She was beautiful and, for tonight, she was mine. She was an antique telescope, a nine-inch refractor with her own powered dome, and a permanent equatorial mount, built and installed by Alvan Clark & sons. In case you don't know, nine inches is the diameter of the big lens; it's over nine feet long, and pivots on a tower that's almost eight feet tall. Depending on which way it's pointing you may need to crouch on the ground, or you may need to stand on the rolling platform with stairs that's three feet tall.
It was an amazing stroke of fortune that I had landed a job that gave me access to a telescope like this. I was hired to develop astronomical software. I'm not an astronomer, although I've always been interested -- but somehow I never got around to buying a telescope. On the roof is this beautiful hardly-used antique telescope, so "my" first telescope would be one that was once used by scientists to do real research. Nowadays the city was too bright for research, and even amateurs would generally prefer to take a smaller scope out where the sky is dark, because of the better views.
But for me, it was close to home so it was just too good to pass up. This would be my third time using the telescope, and I was just starting to get the hang of it. My first time had been great, with tremendous views of Saturn and Jupiter, but that was followed by a long, frustrating, and ultimately vain search for anything else in the sky of interest -- like trying to find a needle in a haystack by using a microscope. But the last time I had found three Messier objects (these are big dim fuzzy things, usually nebulae that you see in those beautiful pictures that look nothing like the real sky). I hadn't had a chance to come back for a while, but tonight I was going to take a good look at the Moon; Mars was due to rise around 11:00; and I was going to dry for some more Messier objects.
I couldn't ask for a better night. It had been a hot muggy day, but a high steady wind had come in and cooled the evening, giving me the clearest sky I'd probably see all year. I had opened the dome, and slewed it around to point towards the Moon; checked over the telescope, and prepared my charts. I switched to the red lighting so my eyes could adapt to darkness (although I planned to look at the Moon first before it set; it's so bright it doesn't really matter).
Just then there was a knock at the door. I opened the door to a woman. A beautiful woman. She was dressed very provocatively, wearing a short black mini that might be leather (hard to tell in the low light), and a red halter top. She was fairly short and thin, but curvy, and. she had short dark hair and a very cute smile, which she was flashing at me.
"Hi," she said.
I sincerely hoped my mouth wasn't open. If it was, I hoped I wasn't drooling. "Hi." How did I manage to make one single word sound dorky?
"Whatcha doin'?"
"I was just gonna look at the Moon, then Mars and maybe a few Messier objects." You fool, ask her if she wants to look! (I'm painfully stupid about flirting with women).
"Mind if I hang out and take a few peeks myself?"
Alas, women are always way ahead of me. "Sure." I couldn't believe that I was alone in the dark with this beautiful woman on such a beautiful night. Whoa, slow down. She's probably just an undergrad that had nothing to do and wants to see the telescope, and just hang out. Those other thoughts rushing thru my mind were just my own overactive imagination getting carried away. Those sorts of things never happen to me, and probably hardly anybody else. I calmed myself down and set about the task of getting the telescope lined up on the Moon.
"I'm Troy."
She smiled, "Linda."
"Pleased to meet you." Probably a little too pleased. "So what brings you up here?" I'm not a great conversationalist, and I now have to maintain a conversation and not make a fool out of myself with this enormous telescope that's still new to me. I dragged the platform under the eyepiece, because the Moon was already low in the sky, so the eyepiece would be about seven feet off of the floor.
"I was working on a paper, and got bogged down in the math, and thought I'd come up here for some fresh air." Her eyes didn't wander when she talked; she staring into me in a way that was very unnerving.
"You an undergrad or a grad student?" I put the moon filter into the lens, and mounted the lens. She continued to look at me, tilted her head and smirked a bit, and didn't say anything. "Okay then, maybe a post-Doc?"
She chewed her lip and smirked a bit more. "You're getting warmer."
You could say that again. "Alright, you're an astrophysicist, a staff researcher." Idiot. The more flattering approach would have been to start with physicist and work my way down to undergrad if need be. Well, she looked more amused than annoyed. I lined up with the Moon, and began focusing on a nice looking crater rim.
"Did you assume I wasn't just because I'm a woman?" She eyed me carefully.
The truth is I didn't think people dressed like that once they got into the real world, but I wasn't going to say that. "You don't look old enough to have a doctorate." I thought that was a good save.
"I have two actually." She moved closer to one of the red lights in the dome. She really was stunningly beautiful. Narrow shoulders, large breasts, a small waist and a flat belly, nice full hips, and the shapely legs of a woman that leads an active lifestyle. "Isn't telling me I'm young looking kind of an obvious save?"
