Observing Chair, why have I neglected one for so long!!!!

[Tim]

Around ten years ago I spent some time solar observing with a friend using his solid oak observing seat that somebody had handmade. It was height adjustable, with an adjustable footrest, and made it very comfortable to sit and let the tracking mount follow the solar sphere as we observed it.

However for the following few years the gear I took to star parties tended to be imaging based, so no need of a dedicated seat for observing. These days though I just pack my trusty 18" Dob, and at the recent Kelling Heath SP decided to cave in and get a Tracer 12V battery while they were on offer. Combined with the tracking platform that sits under the dob base the battery pack really completes my push-to setup nicely, but I do tend to find that slightly crouching or bending a bit is causing me more and more back pain lately, indeed I missed a whole clear night of observing during the main star party due to the pain. This in turn leads to sometimes cursory observing on my behalf, sometimes missing out on the finer points of a particular object.

So when a second hand oak observing chair came up at the boot sale on Saturday morning at Kelling, I thought that the £80 asking price might be money well spent. The fact that I am a sucker for solid oak items bore almost no influence on the decision  

Well, I have to say, what a difference! Being able to sit comfortably and just observe, without having to crouch or bend or nudge the scope made a MASSIVE difference to my enjoyment of the sessions, and with a relaxed comfortable posture, I was able to spend much longer on individual targets, properly using averted vision for extended viewing, and also eyepiece tapping.

It was very gratifying to slowly work my way through H beta, Oiii and UHC filters side by side, really getting to grips with the different views they present, which was especially enjoyable on the Rosette nebula, and M42. My wife even joined me at 2am one night and we stayed out until dawn, and even she commented that the time just flew by using the comfortable chair for observing. An additional highlight was the California nebula (NGC 1499), which through a 21mm Ethos with Lumicon H beta filter just seemed to go on and on, but without the support of the chair I would not have been able to observe the half of what I did of the nebula, it would have been too painful.

Needless to say I am delighted with the purchase and look forward to the next trip out with it, which may hopefully be at SGL 2019 very soon, or at Kelling Heath again in November.

(Pic taken with phone and a placed red light just to test the effect, I like to observe with absolute minimal light sources around! As it was, we had the whole of the bottom red field at Kelling to ourselves when everybody else left, and enjoyed a really dark situation)

[scarp15]

Great, good reasoning and nice chair / picture. There is something magical sitting in comfort, with good posture at just the correct eye level to your eyepiece, visually absorbing a subject.  

[Tim]

18 hours ago, scarp15 said:

Great, good reasoning and nice chair / picture. There is something magical sitting in comfort, with good posture at just the correct eye level to your eyepiece, visually absorbing a subject.  

Agree totally. Could really concentrate on the targets. I regularly observe with big dobs but have always either stood or used a step ladder, the seat is far more comfortable though.

[Raph-in-the-sky]

A good chair makes a world of difference. 

I went the cheapo road and bought a ironing chair for £15! Eventually I will try to build on myself.

[Alan White]

Seated use of a scope in my view becomes observing as I am comfortable.
If I stand I just glance and ache the next day.

[Paz]

I much prefer seated observing so that I can have a straight back and my head is looking naturally forwards rather than up or down.

The other way around this for grab and go without a chair is having a camera tripod that can raise a small scope to head height so I can stand up straight and look straight ahead, even if observing targets at the zenith.

[Tim]

18 hours ago, Raph-in-the-sky said:

I went the cheapo road and bought a ironing chair for £15! Eventually I will try to build on myself.

To be honest that was one of the reasons I didn't get one until now, because I have the wood, the skills, and the tools to make my own, and always intended to at some point. Just never found the time