Digger1895

Digger, if you've made some changes worth showing, go ahead and post them. This thread should not be just about high end kit, anyone should feel able to share what they have put together and be proud of it.

Plenty of members get lovely views and achieve some great observing feats with comparatively modest kit, good on them I say.

Hi BigMS, it was only meant lightheartedly. I was pleased when I first posted mine that I got some nice remarks and words of encouragement.

I love to look at others great (and indeed not so great) collections. I'm not sure I'd spend so much on EPs as some do even if I had the money burning a hole in my pocket, there's so much other stuff I love to do as well, but to those that do I wish them the very best of luck.

I did post mine months ago. I have now decided I will not post an updated version until it's close to some of these later collections, I'm sure this thread will still be going then, I reckon about 10-15 years.

Really impressed with these shots.

What has previously put me off imaging was the complexity of it all and the huge investment in time and money. Not that I'm saying the above shots are easy or that you are going to see me posting pics of DSOs but it something to think over.

I use an old pair of Tasco 7x35 (if my memory is correct, they're in the car) that I won on a quiz night.

I didn't use them much until I took up this hobby about 6 months ago and now they get used every night, The Pleiades look fantastic through then, but I use them most for scanning the sky.

My father-in-law has a fantastic pair, but they're very old and very heavy.

I know their not the best for sky watching, and I wouldn't recommend them as a first pair, but as I got them for nowt I think they're pretty good.

Yep I'm really pleased with the SW 4mm UWA. I wasn't sure if my little Heritage 130 could handle it but it works great. Next one I want in the box is a decent wide field and that "should" do now until I can afford a new scope. But as pointed out that expensive looking space in the case just seems to be pleading to be filled.

I bought my case on Saturday and put my EPs in it yesterday after first reading this post. I've never really been a collector of anything so my EPs are always going to be odds 'n' sods. I'm not so much worried about the empty spaces, more about replacing the MAs that came with the scope (photo cropped to minimise size).

Excellent post, especially the sketches showing great representations of what to expect to see in a small beginners scope. I'm still very much a newb (and think that will apply for a few years for me) and although I knew I wouldn't be seeing Hubble images I literally did not know what to expect. DSOs seem to be like busses but I also realised I had seen a few more but hadn't logged them as I thought the faint grey smudges were something like a little wispy earthbound cloud.

I've tried searching the web for images of what people see in their own small scopes but only seem to find pictures of the correct object (sometimes from small scopes) but that have been taken equipment that means they do not appear as they do in your eye, especially colour wise. Does anyone know where we can find more images like the sketches in this post?