About John Novak

About John

It happened one night... Isn't that all it takes for anyone to become mesmerized by the stars, planets, nebulae, and all the other glorious objects that make up the night sky?

It was in the dark, dark, awesome skies of Nowhereville, Canada on a camping trip as a kid that the astronomy bug first bit and I've wanted to spend every clear night since outside, looking up. My sister had been to a summer camp where they taught several basic constellations and visible planets. As she taught them to me on that trip and on my subsequent visits to the Planetarium in elementary school, I became and continue to be fascinated by all that 'stuff' up there! Within a couple years I had graduated to owning my own 'scope, a small refractor that I won by selling lots of extra newspapers on my paper route. I could only view the moon and planets, but that didn't slow me down much. From that point forward there has been A LOT less money in my checking and savings accounts and A LOT more interest and fun in my life. Of course, it was only natural that I totally jumped off the cliff into the world of astrophotography ? first in emulsion at the age of 18 and eventually, finally, into CCD imaging.

I got extremely hooked on emulsion photography, going all-out into building my own film-hypering tanks, some cold cameras, built my own color lab and spending unending hours at the eyepiece collecting data. In those days (pre-auto-guiders), we collected data the old-fashioned way ? we earned every photon; putting up with, among other things, blood sucking mosquitoes buzzing around between your eye and the eyepiece, extreme eye fatigue, back-busting sitting positions and 'holding it' due to too much coffee intake. Despite the late hours I was keeping, it was during this time ,because mounts just were not adequate that I became drawn to fixing and creating my own telescope designs. Before I knew it, I was an avid ATM'er with over 60 telescopes under my belt. My current 24" R.C. and mount is the fifth of its kind that I built, changing things and making them better. Starting out, I made use of the training I received early on as a machinist apprentice. To keep up with the unending requirements of 'making this go into that' and to cut costs waaaay down, I installed a machine shop in my garage. It grew from its meager beginning to a full-sized metal fabricating shop housed within walking distance of the instruments.

When I began looking around for ideas to improve my designs, I inevitably came across the genius work of Ed Byers. He was not only unprecedented in his craftsmanship in mount design and making, but also incredibly approachable and willing to teach me all that I could learn from him. He became a mentor of sorts for me as well as a benchmark for quality in my telescope making.

It was partly my love and success at emulsion photography that kept me from going digital a long time ago. My ignorance of computers was also to blame, but once I started looking into CCD imaging I became more and more convinced that it could DEFINITELY give me better images, and so I FINALLY converted. I have yet to catch up, quality wise, with what I could do in the lab, but I am liking the results and progress I have seen recently. I can only dream of the results I can get once I finish studying the nuances and details of CCD imaging.

It is in the dark skies of Chiefland, FL; current home of my eighth observatory, that I continue to observe and image with like-minded neighbors believing in the preservation of dark skies and sharing them with others. Chiefland is the land of year-round dark skies at night and stress-free days. God willing, I'll still be here observing and imaging for many years to come.