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rontodd

By rontodd
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rontodd

rontodd

Posted
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Hi all im rontodd, just joined, im 65 years old and a complete novice. Ive always been interested in the sky above us but know so very very little about it.

I have often looked up and marveled at the sight of so many stars,and always wished i could name some of them. Im an amateur photographer and last year

i wanted to do a project which entailed photographing rocks on a beach, i wanted to be there before sunrise. The destination was about 70 miles away from me

so i deliberately left home about 3:30am it only took an hour to get where i was going at that time of morning, arrived, pitch black, got out of the car to go on the beach and recce a bit, looked up at the heavens above me and WOW! i was gobsmacked at the view, pure black backdrop and millions (multiple) of diamonds. I hadnt seen such a sky from i was a boy, i couldn't get it out of my mind, i didn't get the pics i wanted all the rocks had gone (i kid you not). the day however wasn't totally wasted i got that sky not on digital buy in my mind. Anyway i took the plunge and decided i was gonna give stargazing a go so at Christmas just gone by i bought myself a "Skywatcher Evostar-90" with the EQ3-2 mount and i have bought some books, Turn Left at Orion , which i think is superb and also a starchart The American one i think i just cant recall the name, i also bought a polar scope for the mount. i did know a man locally who was very into astronomy but he sadly passed away a year or so ago, he many years ago let me see Saturn through his telescope, i had taught him how to process slide film at the time. Now i've got my own i wish paul was still around but just plucked up the courage to come on here and say hello by the way i live in N.Ireland, in Co Armagh only about 12 miles away from the Observatory....Ron

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JamesM

JamesM

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Hi Ron and welcome to the forum. Very sad to hear that your friend Paul is no longer around for you to share astronomy with but hopefully you can make some new friends among us here on this forum.

There is plenty of knowledge and experience here for you to draw upon so you won't be left alone with a problem for to long. As well as the books etc that you have already bought, you might like to consider downloading a free piece of planetarium software called "Stellarium" which you can read about here. It has lots of great features and can be configured to simulate the exact same sky you can see from your observation base. It is very useful even with books like Turn Left At Orion as it can help you practice finding some of the great objects listed in there. It will certainly help you learn and makes sense of the night sky which can simple immense at times - that is if the clouds haven't come in! :grin: :grin: Please ask us any questions you like and post them on the appropriate section to solicit the maximum responses. Hope that helps.

Clear skies for now and hope you enjoy the forum.

James

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JamesF

JamesF

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Welcome to SGL.

Should your thoughts turn to astrophotography I'd strongly recommend having a read of "Making Every Photon Count" by Steve Richards first. It's quite a different discipline to "normal" photography because of the different problems involved in photographing at very low light levels and through all of the Earth's atmosphere.

James

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