Draco61

That's one of those new "Rainy sky filters". It comes with a free pair of Rose Tinted glasses.

From the responses so far, looks like i've found a good way to keep the questioning child in me alive & stay young (at heart). So glad i found SGL as well.

Hi all. I know to most this is really lame stuff but i've just seen the Orion Nebula for the first time with my new Dob & beautiful doesn't come close. Ok, so here's the background to this wow moment. About 2 years ago i got my first scope (Celestron Nexstar 127) ,had a couple of wow's with Jupiter & Saturn but setting up ( for a newbie ) was a long & tedious affair. Due to my impatience & failing eyesight most nights ended in complete frustration with the goto system failing to either find or track objects. The dot matrix display didn't help either Being virtually unreadable w

Blimey. If we carry on like this, the aliens will think our solar system has 2 suns. looks like i picked the wrong hobby to take up.

@ tenbyfifty Thanks for posting the link. 1 Episode down, 29 to go.

Sorry Heather, Got your name wrong. Should be Couper. Flippin Spellcheck .

Another Pro for Maggie here. Great personality with lots of experience & a bit whacky as well, loved the doc " Do we need the Moon " both interesting & entertaining. On a side note, what ever happened to Heather Cooper ?. Didn't she start working for NASA. She's done some great Docs for the Horizon series over the past years. She'd have been a good candidate.

Guess it was my lucky day in Brighton this eve. Clouds cleared just in time. So glad i got me bins, they're not that powerful ( 7 x 50 ) but with all this weather they've been invaluable. Was about to give up on astronomy completely coz the weather but Comet Pan-Starrs has renewed my energy. Not only was it nice to see it so clearly with the tail clear, but it was also nice to show passers by who'd never looked up on a clear night a relatively rare celestial event. ( looked a bit weird standing on a street corner with bins against me face) but hey ho, needs must. Good luck to all who go huntin

Just seen Comet Pan-Starrs with my 7x50 Helios Bins. Absolutely beautiful could see the tail really well, once i got my eye in even with the whispy clouds.

Just a thought Bart, If you're worried about condensation when you bring it back in from the cold. Take a black bin liner with you & put the laptop in it before you go indoors. This traps a layer of air between the warmth in the room & the cold laptop preventing condensation while the temperatures slowly equalise. Just don't take it out of the bag for about an hour or 2. It's a bit inconvenient but worth it to save from damage. I've used this method for photography for years & it's not let me down yet. P.S. Good for eyepieces too. Hope this helps. Tim.

Well at least(if it were visible from Earth). It would shut the sceptics up about the impossibilities of trans Lunar flight. ie. Apollo was faked rubbish. All the same,it'd be a shame to spoil the beauty of the Moon as it is now. When...if we do travel to other worlds, how strange would it be to look up into the nights sky and not see our Moon looking back at us.

All of a sudden i feel very depressed.

Retail parks are the worst. Why have all those sodium lights to illuminate acres of empty tarmac. Just install night vision cameras & turn the lights off. Saves energy & our frustration. Win Win.

Would like to give imaging a go but all this modding & flashing is a bit scary (using a Mac not a PC) so limited on makes etc. Anyway had a dig around & found a Unibrain i-Fire web cam stashed away. Anyone tried this one & is it worth getting the attachments to fit it to my Celestron 127 SLT. It's got a 640x480 CCD chip & as it's firewire 400 thought it might be better than USB. Any thoughts would be most welcome.

I tried using averted vision once and trod in......... well, you know where this is going.