Addictive...

[xs2man]

Just thought I would share with you my latest.

After the wife buying me a little Celestron 114EQ for my Crimbo, I am hooked.

To the point, one of my other "likes", cars, is taking a beating.  I have now put up for sale TWO sets of wheels in order to buy more astronomy kit.

My xbox 360 will be going on ebay shortly too.

As the thread title suggests.  Addicted.

[ghostdance]

Heh...kiss your wallet goodbye....

[Kropster]

Got addicted since Christmas?

We can only have had a few nights of decent skies.

You must have it bad!

[xs2man]

Ha ha ha.  Yes.  The first time I saw Jupiter from my balcony, that was it.

[Dave In Vermont]

Soon your telescope will start whispering to you..."......get me some nice orthoscopics. I want a 6mm ortho...."

Then it will ask for a refractor to marry. Soon after you'll have the pitter-patter of Little Mak and sister Cassie underfoot.

You're Doomed,

Dave

[zcdawson]

HAhahahahahaaa....at least I'm not the only one.

[ronl]

It didn't take long for you to find out,  "This is not a Hobby" .

[xs2man]

Well no.  It is one of MANY hobbies.

To be honest, I have always been a night owl anyway.  And have always had an interest in space and the stars (although not enough to learn the skies admittedly).  Heck, I changed my Uni course from Applied Physics to Physics to learn more about what goes on up there.

But yes, I have always wanted to take my own pictures of galaxies and other DSO's, but always figured it would be prohibitively expensive.  But seeing all these pictures on here, taken with relatively sensible gear, I have decided I would like to start a collection of some of the more interesting objects.

[ronin]

The key point is "taken with relatively sensible gear,"

It is very easy to step over the sensible criteria, guiding often being the step that adds to the cost. Simply that to add guide scope, camera etc means more weight and so a bigger mount and then it takes off.

Decide the extent you want to go to and stick to it.

[ghostdance]

*Other* hobbies?

Cars?! Pah!

GLASS is where it's at

Wait til you see some of these grenade-size ep's.....sheer lust I tell ya!

[xs2man]

Ha ha.  I am a bit of a "hobby" collector.  I have my DJ-ing, cars, home cinema, computer games, but the thing that uses up MOST of my money is obviously the wife and kids.  But now I have got this AP lark to add to my "collection".

I see your point ronin.  I was close to bidding on an AZEQ6 with 200pds yesterday, but "thankfully" it got a bit too rich for me right at the end.  I have my eye on something else now, that is substantially cheaper.  Albeit not quite as heavy duty.  But we'll see if it works out or not.  

[jabeoo1]

Doomed !

[Astro Imp]

Its's a slippery slope and once you start there's no getting off.

[Kropster]

The key point is "taken with relatively sensible gear,"

It is very easy to step over the sensible criteria, guiding often being the step that adds to the cost. Simply that to add guide scope, camera etc means more weight and so a bigger mount and then it takes off.

Decide the extent you want to go to and stick to it.

How true.

I've added guiding and decided just that. Need a bigger mount to take the weight.

If only I had a bigger wallet!

[Uranium235]

Gawd help your wallet if you ever get into AP

[DaveS]

Oh gawd tell me about it!

See the stuff in my sig? I was originally only going to get an EQ3-2 to put my DSLR on 

[bish]

Prepare to spend loads of time trawling through websites looking at stuff you can't really afford but will find a way to buy.