I grew up in the city in France, in a Region called Ile de France. I was about 12 when my grandmother offered me a telescope.

I was spending most ot the time in her house in the coutryside.

One day, I just looked up on the sky. I was flabbergasted, it was so beautiful. Those millions of stars all shining down on me. It was at this moment that I fell in love with the night sky. From that time, the night was my friend and the sky a lifelong companion.  I would first use a cardboard skymap to learn the name of stars and constellations, then got my first 60mm refractor before moving on to a 150mm F/D 5 Newtonian telescope.

One night, I “rediscovered” Jupiter as I noticed that bright star on the Eastern horizon which did not feature on my skymap. I pointed the scope that way and as I focused it, the blur I was looking at turned into a green blue and also I saw one of the moons of Jupiter.

At 24, I had ground a 250 mm parabolic mirror and built my first telescope. Then, later, I wanted a scope I could move about to get away from light pollution and bought a C8 on a EQ6 R Pro mount, Then I got a FRA400 on AVX mount. I  took a few hand and eye guided photographs on Ektar 1000 film (this was back at end of the 90’s), and so started my “astrophotographer hobby” ! Since then, technology has moved on, and Amateurs can now acquire images that would have been fit to be published in astronomy books back then…  Let’s see what the future brings.