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Hi from SW France

Dusty_Scope

By Dusty_Scope
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Dusty_Scope

Dusty_Scope

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Hi all,

Having just subscribed to this group I thought it appropriate to introduce myself. As my user name suggests, my attempts at astronomy have lapsed somewhat as other activities have swallowed up time and energy. However, as a family we decided that it is time to give it another go! (We, by the way, consists of my wife, who's not too well, and seventeen year-old son who spends the week away at Lycee studying for his Bac).

Just under ten years ago after lots of magazine reading we opted to buy ourselves a telescope with the aim of having a first-hand look at what is out there. We opted for an Intes Micro MN56 and a single driven-axis equatorial mount. At this time we were living in Rickmansworth with The Heathrow flightpath forming most of our horizon - far from ideal. We soon moved to the south-west and were able to enjoy the dark skies of north Dartmoor where we had many a pleasurable night enjoying good views of the planets. The more exotic, to us, deep-sky objects pretty much remained a mystery and we never achieved any decent vies of any of these; we suspect that this was due primarily to user error, lack of knowledge and, in part, a shaky mount.

Four years ago, we moved again, this time to south-west France and enjoy pretty good dark rural skies. As is normal for the English in these parts, most of my time is spent in rebuilding a (too large for us!) falling down farmhouse so spare time has not been plentiful. Accordingly, the telescope has pretty much been unused apart from some solar viewing using our home-made Baader filter. Recently, we decided to dust things off properly and see what was up.

Again, not too much success despite our best efforts. So, in an attempt to make our limited viewing time more successful and pleasurable, we have just purchased a second-hand HEQ5 Pro mount with SynScan (much to the displeasure of our son who is of the view that it's not worth looking at if you don't work at it - at times I think that he is older than me!).

Once the weather is favourable me and the lad will spend an evening arguing about the correct way to set-up and I'll report back how we get on. I will of course continue to lurk on the forum to see what topics are making he headlines and will probably ask some advise about ideas for a home-built observatory once I get my thoughts better sorted. In the meantime, thanks to all for contributing towards making this forum such a valuable resource.

Regards,

Tony

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appalachik

appalachik

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Good luck with your return to observing Tony and best wishes to your wife for a speedy recovery.

Ricky must have been a tough observing location. I used to have a quaint little office sandwiched between The Feathers and the church on Church street - sometimes I didn't know which way to turn :)

Jenna

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Dusty_Scope

Dusty_Scope

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Hi Folks!,

Many thanks for your welcome and kind remarks; it's much appreciated.

Unfortunately, my wife won't be getting any better and we have come to France to better enjoy the time we have and to further our son's education (that has been particularly successful!).

Thanks again.

Tony

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