SHIRLEY - Carl Wenning, Duane Yockey and Lee Green share a passion that's out of this world.

They're astronomers. Yockey and Green are classed as amateurs. Wenning was director of the Illinois State University Planetarium from 1978-2001.

But whether for profession or hobby, astronomy led them to the Twin City Amateur Astronomers Club. At 48 years old, the group begins its annual series of free public viewing sessions on March 8 at its observatory at Sugar Grove Nature Center in Funks Grove near Shirley.

Each man traces his love of the night-time sky to his boyhood. Wenning and Green caught the astronomy bug on family farms. Yockey grew up in a small Central Illinois town with few streetlights to mar the view.

Wenning, 55, and Yockey, 59, are just old enough to recall the first moment when someone pointed overhead toward the Russian Sputnik, the world's first satellite. America wasn't far behind in launching its own orbiting gizmo, and the space race soon captured the nation's imagination. Science and mathematics suddenly became cool in school, and peering though the eyepiece of a small telescope at the moon and stars became a popular childhood pastime.

Wenning remembers returning home from Midnight Mass on Christmas Eve and aiming the telescope his mom gave him as a gift out the window at Venus and Jupiter. He was only 11, but the planets were already familiar to him. His grandfather first showed him the Milky Way and pointed out stellar objects several years earlier.

"I was amazed that anyone knew the names," said Wenning, who is coordinator of ISU's physics teaching program. "That telescope rocketed me forward in my career."

Yockey wrote his first-ever check while in high school to buy a telescope. He never considered astronomy as a career. He became an engineer, and today he's president of the Twin City firm of Lewis, Yockey & Brown. But star-gazing remains an important part of who he is.

"Astronomy is something you can do all your life," he said.

A few years ago, Yockey's wife replaced his small manual telescope with a "new-fangled" one equipped with a computer-drive and global positioning satellite system to pinpoint objects light years away at the push of a button. He still thinks the old-fashioned kind might be better - they force people to hunt down celestial objects themselves so they learn more. But he admits the automated ones are great, especially when time is important, like on chilly winter nights.

"I used to make fun of people who had them. Now, I don't," Yockey said, laughing.

Green, an independent software consultant, is president of the astronomers club. His 14-inch telescope is even more high-tech than Yockey's. Green's is a computer-driven robot that lets him operate his telescope in the backyard by remote control while he sits inside his home in Normal. The images are fed to a computer screen via the Internet.

He's currently shopping for a location in the country to build a small observatory far from the light pollution of the cities. Once it's in place, he'll be able to sit in comfort miles away at home and watch a computer screen as he opens the observatory dome, aims the telescope precisely and takes pictures of stars and nebula thousands of light years away.

"Wouldn't that be sweet?" Green asked. "It's very wild. … It's the marriage of computers and astronomy. That's the best of both worlds for me."

Green has taken pictures of objects 100,000 light years away. That means it took the image that many years to reach earth. As Wenning said, "The sky, it's one of the few places in science you can actually do time travel, so to speak."

Wenning, Yockey and Green agree: newcomers to astronomy don't need expensive gear. An investment of $250 is enough to get started. But, after that, the sky is the limit.

But don't spend a dime to begin. Join the astronomer's club for a sky watching session at the group's observatory on the grounds of the Sugar Grove Nature Center. The observatory, which houses a powerful 12-inch telescope, was built with volunteer labor and donations and opened in 2001.

The location was chosen because it has less light pollution than places closer to cities where street lights send their beams up into the sky. The observatory will attract hundreds of astronomers from the Midwest during the club's 50th anniversary in 2010.

As many as 100 people show up to peer through a variety of telescopes. The experience gives them the chance to try different kinds of equipment in different price ranges before they buy. Club members also can borrow club-owned telescopes much like books from the library.

"We love having people come out to public viewing sessions. We particularly like to have people come out, especially teenagers, and hear them say, 'Wow,' " Yockey said.

The club's outreach efforts recently earned it a place in NASA's Night Sky Network that provides materials and information for educational efforts.

No matter where sky watchers are, there's more to the sky than mere points of lights in the darkness. Green likes the "thrill of the hunt," locating specific objects on the tapestry of stars. For Wenning, astronomy brings on that spiritual sense of wonder humans have experienced since they first looked up.

"For myself, it puts my life, my person in perspective," Wenning said. "The universe is so huge, and we are so tiny. It is just glorious. … It becomes a religious experience in a sense. It is a religious experience to many people. If people haven't had that experience, then they simply haven't seen a good sky."

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TCCA Public Observing Sessions

The free events, at the Sugar Grove Nature Center at Funks Grove near Shirley, include a lecture about the featured object followed by a sky tour using a laser pointer and a telescope observation session.

• Dates and topics are: March 8, Orion's Blazing Sword, Messier 42; April 12, Planet Quest - Mars & Saturn; May 3, Telescopes: Eyes on the Universe; June 7, A Big Dipper Full of Stars - Ursa Major; July 5, Mighty Hercules and His Treasure - M13; Aug. 2, Black Hole Survival and Cygnus X-1; Sept. 6, Our Galaxy, Our Universe; Oct. 4, Andromeda and Her "Rock" - M31.

• Times vary from session to session. The March 8 event begins at 7 p.m. Call (309) 830-4085 or (309) 825-6454 if you question whether a session has been cancelled due to weather. Visit the club's Web site at http://twincityamateurastronomers.org for future times and information on how to join the club.

• Dress warmly during cooler months. These are outdoor events; none of the buildings used are heated.

• Be careful when driving into and out of the Sugar Grove Nature Center parking lot. Many times there are people, including small children, walking from place to place in the dark. Parking lights only are requested near the observing area.

• Bring along a flashlight if you wish, but be sure to cover the lens with a red filter so that observers' dark adaptation isn't adversely affected.