SHOW US A PIC OF YOURSELF WITH YOUR FIRST TELESCOPE

[Geoff Barnes]

1 hour ago, wulfrun said:

Edit: on second thoughts, EVERYTHING is upside down in Aus so he'd be ok

It's true! Because everything looks upside down here my scope automatically turns them the right way up!  🤣

[malc-c]

Not the first scope I used, but my first scope I purchased.  A Vixen 4" fluorite refractor on a driven mount... 

This was a friends photo, taken on timed exposure hence the ghosting or weird head to body positions !  - If I recall correctly this was circa 1987/88 at a society star party in Stevenage - I've circled me and my scope

 

 

Between '83 and '87 I worked for Tasco, and the first scope I used was a borrowed 11TR, which gave me my first image of Saturn.... still remember the excitement, 21 years old and still ran in to my parents to drag them out and take a look - just like a child would  

[scarp15]

Kielder Starcamp in March 2010. Discounting a quite cheap Dixons telescope at aged 11, my first telescope; Celestron C8 Celestar, fork mounted clock drive motor, mid to late 1990's USA built. It is wrapped up as you can see. It was a wonderful occasion and night time temps plunged below -11c.  

 

[fireballxl5]

Technically me with my first "2nd scope", a Vixen Planet 80S used to image (poorly) the annular eclipse of the Sun early on the morning of 31st May 2003 from a headland overlooking Durness in NW Scotland.  Note that the Mylar was quickly removed at sunrise as the clouds provided more than adequate filtering lol

[ScouseSpaceCadet]

26 minutes ago, scarp15 said:

Kielder Starcamp in March 2010. Discounting a quite cheap Dixons telescope at aged 11, my first telescope; Celestron C8 Celestar, fork mounted clock drive motor, mid to late 1990's USA built. It is wrapped up as you can see. It was a wonderful occasion and night time temps plunged below -11c.  

 

At least you were midge free. Kielder must be the midge capital of England during the summer! A clear winter night must be great at Kielder. Worth putting up with the cold.

[Sunshine]

On 29/11/2020 at 10:29, MrFreeze said:

Like many on here, I don't have any pictures of me with a telescope, and not even many pictures of me without a telescope. I guess because in nearly all my pictures, I was behind the lens. I did manage to find this picture of my first telescope without me. It's a Tasco reflector (I think 100mm) bought in (I think) 1975 as a birthday present, although the picture was taken in 2006. It had two 0.965" eyepieces, a barlow, and sun and moon filters. It gave very clear images as I recall, but the finder was pretty useless and the mount was oh so wobbly.

Both the scope and the TV are totally RETRO, love it!

[Paz]

This has been a great thread to read. When reading it I thought that there was not a single photo of me with a scope but I finally remembered someone took a photo of me solar observing whilst on holiday once and I've managed to track it down. As it happens this ST120 was one of the 2 scopes that I started off with, the other being a 127mm Maksutov that I got at the same time.

[Stu]

No pictures with my first scope, a Celestron C150HD which gave me five years of good service, despite being a not brilliant bird-Jones design.

Many pictures of scopes, hardly any with me in them. These are the best I can do....

[JeremyS]

2 hours ago, Stu said:

No pictures with my first scope, a Celestron C150HD which gave me five years of good service, despite being a not brilliant bird-Jones design.

Many pictures or scopes, hardly any with me in them. These are the best I can do....

You ought to use the second one as your avatar, Stu.

[John]

That third photo of Stu would be fun to use in a "guess my hobby" competition

[Geoff Barnes]

9 hours ago, JeremyS said:

You ought to use the second one as your avatar, Stu

If my memory serves me correctly @Stu
did have that as his avatar a few years ago. 😁

[Voyager 3]

7 hours ago, John said:

That third photo of Stu would be fun to use in a "guess my hobby" competition

I bet anyone would find it 😁.

[CCD-Freak]

Me with my Sears 60mm EQ refractor about 1969.

 

John Love
CCD-Freak
WD5IKX

[Stu]

46 minutes ago, CCD-Freak said:

Me with my Sears 60mm EQ refractor about 1969.

 

John Love
CCD-Freak
WD5IKX

Great picture!

