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Hello from sunny Warwickshire!

Jimtom

By Jimtom
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Jimtom

Jimtom

Posted
Posted

Hello SGLers, I've been following the forums for months so thought it was time to break the ice and make my 1st post :laugh: .

I'm a semi-retired farmer and amateur photographer.

I've always had a love of the night skies and had telescopes and binoculars since I was a kid. I got my 1st "proper"  'scope about 20 years ago, a Tal 1 Newt and got used to GEM mount but didn't devote enough time to astronomy. My love of kit got the better of me and I decided to buy a Nexstar4, one of the originals, badged as Tasco. Big mistake! I was expecting optics on a par with the Tal and hadn't bothered about the focal ratio [schoolboy error for an amateur tog] the idea that I could switch this new toy on and gaze in wonder at DSOs bit the dust.

So the Goto went into the office and the Tal got used occasionally and I even imaged the moon, Jupiter and Saturn with a Toucam but realised I needed motor drive.

I decided what I wanted to do was marry-up my am-tog hobby and astronomy and do proper AP. I did a lot of research [mainly though SGL, ta :laugh: ] and eventually got a used Celestron 6" SCT and AVX mount. It was all brand new ,still in boxes, but at a price I could not have aforded!

Predicively , since then, apart from a few night, the night skies haven't been that good.

I find the AVX a joy to use after the old NexStar, the "first light" night was a revalation, no polar scope, after 2 guide stars the next callibration star was almost dead on and the next one was!

Imaging is with a Panasonic G3 and an Olympus EPL2, both are Micro 4/3. This is going to change but DSLR , webcam or CCD? That's another post !

Keep those pictures and sound advice coming,

Cheers, Jim.

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BlabyStarGazer

BlabyStarGazer

Posted
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Hi from the other side of the A5 Jim,

Welcome to SGL. Sounds as though you're pretty well organised already, but serious imaging can take you up to another level of expense! Keep an eye on the total payload capacity of that mount too if you're planning to guide (guidescopes and guide cameras, dslrs or CCDs are not lightweight items).

Good luck and hope to see some results in the fullness of time.

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swag72

swag72

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Hi Jim and welcome to SGL from another imager! If you think that DSO's may be your thing then can I suggest making a purchase of the book 'Making Every Photon Count' available from the book section of the FLO website. This is something of an imagers bible for that specific field of interest and should be treated with the appropriate reverence :D

Look forward to seeing you around :)

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