Just How Much Have YOU Spent?

[Mr Spock]

I don't know how much I've spent but it's no where near enough

[Skipper Billy]

Do you mean really spent or what I told my wife I spent ?

To arrive at the latter figure take a zero off the end (thats what she does with  handbags and shoes!)

 

[tooth_dr]

I think I'm addicted to buying small used odds and ends, stuff from the astro classifies. I enjoy tinkering with the scopes and building the observatory/shed as much as the actual astroimaging itself if that's allowed!

[ollypenrice]

7 hours ago, tooth_dr said:

I think I'm addicted to buying small used odds and ends, stuff from the astro classifies. I enjoy tinkering with the scopes and building the observatory/shed as much as the actual astroimaging itself if that's allowed!

It's certainly allowed though, personally, having 8 observatories on the premises not all mine) leaves me not at all short of tinkering just to keep functioning!

Olly

[tooth_dr]

9 minutes ago, ollypenrice said:

It's certainly allowed though, personally, having 8 observatories on the premises not all mine) leaves me not at all short of tinkering just to keep functioning!

Olly

You probably get this a lot, but I am definitely going to visit you either this year or next. Your website is full of enthusiasm and the place sounds superb, a great place to spend a week 

[Waldemar]

To whom it concerns, I know a very nice place in Portugal where they treat unmanageable compulsive behaviour ... I am planning to go there too...

[wimvb]

21 hours ago, MattJenko said:

A script to read signatures and get FLO new prices would be rather distressing.

 

21 hours ago, Moonshane said:

I have just done a spreadsheet for mine. This is conclusive proof that I have actually spent negative £1212 so therefore I could sell all my kit and recover all my money even with an 18% overall loss against the figures I think that my gear is worth. Surely nobody could argue that this is acceptable  In fairness I have done some build jobs for people and this small amount of 'income' has been included in my net spend.

Total net spend	-£           5,348.00	£            6,560.00	Total kit value
		£            1,212.00	Real cost

I don't need a spreadsheet or signature script reader for my expense list. FLO already has my entire investment history on file, except my very first: the equivalent of abt £ 700+ for my 150pds/eq3 PRO kit, and binoculars.

But thanks to Brexit, I have more value for money.

[TareqPhoto]

Everyone is free to tell what they spend or not, it is not a secret to me or embarrassing or whatever, if i am poor i am poor, if i am rich i am rich, and the sure thing is that if i am poor and get a lot of money then i will definitely spend a lot even if it is not necessary.

Well, i started to look at astronomy since February 2017 , and that happened by coincedence because i was in a shopping mall passing inside for a job for my wife [the office is just next building so we passed through that shopping mall], and there is a small booth that is for optics tings, and i saw scopes there, it is Celestron dealer booth, and suddenly the astronomy inside me woke up and i spend around £200 to get Celestron Astromaster 130EQ box, but that time i was very new so i didn't know what i bought and what it is capable of, so i immediately registered in an astronomy forum and asked about that scope or combo, luckily the answers were quick and almosty 90% told me that it is very good for visual only and not that good for AP, i don't know why i wanted to start with AP regardless i didn't do any visual before, but i was really blown away with DSO images so i wanted to go with AP and not visual, and also i thought that visual is just part of AP anyway.

Next day, i returned back the scope, but couldn't find anything else, so i bought few stuff to match that £200, one of the items is a binocular.

Since that day i spent everyday asking about AP gear or equipment, and i didn't know it will cost that much, the first and main thing all members told me to do is to get the mount, whatever it is but it must be a mount, so i started a thread about the mount to be shocked that the cheap mount isn't that much good and it is not cheap anyway,so i kept discussing about the mount until i decided on one after about 1 month of discussion, and it is AZ-EQ6, it was AVX in the beginning or Siruis or even EQ4, then it became EQ5 and then EQ6 but at the end i couldn't go much further because the budget jumped from like £500 to around £1500, i didn't have even £400 that time, but i know that in April i will have that good budget, so i didn't think twice and decided on AZ-EQ6 and few items including SW ST80, wanted to start with cheapest scope to have an idea about the telescope or refractor, so my first ever purchase last month from FLO was £1636.95 including the shipping and excluding the customs duty.

Now i am thinking for my next plan or purchase, there is SW 200PDS, there is also a filter maybe Ha or UHC, I also added a Polemaster because i don't like or i won't aligh my mount by one of those methods such as drifting or Polar guide in the mount, hope the Polemaster will be handy for me. Also i added a collimator because 200PDS is in the list, so this will be almost y next plan, and if the budget allow then i will add little more such eyepices or barlow and another diagonal for my ST80 [200PDS is good diagonal atached], not sure if that will put me nearly £1000, but i will try to keep it less/lower than that for now, i want to start saving for APO triplet scope in the future, so the less i spend soon, the sooner i can get a budget for APO triplet scope.

[tomato]

I am up to the nice family hatchback level,  but how else could you spend that kind of money and witness in real time incredible cataclysmic events that occurred millions of years ago and not only that, take pictures of them?

Nope, in bang for your buck terms, no other hobby comes close.

[tony210]

Good thread- how much? - frightening amount!-definitely a car over 5 years- I try not to think about it and hope my wife has lost count - not sure about that....

