I learned my first constellations from my mother and my big sister, when I was still in grade school in a small town in North Dakota. I got more serious about constellations and the actual stars within constellations later when I was in college, still living at our rural home, outside Lincoln, Nebraska. I didn't know it then, of course, that I would so desperately miss those
dark skies, later in my life. Indeed, using a small
60mm refractor in rural Nebraska allowed me to see more than a much
larger telescope or
astronomy binocular, these days, in the Chicago suburbs, and I did not have the benefit of over forty years of experience, either. To think that how easily I could see the Milky Way stretch across the sky on any given night or see Coma Berenices, the Beehive or the Andromeda galaxy without an
astronomy binocular makes me long for those old days. I still remember the night I actually saw Andromeda. I read that it should be visible to the naked eye on a good night, so I grabbed my crude star map, spotted Andromeda, overhead, then hopped a couple of stars and there it was. Not much to it, or so I thought. I also remember the first time I attended a planetarium show and almost found it laughable. I certainly don't laugh, now, though, when I realize, with great sadness, that it is the closest thing many people will ever get to those dark skies I took for granted in my youth. I still observe every chance I get with my binocular or telescope, despite my light-polluted skies, simply because I love astronomy too much to quit, but how true it is when they say you never know what you have till it's gone.