I started star gazing when I was 16. I was supposed to be doing my homework, and I was looking through an encyclopedia, and I saw a drawing of Andromeda, and it said that you could see it right in the night time sky, right then in the Fall. And it said it was next to another constellation, Perseus, so I looked up P, and I overlaid Andromeda on Perseus, and that was next to Cepheus, and I overlaid that, and I looked at it all, and I says, "Oh! So I should be able to go outside and look at this!" I went out and I looked up and I was, "Oh my God, I can see this!"

Then I got an Astroscan telescope that I saw advertised in a magazine. I had a paper route and I saved my money up and I bought it. And I'd take it out, here in Staten Island, and you could see Jupiter and the rings of Saturn with it, and it was really cool! We would have keg parties in the golf course, and I'd bring my telescope, or we'd have lunar eclipse parties, and I'd bring my telescope, and it would be a big deal.

Then I got a camera, and I started taking pictures, and it just started an obsession. I'd buy a telescope and then I'd get a bigger telescope, and then an even bigger telescope, and hook a camera up to the telescope and start taking pictures through the telescope. My main thing now is I love taking pictures.

This telescope cost about $5000, and I bought it with money I got from selling scrap metal. I'm a mailman now, but I used to work in construction, and I would pick up everything: copper, brass, aluminum, and steel. After about two years, I had enough to buy the telescope outright, with cash.

It would be great to discover a comet or something, because my friends would really not like that. That would stick it to them! There's a little competition: who's got the better stuff, like, my telescope's better than yours, mine's bigger than yours, you know ... guy things! Typical competition!