This passion came to me by accident in 1996, while reading a book about UFOs and other stuff like this. The author spoke about the brightest stars- Betelgeuse, Rigel, Arcturus and Vega. It seemed interesting: all the stars have names? But all the astronomical information ended, in this book. So I begun searching other books about astronomy. And I found one- a high-school manual about astronomy, dating back in 1967. This book was so interesting and made me go outside to see (for the first time in my life) the stars. It was August 1996 and Arcturus shone on the West.

After a couple of weeks I learned the constellations, with the help of a starmap bought by accident.
On October I borrowed a 50mm refractor from a friend, who had the same passion many years ago. With this refractor I watched the brightest stars and saw a colorful aurora around every object. I liked that, until I found that the colorful aurora shouldn't`t be there. It was the cromatic aberration.

During the next five months I learned all the constellations, bought more books and I was thinking what to do. I read about variable stars in one of my books and wondered if I could do that. In april I begun observe, with the naked eye, Algol. I used Argelander method and estimated every five minutes Algol`s magnitude. After two hours I was tired. And the magnitude remained unchanged.

But the I was infested with the bug. So, after a week I caught an eclipse. Then I begun observing other variables- Beta Lyrae, Delta Cephei and Eta Aquilae. I have light curves for all of them.

I joined Bucharest Astroclub in 1997. And I found there a place with many magazines (Sky&Telescope, Astronomy, Astronomy Now, Ciel et Espace, Journal of the BAA). Although it was a poor club it had everything I needed to expand my hobby. Unfortunately no one there made variable stars observations.

Eventually I bought a better 50mm refractor and begun observing long period variables (M, Sr). After six months of observing with the 50mm I bought a homemade 120mm reflector. With this reflector I made and I`m still making variable star observations.

Now I occasionally use a 240mm reflector to obsevre variable stars and deep sky objects.

It's very important for beginners to join an astronomy club, or a discussion list on the web. So, this is my advice for everyone: although it seems very attractive, you must not become a lone ranger. Astronomy brings no satisfaction if it's not shared with others. I found that over the years, although I'm used to observe variable stars all alone.

If you want to see my face here are some pictures.