Alan M. MacRobert

Alan MacRobert became an amateur astronomer in 1964, stuck with it for a reason you ought to learn and tell others, started subscribing to Sky & Telescope in 1966, and (after a decade in alternative newspapers) joined the magazine's editorial staff in 1982. He has items filed away for Celestial Calendar coverage in future issues as far ahead as February 2056 (take a guess what this one is). "I may retire before I'm 105," he says, "but it'll be in the file drawer whoever's sitting in my chair." His main telescope is a 12.5-inch f/6 Newtonian in his backyard observatory in, unfortunately, a light-polluted suburb of Boston. At least it has an electrically refigurable mirror to dial out spherical aberration.