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About 10 years ago, I was up at 8300 feet on Mt Pinos in Southern California on a perfect "seeing" night. There were probably 40 to 50 different star gazers with their various brands and types of telescopes viewing the wonders of the dark nights sky. As is often the case, people would drive up the mountain road and not be aware that this was a popular spot for astronomy, and would park and look around. I had my Nexstar 8 locked on the Ring Nebula with a good view, when a father and his 8 year old son walked up and asked if I wouldn't mind letting the young man take a peek through my scope. I happily adjusted it for him and he peered through my binocular eyepiece. He turned and looked at me with just the most excited look on his face, then at his Dad. He experienced a moment of discovery, which is one of the most satisfying and uniquely human of emotional experiences. I got the impression that the experience might someday motivate him to enter the field of astronomy, possibly due to my telescope.
