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Just Wanted to Say Hello

Haligazer

By Haligazer
in Welcome

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Haligazer

Haligazer

Posted
Posted

Good day everyone. I just wanted to say hello and tell you a bit about myself:

I am 35 years old and I reside in Dartmouth, NS Canada. I started early in this hobby when my father received a Tasco Refractor from Sears back in the early 80's. I ended up being the only one using it and my fondest memory was my first view of Saturn through that telescope. I know everyone says, including myself to never buy a department store telescope but if it wasn't for that "department store" telescope I would not be posting this message today. My second fondest moment was seeing the aurora borealis around the same time, this was the only time in my life I have seen them.

I grew a little older now in highschool and wanted a new telescope because the old one fell apart. My parents spent at that time a lot of money and bought me a Coulter Odyssey 8" Telescope with no finder might I add, that was a real treat let me tell you. I used a screw as my finder for a long long time, it served it's purpose until I got a orange Celestron ?x40 Straight Thru finder that was even worst because it was never aligned properly. M97 was my 3rd wonder! I still use this scope to this day, only time I have ever collimated it was last week :shock:

I lost interest in the hobby when I moved out of then mag 6 skies to mag 3 skies in the city and didn't have room for it and the pollution kind of ruined it for me, I remember just staring up at the moon and planets remembering the cold cold nights looking at objects. I then developed a back condition called Ankulosing Spondulitis or arthritis of the spine and figured my life was over and stopped caring about everything. I lost about 90lbs of weight and noticed my back started feeling much better and one day decided I want to see whats up there again so instead of fixing up my old 8" wanted a grab and go telescope so this is when my family pooled together and got my a Celestron Nexstar 102SLT 4" refractor, goto was different for me [[Remember the screw for a finder and pushing the tube comment]] yeah well there isn't a clutch and I am stuck using the hand controller, I was so frustrated with the alignment never working "because I knew where the object was" I just couldn't get there "fastlike" I bought an Antares EQ-5 Mount, my first ever Equatorial mount, finally I can PUSH it where I want it but the mount took some getting used to. Most of the Messier objects were completed with this 4"er and my 4th Wonder was M8/M20/M57 (M57 had color in my 4"!!)

I then fixed up my Odyssey 8" a bit, dusted her off but I hated having to move to the center of the scope to use the finder so I decided (not thinking why I put it in the middle in the first place) to remount it to the top, easier on my back, especially at Zenith. Well... Zenith was the only spot I could use it now because it was too heavy. I was not a happy camper, so I bought a Telrad.. WOW, why didn't I buy this in the 90s?? that is the best thing since the telescope ha ha.

Almost done, sorry for being so long winded.. Now I am hungry for more and I want a new Dobsonian telescope one that can collapse and be stored. That brings me to finding this forum after searching for reviews on the Skywatcher 10/12" Flextube. Google found a few posts, sadly these posts never ended up with a first light. Now I am here wondering what to do next. My back feels so much better now and I think I can handle the 12" but I fear my wife will look at this in the store in Ottawa in April when we go and say, umm Dear, NO thats too big. Can I rebut by saying, "hun, this is one of those times size DOES matter" in hopes she laughs and agrees or do I take a different approach? The boxes may not even Fit in my 2008 Avenger, who knows, I will MAKE it fit! (I read the Forum Guidelines, I hope my "size" comment is ok LOL)

Thanks

Jeff

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ZOG

ZOG

Posted
Posted

Hi Jeff and welcome. I have the 300p Flextube, and as an unfit and older (54) kind of guy, I find it easy enough to lift in 2 parts and the views more than make up for the effort. It would also be easy to move the scope as a whole object on some kind of sack barrow.

There are a few reviews of this scope on the forum but just as a quickie, I can fit the OTA and mount into the boot of my car which is a standard size saloon

Bill

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