In his story, Nick Woolf talked about his life and the path led him to astronomy. 3 things I've learned from him is his motivation to his career, his researches about galaxies, and his well-known telescopes. The story reveals Nick to be a motivated and talented person. Despite the hard conditions in life, he overcome and turned out to become a successful and admirable scientist. He did not choose astronomy at first; what he liked is electrics. But when he went further into research, he figured out his interest in astronomy, which was still new and few people recognized at that time. He persisted in doing his researches and even created many great telescopes. Interferometer, which was built at Lick observatory, was able is watch spectral light. Not stop from there, he made big progress in building Stratoscope I and II to prove for his observations. He was interested in stellar dynamics topic so he observed the fact that matter being ejected from stars. Stratoscope II and infrared ray did help him to find out interstellar dust, which originated the stars, and the appearance of large amount of water vapor in cool giant stars. 
What I love about his story is that he proves to us what a real scientist is. Nick put a lot of efforts and made commitment to every research he does. He went to many places, collaborated with many qualified scientists and researchers to help expand knowledge of astronomy. He seems to work tirelessly to develop information about the stars and other stuff out side out Earth. We are lucky to have such a dedicated scientist like him.
My question is about building telescope. How could he make one meanwhile he did not learn anything about creating a machine? I think astronomy is just making researches and explores about the galaxies, it has nothing to do with building telescope, doesn't it?