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Blame it on the dolphins!

trekker308

By trekker308
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trekker308

trekker308

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...... Our ageing hero had long held an interest in astronomy, but had never had the wit, wisdom (or money!) to purchase an astro 'scope, but one day:-

Well, there I was, sitting on the Dorset coast one summer day watching dolphins out at sea through my binos thinking "What I really need is a spotting scope for this. So......, I buy said spotting 'scope, and while 'playing' with it one night, I looked up at Jupiter - "Blimey! I can see coloured bands round it - tried the Moon - "Stone me! - I can see craters inside other craters!"

To bring this silliness to a close, that was two years ago - I'm now the owner of the 'scopes detailed below, handful of eyepieces (even some TVs, courtesy of a well-paid job I had for a while!), and utterly hooked on the hobby.

All the above is a very long-winded Hello to all, from a Newbie sat under total cloud cover near the New Forest - Hi Guys! I look forward to soaking up the knowledge, wit and whatever else you share with the forum ......

P.S. Anyone wanna buy a spotting scope .......??

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OXO

OXO

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Hello Allan,

Glad the Dolphins helped with your interest in Astronomy :laugh: there's a few members i think from your neck of the woods on here..

[glow=red,2,300]Welcome to the forum[/glow]

Or should that be Asylum?

Nice scopes you have there, we have a Buy n Sell section if you wish to advertise your spotting scope Allan...

Regards

James :laugh:

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Ant

Ant

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Welcome Allan,

We have quite a few members from down your area! Might have to rename the fourm soon to "New Forest Lounge" :laugh:

Look forward to reading your posts.

Never heard of someone getting into astronomy via Dolphins before :laugh:

Ant

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trekker308

trekker308

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Thanks one and all for the kind words! So, we have a lot of yokels from the New Forest area on the forum - Any belong to Wessex Astronomical Society 'cos I'm about to join??

After my other hobbies of landscape photography and hill/coast walking I see this as another golden opportunity to get [glow=red,2,300]d**n cold .....!![/glow]

Talking of photography, I will be keen to pinch any info on astrophotography, but purpose-made CCD cameras will come (much) later as I'm determined to use my shiny almost-new D200 first despite the limitations of non-modified DSLRs.

Thanks again, and I detect a tinge of mild insanity from some of the members' posts which makes me feel right at home ...... Does the insanity stretch to anybody having a G-11 and TV 35mm Panoptic for sale at 50 quid a time ..... No??

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Kaptain Klevtsov

Kaptain Klevtsov

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D200 eh? Sounds Fab.

It's got mirror lock up, iso3200, sequence timer, rgb histogram, full zoom to pixel level and more. That should be the dogs doodaas.

The "limitations" of non-modified DSLRs are not so great as some would have you believe, OK so you won't get Hubble style photos but you will have a lot of fun trying.

You do have Photoshop I presume?

welcome to the fun

Captain Chaos

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trekker308

trekker308

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Captain Chaos

Yes, the D200! - Acquiring it was a story which typifies me I regret to say (I think):- I was all set to buy a D70s after a lot of research etc., rang my friendly local dealer to talk about the transaction, and said as a joke because they were rare as hen's teeth "Don't suppose you have a D200 in stock?" - Answer: "I'm looking at one on my shelf right now"

'Nuff said - the bank balance shrunk to near zero in an instant and the next morning I had a set of shiny gold boxes to open - It goes without saying I was like a dog with two d**ks, and although I believe I'm a half-decent photographer (should be by now..) I think I have a way to go to get the best out of it!

The mirror lock is on the dreaded Nikon Custom Menu screen (no trouble really, but it's meant for sensor cleaning really), takes dark frames, but I haven't found out how to get the 'dog's doodahs' to work yet .....

Did take a couple of test shots of the Moon (of course) with my 127 Mak-Cass (a delightful little beauty, recently acquired) and a surprisingly good one of Venus which seems to astound the non-astronomers round me, but I have to get to grips with interfacing it with my MN78 for some planetary and bigger DSOs .......

..... and yes, I've recently got Photoshop CS2, and after years of Paint Shop Pro I'm on a learning curve there too!

Thanks for your interest and Clear Skies (fat chance here at the moment!)

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