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Recently getting back into astronomy

Arty68

By Arty68
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Arty68

Arty68

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I used to star hop with my 8" and 10" Newtonians.  As I grew older the heavy scopes fell by the wayside.  I now have a Sky-Watcher 100mm ED refractor with perfect collimation and a Meade LX65 8" f/10 ACF Catadioptric with GoTo mount.  Currently looking for an affordable mount for the 4" refractor, I can mount both scopes on the Meade head however another mount would be easier to transport out of the city for darker sky.  I am an old guy and don't have the strength and stamina of my youth.

Looking forward to good conversations in the future on this forum.

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mikemarotta

mikemarotta

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2 hours ago, Arty68 said:

... I now have a Sky-Watcher 100mm ED refractor ...  a Meade LX65 8" f/10 ACF Catadioptric with GoTo mount.  ... I can mount both scopes on the Meade head however ... 

Welcome to the forum! I, too, am looking for a mount and tripod to carry an 8-inch Newtonian and (separately) a 115 mm apochromatic refractor. The supply chain is still very much impacted by the pandemic and inventory is hard to find all over. You just have to keep shopping. 

You have some nice telescopes. Your stable of instruments provides you with a lot of options. I also chose my current telescopes for their portability. 

If I may ask, where in Ohio do you live? I know the state well having worked in Dayton, Cleveland, and Columbus over the years.  Do you belong to a local club?

Best Regards,

Mike M.

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Arty68

Arty68

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8 hours ago, mikemarotta said:

Welcome to the forum! I, too, am looking for a mount and tripod to carry an 8-inch Newtonian and (separately) a 115 mm apochromatic refractor. The supply chain is still very much impacted by the pandemic and inventory is hard to find all over. You just have to keep shopping. 

You have some nice telescopes. Your stable of instruments provides you with a lot of options. I also chose my current telescopes for their portability. 

If I may ask, where in Ohio do you live? I know the state well having worked in Dayton, Cleveland, and Columbus over the years.  Do you belong to a local club?

Best Regards,

Mike M.

I live in Marion, don't belong to a club.  In decades past I have made visits to the Dayton observatory and Columbus.

 

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CatRas

CatRas

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Hi,

 

 I'm new too Well sort of. I was a member but you know how it is life gets in the way etc. I am looking to get back into astronomy.  I probably will not buy a telescope until next spring. The biggest reason is right now I am going through chemo and it totally wipes me out for days. I go three weeks in a row then have a week off. I am in the PNW so from late fall through winter we get rain and cloudy skies quite often. We are in need of rain so bad right now. I also cannot drive due to medications.  Working on hubby to have us spend a year living in Hawaii.  They have nice dark skies there. 🙂 I have had two telescopes in the past so I am not completely clueless (but not overly knowledgeable either) I'm going to start reeducating myself. 

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Arty68

Arty68

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4 hours ago, CatRas said:

Hi,

 

 I'm new too Well sort of. I was a member but you know how it is life gets in the way etc. I am looking to get back into astronomy.  I probably will not buy a telescope until next spring. The biggest reason is right now I am going through chemo and it totally wipes me out for days. I go three weeks in a row then have a week off. I am in the PNW so from late fall through winter we get rain and cloudy skies quite often. We are in need of rain so bad right now. I also cannot drive due to medications.  Working on hubby to have us spend a year living in Hawaii.  They have nice dark skies there. 🙂 I have had two telescopes in the past so I am not completely clueless (but not overly knowledgeable either) I'm going to start reeducating myself. 

You might want to look into getting an 80mm to 120mm good refractor between f/8 and f/10.  My Sky-Watcher ED 100mm f/9 has perfect collimation [I'm not saying they will all be perfect, may be I got lucky] and produces better images of Saturn than my 8" SCT.  I can see the Ring Nebula even though I live in the city with the 100mm, and now with all of the smoke in the air I can still see it.  Bigger scopes will show a brighter image however they are also heavier.  Winter and spring should produce some good seeing, unfortunately Saturn and Jupiter will be low in the sky in the spring, however by early May Jupiter, Saturn and Mars will be easy to find around 5a.m. or so, if you can see that far East and Southeast.  I hope you can get well soon.  

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