glafnazur

Eight for me at the moment.

1. WO ZG61
2. SW ST80
3. Vixen A80MF
4. SW Evostar 90
5. SW Esprit 100 ED
6. Bresser Messier MC-127
7. SW Evostar 150
8. OO Europa 200

I really like that Göran, the colours are just great and there are so many galaxies when you zoom in 👍

Truly fantastic image 👍

Personally I think it is a good idea. All societies have to start somewhere, the society I attend began when someone put an advert in the local paper and we are in our 50th year now. All you can do is try.

2 finder scopes, a moon filter and my mind.

6 minutes ago, mikeDnight said:

Peppermint tea  sounds a bit too posh for me. If I ever take a drink out with me it would generally be coffee or hot chocolate. Sometimes I'll take Ovaltine, but then I have to sing the song "We are the Ovaltinies, Little girls and boys,........" with a slight warble in my voice as if I'm on a WWII radio. It's embarrassing!  I do the same thing with chocolate bars. My family refuse to buy me Toblarone anymore!  You're probably too young to remember these old adverts, but they've stuck with me throughout my life, and once in your head, they'ed keep you awake at night.

When I was younger, the two older astronomers I used to go on field trips with would take flask's of OXO. It may sound a strange thing to drink, but honestly, when you're cold and tired it's a god-send!

 

Thanks Mike, now I am stuck with the Ovaltinies song.............................  🙉

Never tried Oxo but have taken a flask of Bovril out occasionally.

1 hour ago, wookie1965 said:

I went to my local society I had a EQ3-2 then with a 6" skywatcher Newtonian, I had a bit of trouble collimating the scope spoke to them and they said bring it up. So I turns up and one bloke looked and said collimation is spot on. A fella came up to me and said I have a EQ5 tripod you can buy I thought this is a great society.

Next time I went it was clear so I set up got Saturn in the FOV of my 8mm BST  couple of blokes looked through and were very impressed with the view asking what eyepiece I was using.

I paid to join didn't go for a couple of weeks as I was ill next time I went up it was raining so we sat in a big room 30 minutes not one person spoke to me I left.

Following week same again not one person said anything to me over 30 minutes I spent there they just sat in a huddle talking no video put on no talks so I walked out and I have never returned.

When I first attended our Society it was a bit like that but I was fortunate that I went with m brother-in-law. After only a couple of months I was asked to join the committee at the AGM for some new blood and one of the first things I mentioned was that the society wasn't an inviting place to new people. I told them that I understood that they only met once a month so they all congregated into their little groups to catch up but if they wanted to build the membership up then they had to be more welcoming. I don't think they had even realised what they were doing but it has changed around and we are friendly welcoming bunch now.

20 minutes ago, Tiny Clanger said:

I doubt many astronomy societies would accept any under 16's attendance without an accompanying parent, the safeguarding regulations, and requirement for DBS checks of volunteers working with children, or vulnerable adults, are rightly quite tough.

Anyone under 18 who wants to attend our meetings has to be accompanied by a parent/guardian.

5 hours ago, JOC said:

I wasn't hugely enamoured with the astronomy club that I went along to for a couple of meetings.  The first one I went to in order to see what it was all about they didn't even have a telescope at and weren't that interested in the fact that I had taken my brand new scope and wanted to find out how to use it.  Then I went for a evening when they were supposed to be actively viewing and that turned out to be a couple of people with scopes in someone's back garden and I had to lug all my equipment down a narrow path into a back garden and still no-one was interested in helping me out with my kit and how to set it up and wanting to chat about what I was seeing and helping a newcomer get interested so I gave up on the notion that astronomy clubs were a good thing.  Their loss IMO considering the land I could have offered them away from the town they were in for overnight viewing possibilities.   I prefer membership of SGL - far more enthusiasm and advice than ever got in front of 'real astronomy club members'.  If I were the OP I don't think I'd bother with that attitude to club membership.  

 That's so poor. At our society we make a point of welcoming newcomers and positively encourage them to bring their scopes, ideally to our observing sessions but if they can't make those then to any of our other two monthly meetings. We introduced a second meeting to our monthly programme quite a few years back just for beginners so they could bring along scopes and so that they could ask any questions they may have. 

In the cold I'll make a coffee or hot chocolate and on the warmer nights I make do with a small bottle of lucozade or juice. I try not to drink too much otherwise there are too many loo trips spoiling my night vision!!!

All of our regular DDAS meetings are open to the public although the meeting fee is £3 for visitors rather £1 for members. If eventually they want to become a member then fair enough, if not then they are still welcome to attend when it suits them.

Nice Goran, I particularly like Sh2-181 👍

Wonderful images and amazing dedication 👍

I've bought and sold on here and ABS without any problems. I have also bought and sold telescopes on eBay without problems but that was many years ago before I knew about ABS and SGL. Personally I'd only use eBay if I had something to sell that I couldn't shift here or on ABS.

I've bought and sold numerous scopes but the only one I have regretted selling was my beautiful WOZS66.

One thing I do truly regret, and this is not equipment related, is the fact that I have not recorded all or at least most of my observing sessions. I record more and make sketches nowadays but when I first got my scope I never bothered.

Wow, great image 

That's a beautiful mount 🤤

That's a beautiful image. At first glance it really does resemble a planet with it's distant sun 👍

I

1 hour ago, Xilman said:

Have you read The Road to Reality yet?  Damned fine book, IMO, but can be heavy going after a little while.

If you like that one, you will probably enjoy Gravitation by Misner, Thorne & Wheeler - almost universally known as MTW. Nice pictures and helpfully split into an introductory and an advanced track, the latter of which can be safely skipped.

I must admit I haven't read it yet, I'm way behind with my reading list. 

I know there's a few more knocking about the house but here's the majority of mine.

11 minutes ago, Peter Drew said:

We could well  do the same, apart from a couple of good star and lunar atlases the rest are taking up valuable space.  We also have a lot of telescopes in the same situation.    🙂 

yes, we've a few telescopes at the observatory that never get used. We made them available to members but take up wasn't good. 

46 minutes ago, Peter Drew said:

We have several hundred books including all the usual favourites, sadly it's rare these days that anyone takes one from the shelves.      ☹️

I'm a member of the Derby and District Astronomical Society and we have a small library of donated books which are available for members. No one has taken one out for years now 😔 We are thinking of selling them off at our 50th anniversary events this year.

Another addition to my Morpheus collection, just the 14mm to get. And my first TV eyepiece 18.2mm Delite

M81 is such a beautiful galaxy and I love the widefield image. 

Great image and thanks for pointing out the Hubble image, it is really spectacular 👍