I'm back down under!

[sgazer]

hi All,

just wanted to say hi again after a long absence, now settled down under in Melbourne since October. During the summer months, I've been doing my other hobby which is off-roading (Victoria is awesome for that, many places just aren't even accessible without a 4x4 and I got the king of them all, a 4.2 Nissan Patrol on gas ( does 11mpg, but at 28p/l it's not bad- but it's expensive apparently), but now it's getting dark earlier (about 6pm), I've finally unpacked my scopes which have been packed for the past year and got everything set up again. It was a bit of a learning curve again working out how it all goes together and remembering how I actually did imaging! Also, polar aligning with no pole star was a pain, so resorted to drift alignment. Nice to see good old Orion still there in the North (for me) and some new targets in the south, half the universe that I couldn't see from the UK. Managed a quick sub of the Tarantula nebula, looks an interesting to start with. Very poor light pollution where I am, but I now have a 2" 7nm Ha filter and an OIII filter, so hope to do some narrow band imaging. Tried the Ha with my mod'd 1000d and it certainly makes the sky black, even with a full moon and poor LP. But needs longer exposures than normal.

So I hope to be contributing more now and hopefully posting some pics, although Melbourne is about the same as the UK when it comes to clear nights!

Cheers

[LMC]

Bet you're glad you moved here!!

Cheap gear.

Clear, calm skies.

Gentle Autumn evenings following warm, dry days....

I moved here in '02.

NOT as advertised!

I want my money back!

PS. My wife has just called out the forecast: "*****y tomorrow & Friday. Not quite so *****y on the weekend. Bruce!"

[sgazer]

G'day!. Yeah, I started reading your post and thought, which part of Oz is that!! Can you buy astro gear here without a mortagage? Glad I brought it all with me!

Apparently it's been the wetest summer in 26 years, but then it broke me in nicely, not too hot, just a couple of days over 40C, and it's still nice now when the suns out.

At least I can see the other half of the universe now, I was wondering what it looked like!!

[ZEbbEDY]

Bet you're glad you moved here!!

Cheap gear.

Clear, calm skies.

Gentle Autumn evenings following warm, dry days....

Massive spiders

poisonous snakes

Etc

[sgazer]

Massive spiders

poisonous snakes

Etc

mice seem to be the problem this time of year, you'd think all the spiders and snakes would eat'em all being so big and poisoness!!