EYE TO THE SKY

One of the most memorable experiences in my exploration of the mysteries of space was the visit to the Astrophysics Observatory in Crimea, Ukraine. My uncle living there organized our participation in the excursion to the Observatory.
During the soviet time, the Astrophysics Observatory in Crimea was the largest one in the whole Soviet Union. There I saw huge white domes of the observatories and the telescopes within. There was one reflector – a telescope working on the principle of reflecting the light with large mirrors inside it, and several smaller refractors with lenses.
The following pictures show one of the reflectors:

And here is one of the refractors:

Although I did not manage to look through the telescopes, seeing these instruments for exploring the Universe in reality was really wonderful and inspiring for me.

THE DISTANT BEGINNING

My interest in the natural sciences appeared in the early childhood, with Astronomy being the first one to grab my attention. I was fascinated by the boundless space full of massive scorching stars, wandering icy comets and illusory but deadly black holes, which we are able to detect only by their influence on the nearby objects. Being a seven year old boy I already knew the names, main characteristics and moons of all planets in the Solar System, as well as constellations and galaxies. And in order to organize my desire for learning more and more, I started drawing space objects in special albums, copying images from various books and presenting my own observations through my spyglass. I borrowed almost all books on Astronomy in my school library to draw structures of planets, types of stars, and mechanisms of spaceships.
Below you can see some of my earliest drawings.

This is how my series of drawing albums called “The World around Us” were created.