About 25, 30 years ago, I was out on Long Island Sound by Wading River, and there was a shower in the late afternoon, and it cleansed the atmosphere, so when you looked up in the sky that night, you saw this immense view, going along the Sound, of the Milky Way Galaxy. And I just looked at it and I was awed by it. I ran, right away, to get all my friends to look at it, and they were equally awed by it. So that sold me right away, I said, "This universe is awesome!"

I've sold both my sons on astronomy, too. In fact my younger son was taking a course in astronomy at Harvard last semester. And my older son, so far he has two telescopes and a vintage pair of binoculars, and he's out in the backyard every clear night, looking at the globular clusters, and he knows the sky very well.

I teach mathematics at the New York Institute of Technology, but my chairperson, who's a wonderful woman, saw I was interested in astronomy—obviously, because I had pictures of all sorts of different astronomical objects in my office—so she says, "How would you like to teach astronomy? " This was about seven or eight years ago. I said, "I'd love to!" And I took it up and I have my own course! I teach it in a very unique way, because I teach it in the spring time, and I do a lot of field trips.I bring them out at night to Carl Shurz Park to look at the night sky.

Here in New York you don't see everything you'd like to see, but I think it's remarkable, what you do see! When you look up at the night sky, even if you're in the City, and you see just a few stars, you know what else is behind them—that's mind boggling—it's just awesome! And not to get religious, but I say to myself, if you believe in a god, he really created some extraordinary place!