I was 14 years old when I first saw Saturn through a telescope, its rings glowing a vibrant yellow-orange. In that moment, the seemingly two-dimensional landscape of Earth’s surface was irreversibly transformed. From then on, I was hooked on the night sky. I was no longer just a kid from suburban Ohio, I was a resident of a vast cosmos waiting to be explored. Who knew that you could just walk into a backyard and look up, with a modest telescope, and unlock the secrets of the universe?

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