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REIDSVILLE — In 1984, Gretchen Watlington Morris wanted to buy something special for her husband, David, as they celebrated their first Christmas together.

While shopping one day, Gretchen saw a telescope. She thought about a comment David had made several weeks earlier about how a telescope would be ideal for watching Haley’s Comet when it was due to return after 76 years.

When David open the gift, he was surprised, but then he began wondering how to use it. “I knew nothing about the sky and its workings,” he said.

After purchasing several books and charts, David learned about the universe and then began working with his new “toy.”

The new telescope also provided something special for David’s mother. As an 8-year-old in 1910, she had seen Haley’s Comet. Seventy-six years later, David showed her the historic comet for a second time with the telescope.

“It is rare anyone gets to see it twice,” David said.

Well, that $300 toy has evolved into a major hobby for David. He has progressed from the original 4.5-inch mirror to a 9.25-inch mirror in a Celestron computer-operated telescope. From the beginning, David’s appetite for learning about the heavens grew by leaps.

At the same time, David already was enjoying photography. He decided to combine his two hobbies into astrophotography, something he defined as the connection of cameras to the telescope to photograph the unusual objects he found in the sky.

David has a large collection of pictures, which include Haley’s Comet, an eclipse of one of Jupiter’s moons, Saturn’s rings and his favorite constellations: the Big Dipper and Orion, including one of Orion’s nebulas.

Many nights, David wandered out in his backyard in cold, wet grass and set up his equipment to see celestial objects.

Early on, David began developing a dream — to one day have his own backyard observatory. As he perused Sky & Telecope magazine over the years while working as a nurse anesthetist at Annie Penn and Moses Cone hospitals, David’s dream never dwindled.

After retiring in 2007, “I began seriously talking about finally building my observatory,” he said. “Fortunately for me, the man who built my house lives across from me.” David consulted with Joe Smith, who assured David it would be no problem.

“I dreamed of this observatory and Joe said, ‘It’s just a shed but the roof has casters allowing it to roll out of the way,’ ” David said.

Combining David’s ideas and Smith’s construction knowledge, the facility began talking shape in October 2008.

“It happened so fast from the time we decided to do it until completion, I was ecstatic,” David said. In fact, it only took two weeks. And while talking to Larry Doyle and Tim Turman at the Backstreet Buzz coffee house, David gained two volunteer workers.

In mid-November, David and Gretchen christened the new observatory Smithstone Observatory, and David spent several hours gazing at “his old friends.”

“Things I had already seen before over years I refer to as my old friends. I enjoy looking at a lot of objects you can’t see with the naked eye,” David said.

“Now, I’m standing on a wooden floor in a building with low walls, protected from the winds and observing in relative comfort compared to what I used to do,” he said.

Also, Larry is interested in observing the moon through the telescope, and Tim has bought a beginner’s telescope just like the one Gretchen first bought David 25 years ago.

David’s new dream is to obtain a special camera to connect his telescope to a computer to instantly download pictures from throughout the universe. Although he admits film and computer images are nice, David is truly an observational astronomer.

“I enjoy looking into the eye piece and seeing the object live.”

Little did Gretchen know all those years ago that the telescope she bought would result in David developing such a tremendous bond with God’s astronomical creations.

Ann Fish is a Reidsville native but has lived in Eden since 1979. She is a retired newspaper editor and reporter. Contact her at annsomersfish@yahoo.com.