[CCD-Freak]

I look a little different now ..... 50 years and 50 pounds later. 🤪

 

John Love
CCD-Freak
WD5IKX

[Stu]

37 minutes ago, CCD-Freak said:

I look a little different now ..... 50 years and 50 pounds later. 🤪

 

John Love
CCD-Freak
WD5IKX

Nah, you’ve barely changed..... 😉

[Davey-T]

On 04/12/2020 at 09:31, Stu said:

No pictures with my first scope, a Celestron C150HD which gave me five years of good service, despite being a not brilliant bird-Jones design.

Many pictures of scopes, hardly any with me in them. These are the best I can do....

At least it's got my right arm in the picture 😂

Don't think they had cameras when I got first scope, can't even remember what it was, some awful plastic thing off Exchange & Mart 🤣

Dave

[Davey-T]

1 hour ago, CCD-Freak said:

Me with my Sears 60mm EQ refractor about 1969.

Looks expensive John, did you have to do a paper round to buy it 😄

Dave

[Marvin Jenkins]

What a great thread. The old pictures showing how it was done back in the day are great. Love the retro comments. I will add “what happened to corduroy trousers and patches on the elbows of jackets”?

I vividly remember a geography teacher at school that used to have a leather protector for his wrist watch. To see the face you undid a popper and lifted away the hard leather front. 
As kids we thought it was funny as the latest thing was the Casio calculator watch, not some old chunk of stainless. Now I love old chunks of stainless.

Sorry I cannot contribute a photo, I only started Astro three years ago, so no photos at all.

Marv

[Tiny Clanger]

15 minutes ago, Davey-T said:

At least it's got my right arm in the picture 😂

Don't think they had cameras when I got first scope, can't even remember what it was, some awful plastic thing off Exchange & Mart 🤣

Dave

Exchange and mart! I'd forgotten about that . The pre-internet , analogue version of ebay , dodgy ads and all !

[Davey-T]

17 minutes ago, Marvin Jenkins said:

I will add “what happened to corduroy trousers and patches on the elbows of jackets”?

 

I think Nick @cotterless45 is keeping the tradition alive 

Dave

[Tiny Clanger]

9 minutes ago, Marvin Jenkins said:

What a great thread. The old pictures showing how it was done back in the day are great. Love the retro comments. I will add “what happened to corduroy trousers and patches on the elbows of jackets”?

I vividly remember a geography teacher at school that used to have a leather protector for his wrist watch. To see the face you undid a popper and lifted away the hard leather front. 
As kids we thought it was funny as the latest thing was the Casio calculator watch, not some old chunk of stainless. Now I love old chunks of stainless.

Sorry I cannot contribute a photo, I only started Astro three years ago, so no photos at all.

Marv

We had a couple of pupils from our year go and spend the summer hol.s on  kibbutz , they came back flaunting watches with little flip over leather cover things built in, which was about as far as school uniform rebellion managed to push it at my school .

No photos of me and the very first 'scope back when I was about 6 or 7, I don't think Dad had any flashbulbs (an expensive, one shot device) , and he was a useless photographer at the best of times. Many years later, after he died, my sister found a lovely wooden box neatly furnished with slots to hold 35mm slides. It was full of kodachromes, but every last image was either a fuzzy distant train, a fuzzy distant naval vessel with a wildly angled horizon, or  a blurry, wonky , head amputated picture of the dog. Photography was not his forte .

[CCD-Freak]

44 minutes ago, Davey-T said:

Looks expensive John, did you have to do a paper round to buy it 😄

Dave

I relentlessly hounded my parents for a telescope for Christmas and they finally got that one. I think it cost about $100 at the time and It was actually a very nice scope with an EQ mount which worked well enough to keep from killing my interest.   I saved my allowance and mowed the yard to earn money for the optional clock drive motor.  I remember my first view of M42.  Fond memories.   Here is another Polaroid of it.  I made a pier from a fence post so I did not have to fiddle with the tripod when I set it up.

 

John Love
CCD-Freak
WD5IKX

 

Edited December 5, 2020 by CCD-Freak

[CCD-Freak]

A buddy of mine had the same scope and we did wide field photography with Polaroid cameras strapped on top of the tube as seen in this picture.  This picture also shows my home built 8" F7 Newt on a brick pier and pipe mount.   The picture was shot by moonlight with my Polaroid camera circa 1971.

This is fun !!!!! 😀

John Love
CCD-Freak
WD5IKX

Edited December 5, 2020 by CCD-Freak

[mikeDnight]

Here's the only blurry pic of me alongside my first telescope, a 60mm Astral bought from Dixon's. It cost me £110 in the January sale of 1980.

 

 

Edited December 6, 2020 by mikeDnight