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Wayne Baggett
picture of Wayne Baggett

My Field Journals



My interest in astronomy began when I was about 12 years old and living outside of Dallas, Texas - I fell in love with the stars while camping with the Boy Scouts and I worked toward becoming an astronomer through junior high school, high school, college, and graduate school. All told, I spent 24 years in school to become an astronomer.

Because of my interest in astronomy, I concentrated on math and science during high school. I read every book on astronomy that I could get my hands on, even some college textbooks. From a practical standpoint, I spent many nights outside looking at the stars, learning the constellations and finding interesting things to look at with my telescope (like the planets!).

Probably the most important activity I undertook as a young person was to build my own telescope while in high school - I had to build it because I couldn't afford to buy a larger one than I already had. This taught me about telescope design, optical fabrication and testing, mechanical skills, how to budget money(!), and a bunch of other things which have been useful to me over the years. The best part of the project was that I was able to enjoy using a fine optical instrument which I made with my own two hands - I still own the telescope, although I have made some changes to it since it was first completed.

Believe it or not, most people I came in contact with tried to discourage me from pursuing a career in astronomy. They were probably correct, since I don't actually do much astronomy as part of my work! There is not a lot of money to be made in astronomy, and like many other career choices it requires much dedication and hard work to train for it and to be successful at it. The number of jobs available where you can really do astronomy is very small, and the competition for them is extremely fierce. That's why many astronomers have jobs more like mine: they work in a technical field using skills and knowledge they gained from studying astronomy, but do very little astronomy as part of their job.

However, astronomy can be a very rewarding hobby for anyone who is interested. Stars and planets are available for anyone to enjoy, and many people spend their evenings, weekends, and vacations observing from wherever they happen to be. Some amateur astronomers actually set up research programs and make valuable contributions to the professional astronomers activities - there aren't many sciences where that is the case!

I'm married (in fact, my wife, Sylvia, works on Hubble and is participating in the Live from Hubble project, too!) and have no children. We do, however, have three ferrets as pets (they're great!), and they keep us busy in our spare time. I love to read (science fiction and spy novels, mostly) and play computer games when I'm not playing with the ferrets.

Credits and Contacts

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