Locations
My early efforts of comet hunting were from my parents' backyard in Concord, California. I did not realize how much light pollution was affecting me until I tried it from a dark site. From November 1975 through September 1991, I was a commuting comet hunter. While living in Concord, I drove several miles to the newly constructed Concord Pavilion and a new home construction site near that location. After moving to San Jose, California, in March 1976, I tried a few sites before settling on Loma Prieta in May 1976. From the side of a road, on the south side of the mountain, at 3300 feet (1200 m) elevation, I spent the next fifteen years searching for comets. This amounts to about 4000 hours and 1800 sessions, during which I found three comets.
My second comet was found from Big Bear, California, while I was attending the Riverside Telescope Maker's Conference. This occurred on May 27, 1985, Monday morning, after almost everyone else had left.
In October 1990, we moved to Colfax, California. Our primary reason was to transfer to one income (difficult to do) so that my wife could stay home and take care of our children. Other reasons included finding a location with less congestion and darker skies. Our home was built in September 1991, but it was two more years before I built an observatory on our property to house my comet hunting instruments.
