some tourist potential. A home roof observatory and astrophotography are my next future projects.

[Chicago Astronomer - Astro Joe]

Ion,

Great to have you part of the Chicago Astronomer family and thank you for your first post.

Your ambition to construct the sole observatory at your location is fantasic and a great idea! I would like to read your ideas and plans about this project, and perhaps we all could assist in the ideas.

You are our sole representative from the Dominican Republic, glad that you found us. How did you find us by the way?

See you here often and welcome.

[Maddad]

Good to have you with us, ionguy. You seem to be about the same age as I am, although I don't have the practical telescope experience that you do.

[ionguy]

ionguy said:

I live in a city called Santo Domingo in the Dominican Republic. I live with my wife and three kids and besides astronomy also love music,hi-fi gear, and fine musical instruments. I'm a recording engineer. We are 17 degrees north latidude so I've had my share of Omega Centauri which is truly spectacular. The sight that got me hooked when I was eleven, was Saturn through a sears 2.5 inch refractor from my neighbor across the street. I still keep this vivid impression in my mind. From there on my Biology teacher in high school, noting my interest, lent me an Edmund Scientific catalogue which I Knew by heart, especially the 6 inch reflector specs which a year later became my grade-passing present when I aged 13 in 1967. With that fabulous optical device the heavens clicked in focused sharpnes, the red spot in Jupiter was seen in true color red and the four moons could be easily discerned in transit in front of the planet. I still remenber a fabulous occultation of the pleiades I woke up to see around 4:00 AM EST a long time ago. Twenty years later I made my first mirror thanks to the AAA's optical division in Hayden Planetarium, Thank you John Peters! I just restored an 8 inch Cave cassegrain scope from 1967 and am working on a fabulous Thomas Mathis mount to hold a 12 1/2 inch cave f/7 mirror from 1970 to be probably donated to the Local Astronomical Society in a very dark and elevated country site. Right now we are working in facilitating the first possible observatory in the country which could even have some tourist potential. A home roof observatory and astrophotography are my next future projects. ["The truth is a blurry face you begin to just barely make out when you fix your eyes on a spinning wheel full of people" Einstein]

[Chicago Astronomer - Astro Joe]

Eric,

Edmund Scientific...lol, what a great mail order catalog. I remember extensively looking thru all the pages of the publication as a kid...and wanting everything in it.

Must be a time warp...cause I read the same post twice...parallel universe?

[Chicago Astronomer - Astro Joe]

I received this nice note from Eric (Ionguy), a few days ago, and I thought I would post it here...

Dear administrator:

Welcome to Santo Domingo!

This _expression is extensive to the whole Chicago Astronomer family as your kind reply merits this and more. Thank you for your offer as it will be forwarded to all the members of our group. My personal knowledge or your dynamic and popular site came by as a consequence of my signing up with the cave telescope group at groups.com/group/cave_telescopes/. There was a link among some of the more than 800 messages posted by its members which guided me to you. We share, more than nothing, pride of ownership in our Cave instruments, besides the love of restoring such fine pieces of american workmanship. As you must already know Mr. Thomas Roland Cave was considered the Zambuto of the 70's. Regarding myself you can count on me, in this area of the world, to collaborate in whichever manner you could find useful.

Our society's name is Sociedad Astrónomica Dominicana, or Dominican Astronomical Society of which I am a member. Our group's president is Robert Guerrero. We have been slowly growing for a few years now and count with a few dozen motivated and quite knowledgeable young amateurs, boys and girls (10:1), each member with his own area of interests within the hobby. Our web site is astrodom.org where you can obtain information regarding our group as well as geographical information such as dark sky mapping of the island's 40,000 square kilometers. We share the island with Haiti. Our tallest mountain is more than 10,000 feet high but we are hoping to establish the group observatory anywhere dark enough, the higher the better , hopefully more than 6,000 feet high with an accessible road.

I was recently involved with fully organizing the mars opposition observation program at the Museum of Natural History's observatory ( Parks 12 1/2" f/5 reflector ). We broke attendance records for any museum in any time in the past. This in part contributed to view the potential of the astronomy public programs among the general public. Besides this some public officials and especially one independent and highly regarded congressman approached me to communicate the good news of his attempts to begin developing the idea of a national observatory for the uses determined by consensus among the parts to be involved. College physics programs and groups like ours could qualify for observing time. My intimate hope is to develop collateral astronomical villages with strict lighting and relevant regulations which could initiate a new type of amateur astronomy tourism. The idea is: Dark skies at night, Aquamarined water beaches by day and sunglasses all day long. Besides the possibility of teleoperating a large telescope on Southern targets visible from this latitude to serve certain needs from other latitudes.

There is much you can help with in terms of how you manage your organization, and the experience derived from having bred such a successful group. Knowing of important anual events might lead to us taking the trip north sometime and personally meeting many of you. If you would like to send a formal note of collaboration to our group your are welcome to do so. Thank you for your genuine interest in us as we will also try to make ourselves useful to you.

I would like you to share a picture that a recent member of ours named Maurice de Castro with only 6 months of experimenting with astrophotography, took of M42 from his home's back garden. He lives in the suburbs though only about 6 miles from the physical center of the city. No filters were used. It seems to not be the case with what you call the "Chicago Nebula". It speaks of the potential of our skies.

Places people and things to associate with our country are: Puerto Plata, Samana, Bavaro, Punta Cana, San Pedro de Macoris, La Romana, Cap Cana, Sammy Sosa, Juan Marichal, the Alou players, Merengue, Rubirosa, Trujillo, illegal immigrants and more. Save my e-mail and keep in touch. Others are welcome to write.

Sunny, warm clear skies to you

Eric Ramos
Ionguy


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Thanks Eric, I wish you well on your sharing astronomy with your fellow Dominicans.

The term "The Great Chicago Nebula is in referrence to the tremendous amount of light pollution here in Chicago. It glows our sky orange, and therefore I call the glow a nebula.

That is certainly a great image of M42. I remember observing it as a kid with a simple 60mm refractor telescope. It's amazing what can be seen with that scope!

I also like your website, although I can't fluently read it all, most of the spanish is legible to me.

Perhaps you could link up to us here as well!