An astronomical loss

I may have written about this before; forgive my creeping senility.  I've been thinking about it for awhile.

When I was ten or eleven, my mother secretly wrote to the Palomar Observatory, which had only been in existence for a few years, and got a set of large (I think 18X24) black-and-white photographs of nebulae and star clusters, mostly taken with the 100" Hooker telescope, then the largest in the world.  She carefully glued them into a large artist's notebook – by far my favorite Christmas present that year.  For many years it was one of my favorite possessions.

I left it at home when I went off to college, though.    When my father cleaned out my room to rent it, he threw out the big book (along with any science fiction I was improvident enough to leave at home).

No matter, I suppose, in the long run.  I was imprinted pretty strongly.

Joe