Hello!

[jcm]

Hi Suzi and Matt.

Lots of helpful advice available on this forum.

As for storage , many people use the Maplin flight cases ( metal outside - foam cuts outs inside ) , wait for when they have them on special offer - £15 instead of £30.

John

[Sarah]

Welcome Suzi and Matt. My husband and I are newbies too. Got our first scope about 6 weeks ago, but now realising how many cloudy/misty evenings there are! We bought the maplin flightcase just before Xmas, for £15. We have found it excellent for storing the eyepieces and other bits. Makes it much easier to carry everything out and back in.

Hopefully you'll be very impressed when you see the moon. That was what initially impressed us. We are still waiting for our first views of saturn, but are hopeful that we can see it soon!

I have a Canon 450d and am wanting to get into the imaging too. Have purchased various adapters so the camera can be connected directly to the scope and also so it can be connected to the Hyperion eyepieces as well, with and without the camera lens. Focusing seems to be quite difficult but the moon seems to be a good target to start with.

This is an excellent place to be - lots of friendly and helpful people about. We've found lots of invaluable information here already.

Sarah

[barkis]

Hello form me too Suzi & Matt. A warm welcome to this great forum.

SGL is the finest Astronomy forum in the UK, If not the whole world, as I'm sure you willl find out.

Matt, in your Intro, you said you were looking forward to seeing the moon when it got bigger.

I guess by now you will have had some great views of it's craters and Mountains and "seas". Maria.

When the moon is full, it is not so interesting to look at, because the sunlight falls staight down onto it's surface, and nothing stands out in relief, so I think you will realise that the best times are leading up to full, and when it wanes again.

Good luck, and I hope you will ask questions if you need to know something. Plenty of willing helpers here.

Best Wishes.

Ron.

[Suzi]

Thanks for all of the lovely welcome messages. We haven't ventured outside much as it has been so cold recently - we're a couple of wusses! Matt is thinking of joining the 'Mad Viewers' group. The nice chap at the telescope shop in Frome told me about it when I was making 'the' purchase. Are there members of that group on the forum?

[glowjet]

Welcome to SGL Suzi and Matt, no better place to be.

If you still have some cash left over invest in a pair of reasonable quality bins, 10 x50 or 7X50 no bigger, and a star map or two, these can be downloaded free. One I often use is from the web site of Philip.S.Harrington entitled "Touring The Universe Through Binoculars" which now includes free star maps in colour or black and white in any variation you want, they can be printed out for the area of sky you want to look at.

Have fun.

John.

[Stephen Green]

Hi Suzi a warm welcome to the SGL :sunny: :sunny:

Stephen