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Hi From a new member


J_M_Franklin

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Hi all, finally managed to get the account working...blooming Google was being a pain the last few days...

Anyway I am here now, a little about me...I have been "into" astronomy and space since I was about 8 years old when I was seriously interested in Aircraft and my dad bought me a pair of 10x50 Binoculars. being a rather precocious child I wanted to see them at night from my bedroom window..then i noticed lights in the sky that didn't move...I visited the Library after realising that my parents and my elder siblings knew nothing other to say they were stars!!

I read for hours and hours, and the interest simply increased exponentially...In 1980 I had saved enough paper round money to buy a pair of second hand ex-US navy binoculars (80x200) that cost me a staggering £54 in a local junk shop..sadly these were stolen along with the ones my dad bought when my flat was burgled some years later as an adult. That same year i bought a Sinclair ZX80A followed by a Sharp MZ80A..on this I managed to program a short machine code program to simulate 7 seconds of the Suns life...took me three months to program and ran for about 10 hours!! (And it was wrong i later found out :) )

I had lots of contact with Observatories as I was a prolific letter writer in those days, after all the internet was still some time off, I wrote to Patrick Moore, and even visited him at his house in Selsey and got myself into lots of trouble with my mum (Parents divorced by this time) and the authorities as I was attempting to teach myself nuclear physics so I could understand how stars worked..Oh what childish naivety!! I discovered that Mizar and Alcor are multiple stars, and as a result got a phone call from UKIRT at about 03:00hrs UK time to answer the question I posed about this as I was unaware of the multiple nature of these stars at this time...my mum was furious as the phone woke her up and would not talk to me for a few days..Oh Bliss!!

I had a lot of discussion with Patrick Moore about various things that I have seen some be realised by researchers which make me a happy chappy.

Things went a little wrong in my mid teens within the family and whilst i kept my interest in Astronomy I was less active. I went to Canada for 5 years from the age of 20 and my interest reignited momentarily but it never reached the crescendo of my early years...although I did achieve a Degree in Astronomy from the OU . Since then it has been a little hit and miss. I wrote some published articles in early computer Magazines, reviews of Astronomical software, including early editions of Redshift and TheSky.

Since then work has really overtaken my life and being self employed for the majority of my working life it has been a 24/7 role for the most part. Several years ago a I resolved to become more active and bought a Meade LX90-8 and an ETX125PE along with some extra goodies. The LX90-8 has been underused due to circumstances, but I have started to use it again. The ETX125 had a manufacturers fault with the drive on delivery and this was corrected by telescope house at the time, it worked OK for a while and was then stored, when i went to use again - after any warranty had expired - the same fault redeveloped so the scopes Azimuth drive was inoperable. I have since removed the OTA from the mount and will buy some rings etc so I can mount it on the LX90-8.

I am a father with three kids, one inherited from my better half's first marriage and I have two toddlers (Lucy almost 4 and Max is 2.5). Lucy loves to look at the Moon and a few nights ago I let her stay up late so she could see Jupiter, she was amazed as she understood that the four points of light near it were actually "Moons" of Jupiter..that look of sheer amazement is priceless and I intend to encourage her love of space as long as she shows an interest.

I live in Swindon these days and own a Land Rover Discovery, I got into the Landy scene because I bought my original one to take scopes where a normal car could not go - legally of course - I have taken some pictures, not very good, with my Canon EOS 450D at prime focus on the LX90-8 and via a 40mm projection eyepiece I have that allows the camera to be screwed to this via a 42mm thread adaptor.

I have a Meade LPI, but to be honest I find this useless and was a waste of money, however i intend to correct this as i have bought a Microsoft LifeCam Studio that has a 5MP sensor and intend to dismantle this and use the LPI case to house it so I can use this for some basic astrophotography or perhaps as a guider via a decent guidescope that i intend to buy early next year..the Meade 50mm standard I find adequate but not very good, so I will buy a 102mm APO with an Illuminated reticle for guidance.

Well that is enough waffle from me...blumming hell, don't I go on!!

If anyone has any questions, please feel free to ask...

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Welcome to the group,

I have yet to discover the amazing stars and nebulas out there, I have purchased a Skymax-127 for my birthday and I'm opening the boxes on 28 of nov. It's like waiting for Santa :-)

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Welcome to the group,

I have yet to discover the amazing stars and nebulas out there, I have purchased a Skymax-127 for my birthday and I'm opening the boxes on 28 of nov. It's like waiting for Santa :-)

Never used one myself, but have heard they are good kit. I would stress that what you see in books and certainly some of the extremely fine member images in the Gallery are not what you will see with the naked eye..sadly nature really screwed up with human eyes in my opinion..I would start off with easy objects such as the Moon and the the larger planets, such as Jupiter, Saturn etc. M42 (Orion nebula) is a good target for a scope of that size and you should, on a clear night, see a lot of the nebular and certainly the trapezium, but don't expect to see colour, the same is true for M1 - The Crab nebula and M31 - Andromeda.

You should be able to see a large number of star clusters, some globulars and enjoy the spectacle that is double and multiple stars....sadly i have spoken to people over the years who have been all excited by the purchase of a nice sized scope, such as your or even one like I have, and then people are very disappointed by what they see as they expect to see via the eyepiece what they see in books or on the internet, and they stop using the equipment or worse, get rid of it...

Having read through a large number of the posts on the forum over the last few days I would suggest that any time you have a question about anything to ask here, because it will certainly be answered as there are some very fine and knowledgeable members present..

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Welcome to SGL, I'm also new on this and have already recieved great advice. I went to a lecture about 15yrs ago by P. Moore & was lucky enough to have a short chat with him at his book signing after the talk. My now, ex girlfriend & I, were sat at the front during the lecture & remember quite clearly that Mr Moores eyes spent most of the 2 or so hours glued to my ex's (Very) long legs. Haha :smiley:

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