Whitepeak Observatory, Tacoma, WA

About...

Although i had no "about me" page for the first years of this website's existence, it seems a personal website is not considered complete (even odd) without one--or so i am told. So here it is along with a picture montage of old & new for the digitally curious. My name is Mardiņa...

Obligatory background...I worked for some years in the field of veterinary immunology designing & producing custom vaccines called "Autogenous Bacterins" for commercial large animal operations from a private midwestern lab. That is the extent of my "scientific" experience. i have lived in Central America, the UK and Germany and travelled quite a bit while there. I have visited most of the US and Canada as well.

Astronomy has been an interest of mine for many years. My introduction (and when the hook was set) came in the early 70's when i was a teeny. That's when i got my first look at Saturn through the same little "spotting" telescope you can see sitting behind me in the pic of me in my observatory in the montage (it's an old K-Mart "Focal" brand scope with a 20-60X zoom eyepiece). That was the moment when i had the revelation that something is not "really real" until you have seen it with your OWN EYES! (A fact lost on many of today's media-centric personalities...) After that I got a 4.5" reflector for Christmas from my folks, mounted it on a pier in our backyard and the game was on. During that time some of the neighbor kids & i organized our own astronomy club and we ran through the whole messier list, a bunch of NGC objects, eight of the planets, a couple of lunar eclipses and the total eclipse of sun of 1979 between us. (Yes, a total solar eclipse is worth some effort to actually witness--we travelled about 600 miles in the dead of a Dakota winter to see ours.) Our biggest scope was a 10" Cave (which belonged to the oldest boy in the club, the one with the money!). In the intervening years i have always owned one telescope or another, although only in the last few years have i had the sort of personal situation which could foster any in-depth pursuit of the hobby.

So, that's it. Let's get back to ASTRONOMY! --by clicking the link below!