Also the bigger the kit the more I spend time "getting my systems working "-do a lot of this these days- like Ash in "Alien", I am still collating...(not always imaging enough or finding aliens! )

Would agree with above my first steps in imaging and my first scope had a fun simplicity and I didn't even think about a work flow for processing,just took some subs and stretched them mercilessly but I was happy!- Tony

[Joel Shepherd]

Probably in small car territory over the past three years, but I think (hope?) it's peaked. It's a terrible progression though. Upgrade the camera (ouch!) because you want more sensitivity, get LRGB filters because you want color (and now you need a filter wheel and spacers), get a shorty refractor (ouch!) because the repurposed visual OTA is getting too heavy, get narrowband filters (ouch!) because big emission nebula sing in shorty refractors, change up to a long focal length SCT because little targets are too little in the shorty frac, upgrade to a high-end mount (O.U.C.H.) to guide the SCT. And then all the other cruft to go along with it. What is the economic value of round stars, exactly?

I try not to think about it much, partly because it makes me wonder if I've lost my mind, but more because the real value comes from using it, and using it as well as I possibly can. It is fun to show off now and then, but if I wasn't using it and pushing to use it better with time, I'd feel much guiltier about the expense than I actually do.

I do wonder though: what is the economic value of round stars?

[bobro]

Thanks to everyone for sharing their thoughts on spending on this great hobby - including a good deal of humour and philosophy.

Although it may seem obvious as astro equipment is generally well looked after, I was surprised by the number of responses where much of the equipment was purchased second-hand. Makes equipment very good for this planet as well as others 

[Peter Drew]

On 5/23/2017 at 08:05, ollypenrice said:

It's certainly allowed though, personally, having 8 observatories on the premises not all mine) leaves me not at all short of tinkering just to keep functioning!

Olly

Snap! 

[SonnyE]

A LOT!

But lookie here, nobody requires you get a license to look at the sky, you can do it from home, you don't need a hotel room or resort, and a telescope doesn't burn petrol.

It does require patience...

Best of all, no envirowhackos are apt to regulate me out of the Stars like they did fishing.

[tomato]

1 hour ago, SonnyE said:

A LOT!

But lookie here, nobody requires you get a license to look at the sky, you can do it from home, you don't need a hotel room or resort, and a telescope doesn't burn petrol.

It does require patience...

Best of all, no envirowhackos are apt to regulate me out of the Stars like they did fishing.

There's still time brother...if the Flatearthers ever rise to power astronomers will have to go underground which will make stargazing a bit tricky. 

[SonnyE]

1 hour ago, tomato said:

There's still time brother...if the Flatearthers ever rise to power astronomers will have to go underground which will make stargazing a bit tricky. 

I've never been there, but they say you can see the stars from the bottom of a well....

(I've been at the bottom of a lot of holes, some I dug myself, but all I could see was a bright light looking up. And a lot more work to go down.

[tonylumley]

my biggest concern is that if i snuff it , the wife will probably give my cameras scope etc away cos she believes it was only a "few quid" lol

 

[Alien 13]

I have a tiny camera bag 230 x 160 x 240 mm that currently contains 2.5 K worth of kit its scary.

Alan

[iapa]

On 21/05/2017 at 19:46, bobro said:

One year ago I purchased my scope with RA motor for the grand sum of £150, with the intention of developing an interest and having fun with astrophotography - but with an economy DIY approach.

Now, one year later, it's been a great learning journey, with still much fun to have and I can't wait for darker skies once again towards the end of the year.

For interest I decided to add up roughly how much I have spent on equipment over the year - it came to about £800. More than I expected, but no complaints as I have tried a bit of visual, a little video of the Moon and Jupiter, but mainly been occupied with guided DSO imaging using a DSLR.

This brought me to a question - just how much have others spent on this absorbing hobby? (If the figure is embarrassing we won't tell, honest!)

£13K since 2015

• SLT 130 + SkyQ WiFi
• DSLR
• QHY6 CCD
• AVX Mount
• 200mm f5 newtonian
• 80mm f5 refractor
• StarSense
• CGEM DX
• Equinox ED80 Pro
• polemaster
• planetary/guide CMOS cameras
• cooled more CMOS and filter wheel
• 8" f10 SCT
• £1000 focusers, coma correctors/field flatteners etc.
• £2000 IT to support all of this.

In addition two trips per year to Orkney Islands to get benefit of darker skies than I have here. These are enforced by SWMBO, and run around £2K each time, excluding the jewellery purchases that are compulsorily deducted from my back account.

 

[Littleguy80]

Just added my total up. £685 for everything I've bought to date (scope, eyepieces, barlow,  filters, Telrad and a couple of books. For a starter setup that seems pretty good to me

Ignore me! Just realised this was under imaging. Though I'm always impressed with the images you guys so I think it's money well spent!

[Paul73]

On 25/05/2017 at 18:03, SonnyE said:

 

It does require patience...

Can't see that on FLO's website!

[iapa]

1 minute ago, Paul73 said:

Can't see that on FLO's website!

We all run out of it, so, must be available somewhere.

maybe find some in Buy and Sell?

[Woolnut]

So far about £180, i was given the 'scope and mount for 21st birthday and i have bought a set of Celestron EP's and Filters, and a few other small bits!

[TareqPhoto]

Pity i am married and i have full freedom to buy whatever i need, but when i buy something for wife i buy what female love, but when she buys something for me, it is either food or perfume and now she is working in watches store so maybe she will buy me a watch, she never and maybe will never buy me a lens or a camera or a scope, or even an eyepiece or lens cap, what a love!!!

[Stub Mandrel]

I don't have any problems with folks spending whatever they can afford on their hobbies - better than blowing it on the horses or drinking it all...

I am a little worried that this topic may be offputting for people who want to get started in imaging who would find raising £500 a challenge. This doesn't have to be an expensive hobby, and it's important to make sure newcomers understand that even basic kit will give them photos they probably think could only be done by professional observatories or satellites.