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Hello from an oldie

JimD

By JimD
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JimD

JimD

Posted
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I thought I'd stick an intro in here before I bombard the beginners forum with a load of daft questions!

I'm Jim, and I live in the North East of England in a fairly light-polluted area unfortunately.

I've always had an interest in stargazing and when I was a lad I built a few DIY telescopes, starting with cardboard tube types and culminating in a 6" reflector (for part of that time I lived in rural County Durham so had nice dark skies!). However, I somehow never got round to making a proper mount for any of them, so after looking at Saturn & Jupiter and a few other headline sights I more or less left it alone apart from getting the scope out (propped against a dining chair on the patio) to show friends a planet or two.

I'm now rapidly approaching 60 and decided to bite the bullet and buy a mount; that was the plan anyway, but I quickly realised it was nearly as cheap to buy one with a telescope to go with it, then I didn't have to make a finder, sort out tube rings etc (I'm getting lazy in my old age) so I've bought a Skywatcher E150P with EQ3-2 mount.

It arrived yesterday, and I'm now just waiting for some clear skies!

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jason.p

jason.p

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Hello Jim from another "newbie" oldie. They say it's never too late to learn but I really wish I'd started years ago!

Good luck with the scope, and hope we get some clear skies sometime soon!

Good luck

Jason

Sent from my GT-P5110 using Tapatalk HD

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SnakeyJ

SnakeyJ

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Hi Jim,

Welcome to SGL from me - think you'll notice quite a jump up from that old carboard tube once the clouds clear and you get proper first light. Do you have any pictures of the 6" reflector you built or even better have you still got it? Would be great to see how this stands up against the 150P, which is an excellent piece of kit.

The EQ takes a little getting used to, but you'll never look back once polar aligned and tracking objects with ease - Fire away on any questions daft or otherwise, we're all learning and you'll get excellent and friendly advice here.

Clear Skies - Jake

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JimD

JimD

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Welcome aboard Jim. It's a bit like "Cocoon" on here.

I believe Zimmer are starting to manufacture mounts next week :laugh:

Heh! That one made me laugh! :grin:

Jake - yes I still have the DIY reflector. At some point I'm going to try attaching it to the EQ3 mount - the kit came with a spare dovetail for some reason, there was one in the scope box and another in the tripod/mount box. :laugh: I'll take some pics when I get round to doing that.

I've just been out aligning the finder with a TV aerial up the road and the image looks spot on (though at the highest magnification you can see the limitations). It's bright and sunny here at the moment, but heavy rain is forcast tonight. :sad:

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Welrod50

Welrod50

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Hi Jim and welcome from me too. Great starter set up there which will give good views (when the skies clear of course). Don't be put off toom uch by light pollution. It is still quite possible to spot brighter deep space objects and the moon and planets will be easy enough also :)

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JimD

JimD

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Hi Jim, welcome along to the old gits club - there are plenty more of us on here.

Have a look here for your weather http://www.sat24.com/ - looks pretty good for you at the moment, but will it last?

It looks likely that the cloud sweeping in across the Isle of Man now will reach you be the end of the day

Nice link, studdedsole! It doesn't bear good news for tonight, though. :sad:

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JimD

JimD

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Hi Jim welcome to SGL, me and a friend at work are looking to build a telescope once we can get our hands on a decent size mirror, clear skys and enjoy the telescope.

Good luck with it - it's a very nice feeling to look through it at a great sky object and know you did it all yourself. Are you intending to grind your own mirror?

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