Prime Living: David Boyd looks up, shares a stellar view

Feb. 14—Darkness and clear skies are a welcome combination for avid astronomer David Boyd, particularly when he has the chance to spend a couple of hours in Boyd Pond Park.

The park's name refers to a family that once ran a mill on the pond, but over the past couple of decades, it has also been largely associated with the Georgetown native who offers visitors a first-class view into the night sky.

Boyd Observatory, when weather permits, is the stargazer's base of operations a few miles southwest of Aiken for dozens of evenings each year. Presentations are on the first and third Friday of each month, but when skies are clear, Boyd is likely to be on the scene, and he's grateful for the situation.

"It is remarkable to me that the people in this community have been so supportive of what I do here. So many people have contributed to this. I mean, people think that I did this on my own. That would have been impossible," he added, naming John Felak and Stuart Roberts as especially integral. "These guys worked literally every weekend for a couple of years with me doing that."

Creativity abounds, as shown in the golf balls used as ball bearings to help the observatory's turret rotate smoothly. There are 256 balls "because it's a nice scientific number," Boyd said, acknowledging its status as two to the eighth power.

He added, "Everybody that I met, who had any interest at all in astronomy, seemed to pop up out here and work weekends and lend their talent and their expertise, and lo and behold, I've been doing this for 23 years."

For most of those years, Boyd was also the Aiken Standard's systems manager, helping keep the newspaper's computers functional and lay the foundation for expanding website services. He called on experience he'd gained in Charleston, where his career challenges included helping keep Charleston's daily newspaper afloat amid the calamity of Hurricane Hugo (September 1989).

His ongoing interest in astronomy, he said, helped pave the way for his computer expertise.

"I needed to be able to take care of the programming, because software did not exist when this whole transition took place, so I was lucky enough to be working with the good folks at the College of Charleston, and that really lit the fire under me to take on this new technology and understand it, and that is, of course, what made made it possible for me to move into what was then data processing with Evening Post Publishing," he said.

His educational background includes Central Michigan University ("My uncle was the president"), where he focused on astronomy and also explored Sanskrit, a classical language linked mainly to India. Boyd recalled that he was required to study a foreign language, and he met an educator who struck him as wonderfully wise.

"This professor impressed me so much that I had to take any course he offered, and he taught it, so I took Sanskrit," said Boyd, whose linguistic adventures also include a smattering of Russian.

Much more recently, Boyd has become a presenter at DuPont Planetarium, one of Ruth Patrick Science Education Center's most prominent features. "They let me play with their equipment," he said, confirming his gratitude for the chance to be part of the team.

Some of Boyd's neighbors know him more for his Sunday activities, as he is the guitarist for Water to Wine Band, a part of First Presbyterian Church of Aiken. He also puts his musical talent into action as a member of the McDonald-Boyd Trio, an acoustic cover band, and he's on the board for Aiken Performing Arts.

Back at Boyd Observatory, vandals and thieves have been an issue and led to more creativity being exercised.

"I have had to reinvent this many times, but the blessing in that is that because I'm a tinkerer, every time I get to ... try to make it a little bit better, so it does work out ... You've got to be positive."

The observatory is now on its third telescope. The major expense, however, is in the machinery needed to help point the telescope precisely. "I actually use military parts from, like, 1990, to be able to move the telescope and it works very well, so it is ancient technology, but it works really well," he said.

"It tracks precisely. I'm always tinkering with that, trying to find ways to improve it, and usually I find something to make it work."

His original concept was "simply to be able to build some shelter that would accommodate one of my telescopes so that I could do astronomy and give programs to kids, and that just evolved," he said. "I'm just a lucky guy."

He also touched on the theme of gratitude as it relates to his investment on Boyd Pond Road, where his name is part of the landscape although he is aware of no direct connection to the family that originally owned land nearby.

"Throughout the 20-plus years of history out here, we have had seven significant break-ins, but now that the county park people have taken over the area, it has been a much more safe and secure environment ... so I can't say anything other than the most wonderful things about what the county park people have done."