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Hello from Finland

Chipela

By Chipela
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Chipela

Chipela

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Already my 9th post but let me tell a bit about myself.

I recently bought my first telescope but I've been interested in amateur astronomy for a long time. It was more than ten years ago when I first attended a few star and telescope courses organized by the local hobby club. For some reason the topic went into background and was revived only a couple of years ago when I attended the very same courses again! :grin:

After that I started to seriously think of actually buying the telescope and not just dreaming of it (makes sense, right? :p ) I literally spent a couple of months this autumn trying to find a perfect set of equipment just by googling and browsing the forums. After going round and round a few times, I finally figured out that I just need to buy the initial kit and upgrade when I learn more of the hobby.

I acquired the SW200PDS + EQ5 with a couple of eyepieces. When I received the scope, I immediately felt that the 200mm Newtonian is too big fro me to handle conveniently, pack to a car etc. so I quickly swapped it with SW150PDS which feels perfect for me.

My main interest was originally moon and planets but has started to shift towards DSOs. I guess that I have always been interested of DSOs but thought that light pollution in my area makes it too difficult to observe them. After studying the issue a bit, I believe that the combination of LPS filters, physically moving away from LP and paying attention to the clarity of atmosphere when selecting the observation nights helps to succeed in DSO observing also.

In the future I'd want also to try AP. I know about equipment requirements and difficulties related to AP but believe that by investing into RA motor drive and coma corrector I can upgrade my kit with modest cost to the level where I can at least try AP. Let's see!

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Physopto

Physopto

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Hello Chipela,

Yep think most of us have been down the same road. We study what we want and go for it, only to find it wasn't quite right. We change and then after awhile go through it all over again. It is just the learning curve. Not many of us really get it correct either first or second time. But we learn by our mistakes. Half the fun of it all I think.

Welcome to the lifetime learning curve.

Derek

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Chipela

Chipela

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My son is over in Finland for a week as part of his teacher training mid January. I take it he will need to wrap up? Lol.

It really depends. :) In middle Finland and north from that, very probably. However, on the southern coastline where I live, the temperatures can be quite reasonable (by Finnish standards) even in January, like -5...0 Celsius.
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glowjet

glowjet

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Hi Chipela and welcome to SGL, Although I don`t have a 200 PDS, I gather from some reports, it is a big beast to handle, especially mounted on the basic EQ5. Your downgrade to a 150mm for ease of transportability, to use at very dark sites in search of DSO is obviously the right step for you, but there will considerable loss of light gathering capabilities with the change, albeit that your perspective of the correct environment for DSO observing is on the button.

Changing to AP is going to be a different ball game and you will possibly need deep pockets, however, I would recommend before you go down that road you obtain a copy of "Making Every Photon Count" Steve Richards, most forum members here in the UK consider it essential for those starting out to the more experienced imagers. Should you want to take advantage of this excellent work, copies may be had through FLO, see top of the page. Enjoy your Astronomy and the forum :)

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Chipela

Chipela

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Greetings from Abu Dhabi! I'm actually going to be in Finland for Christmas! Hoping for some clear nights!

Nice! Finnish weather is notorious for being very grey and cloudy between October and December. Starting from December, air can be very clear but that comes with low temperatures.

I once came across a nice map about the light pollution levels in Finland and northern Europe. It shows that northern Finland is still very dark: http://www.lightpollution.it/download/euromini.jpg

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