Paul Bickford
Northern News Services

Hay River (Oct 03/05) - Kyle Reid of Hay River won't go as far as calling himself an amateur astronomer, even though he has a telescope on the back deck of his home.

"I call myself a star-gazer," he says. "I like looking up."

Amateur astronomers are a formidable group of people who have a lot of equipment and dedicate their lives to scanning the heavens, he says, and some have even discovered comets. "I can't compare myself to those guys."

Still,Reid does explore space with his telescope every week or so.

"There are a lot of different feelings you get," he says of the experience of looking into space. "You get a feeling of awe and wonder."

Reid says there is a "real smorgasbord of treats" to be seen in the night-time sky - planets, galaxies, nebulas and many stars invisible to the naked eye. Reid, who declined to give his age, became a star-gazer about 10 years ago, after getting a sailboat and learning celestial navigation with a sextant.

"I got looking up one night at all the wonderful sights I saw when I was a child," he says.

Reid says the North is a good place to look at the stars because there are no big-city lights to obscure the view.

"You get really nice dark skies," he says. "The stars just shine out."

However, extreme cold during the winter makes it difficult to stand outdoors for long periods, plus a telescope frosts up after a while. Reid explores the sky with a Starsplitter Telescope.

"The moon is one of the best sights up there for any scope," he says. He can also see the rings of Saturn, a planet which he says looks like a sombrero, and the moons of Jupiter.

"The more you look and the more you study the stars, the more you see," he says. "You see the subtleties of it."

Reid says anyone interested in star-gazing can start by just looking at the night-time sky with the naked eye or with binoculars.

A telescope can also be purchased for $500 or less, he adds.

His telescope cost about $900, he notes. "It's not an expensive scope. It's not much more than a beginner's scope."

When not scanning the sky, Reid is director of finance and support services with the Hay River Health and Social Services Authority.

On Sept. 30, Reid shared his knowledge of exploring the heavens during "A Star-Gazing Evening" at the Hay River Heritage Centre.