Star surfer scopes celestial

VINCE GEISLER does not fit
the mould of your typical
astronomer. Carl Sagan he is
not.

By Layne Christensen

Community Reporter

Witn baggy shorts, weathered T-
shirt, radical haircut and a laser-
quick wit. this 24-year-old North
Vancouver resident surfs the stars
and swops stories of deep-sky
objects with anyone willing to listen

and learn.
-  Last-week, Geisler found no
shortage of interested bodies at West
Vancouver's 14th Street pier. The
amateur astronomer had set up his
Celestron 2,000 mm F10 Compustar
telescope to view Jupiter’s “black
eyes” — formed when chunks of
Comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 careened
into the planet's gassy upper atmos-
phere — and to clear up any miscon-

Vinca Geisler

THE MOON, as seen through
Geisier’s Compustar telescope.

ceptions the public had over Jupiter's
recent plight.

“T had one person ask me if
Jupiter had exploded and J though
‘Oh, boy. Here we go ... somebody
has got to set the record straight.”
he says with a grin.

“It's kind of like comparing a
Mack truck to a litde Volkswagen
colliding and asking if the Mack
truck would survive.” he explains.
When he tells interested onlookers
that 1.500 Earths fit inside one
Jupiter, and that Jupiter is affection-
ately known in astronomical circles
as the bully in the universe — “the
big guy on the block who likes to
cause all the trouble” —— he swiftly
puts things into perspective.

Geister’s own interest in the stars
began at the age of seven when his
parents moved to Saskatchewan and
he discovered the wide-open prairie
skies.

“I was just awestruck and from
then on 1 was hooked.” In the sum-
mers he refused to sleep indoors and.
lying in a sleeping bag with a pair of
binoculars, would “observe” himself
to sleep.

A move to Medicine Hat some
years later placed him in a house
with a “user-friendly” lawn, one with
a nice slope for comfortable star
scoping.

After years of “thieving scope
time from friends” Geisler invested
in his first scope at 19, That same
year he entered the prescigious
Massachussets Institute of
Technology in Boston on a scholar-
ship.

With ambitious plans to complete
a six-year electronics engineering
program in three, he says he suffered
“a major case of burn-out” after his
second year and dropped out. Geisfer
has plans to finish his degree, but in

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NEWS photo Cindy Gcodman

AMATEUR ASTRONOMER Vince Geisler surfs the stars with his Celestron Compustar telescope.

the meantime he busies himself with
a variety of pursuits.
He enjoys rock-climbing and

mountaineering, and entertains at -

star parties — “(a telescope) is
becoming the in thing to have at par-
ties.”

He has worked summers as a
youth counselor. moonlighted as a
private researcher for the Hubble
Space Telescope Science Institute in
Maryland, and performed imuage-pro-
cessing through the InterNet for col-
leges and universities around the

world. (His skills in photo image-
processing are by no means restrict-
ed to celestial bodies. “A friend who
had vacationed in Hawaii wanted his
ex-girlfriend removed from a photo
.. SO | did that, too.”)

But what Geister enjoys most is
raising the next generation of
astronomers. He founded the Suciety
for the Advancement of Amateur
Astronomy (SAAA), he says, to giv-
ing people a chance “to try it out.”

“I learned the way Australians
teach shcepdogs,” Geisler says of his

experience being dragged around thie
skies by more knowledgeabie
astronomers. “Tie a young dog
behind one of the sheepdogs and let
the poor thing get dragged around all
day. At the end of the day it knows
what it's doing.”

Anyone interested in scoping the
stars Aussie-style can join Geisler
and other SAAA members at the
Cypress Park fookout this Friday.
July 29, at 9 p.m.

For more information about
SAAA, phone Jeanette at 986-1649.

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