John Haynes
I'm John, the guy who created this wiki.
I'm 46 years old (at the time of this writing), and live just outside of Houston, TX (on the Northwest side).
You can find me actively posting on r/telescopes and Quora. I also post occasionally on CloudyNights and Stack Exchange (Astronomy Beta).
When I was about 5, my family moved to a small city in the high desert of California. My dad had always been interested in astronomy, even had a small refractor for a while. When we moved to Ridgecrest, where the skies were clear and dark, he would take me out in the back yard, lay out a blanket, and we'd lay back and look up. He taught me the constellations and some bright stars, along with the planets. We'd sometimes use his binoculars to see the moons of Jupiter or see the craters on the moon. Around my 6th or 7th birthday he bought me a build-your-own telescope kit. We spent a couple weeks working on it, arranging the plastic lenses and f-stops, then gluing the plastic housing together. It wasn't a great telescope, or even a good one, by any means, but it was really meant as a learning tool. When I was 8, Nova on PBS premiered Carl Sagan's original Cosmos miniseries over the course of 13 weeks. Normally well past my bedtime, I was allowed to stay up with my dad to watch it those Tuesday nights. I remember parts of a few of the episodes pretty clearly, thought I also remember falling asleep during most of them.
My dad passed in 2008. Soon after I found myself in the Houston, TX area and not long later I bought my first telescope: a really lousy Meade 114mm Bird-Jones scope on an even lousier EQ1-style mount. Soon after, I joined the Houston Astronomical Society (HAS) and soon my interest became an obsession.
I've served in leadership positions with HAS, including managing the Loaner Telescope program, serving on the board of directors, and a term as Vice President. I am currently the chief trainer for the observatory at our dark site.
In 2015 I bought a house northwest of the city and in early 2017 I constructed My Observatory in my back yard.
Whenever I'm out under the stars, whether in my observatory, at the club's dark site, or just somewhere looking up, I feel my dad with me, looking over me, staring up with me. For me, it's a way to commune with and honor his memory, sharing in something he loved and loved to teach me about.
Main Astronomy Interests
My primary focus (no pun intended, for a change) is on astrophotography. I'm most interested in galaxies and globular clusters, but typically my imaging targets are targets of opportunity.
I find globular clusters fascinating, and one of my goals is to complete the Astronomical League's Globular Cluster Observing Program and earn my pin.
I also have a general interest in the optics and mechanics of telescopes and mounts. I've spent time maintaining and repairing several and I find it enjoyable to disassemble, clean, upgrade, and re-assemble them.
