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I have a fine lot of telescopes. I have one with which I can see the Mountains in the Moon.

If you start out with a little telescope observing the stars and you keep at it over the years, as I have, it's kind of a dream to one day have an observatory where you can always go and use the telescope conveniently.

I was interested in telescopes and the way they worked because I had an intense desire to see what things looked like, so I learned how to use telescopes and find things in the sky.

I'd like a telescope, but I probably wouldn't look at the stars that often. I'd definitely be looking into people's flats most of the time.

Do not look at stars as bright spots only. Try to take in the vastness of the universe.

Astronomers are obsessed with building larger and larger telescopes. There are two promises that we make with bigger telescopes: that they can see fainter things and that they see more detail. But it's been really hard to follow through on that second promise because of atmospheric distortion.

For a long time, we've worked on detecting planets with whatever was at hand, making use of existing small telescopes or even amateur telescopes. It's time to move on to the next stage.

After decades of hauling telescopes around in the back of vans and going up to high altitude locations and so forth, I did finally build an observatory, here on Sonoma mountain.

At the age of eight, I bought my first telescope and would spend hours gazing at the moon and stars. I remember thinking what it must have been like when man first realized that we were only a very small part of the overall picture.