Comfort buying astro gear?

[Greymouser]

Am I the only one to do this? I bet I am not. I have been looking at my astro gear, thinking that I have too much, it needs rationalising. ( ) Looking back at the last few years, many things I have got have been impulse buys, with the best of intentions, but then see little use. Usually bought when life is getting difficult, partly for that buzz of the arrival of new great gear! I Partly blame the weather, ruining the few observing chances I get, forcing me to browse on astro suppliers websites! I wonder how long it will be until I run out the SeeStar?

[Albir phil]

37 minutes ago, Greymouser said:

Am I the only one to do this? I bet I am not. I have been looking at my astro gear, thinking that I have too much, it needs rationalising. ( ) Looking back at the last few years, many things I have got have been impulse buys, with the best of intentions, but then see little use. Usually bought when life is getting difficult, partly for that buzz of the arrival of new great gear! I Partly blame the weather, ruining the few observing chances I get, forcing me to browse on astro suppliers websites! I wonder how long it will be until I run out the SeeStar?

Yeah think I'm guilty of comfort buying although I do use most of what I buy.Problem knowing what I need rather than what I need 

[John]

Each time that I arrive at the conclusion that my gear needs to be "rationalised" I let one or two things go but then have some moments of weakness and add some more stuff, usually with the effect that I end up with more than I had before rather than as intended, less.

So I'm trying to give up on having ideas about downsizing my gear - it seems to have the reverse effect and I'll run out of room eventually 🙄

I'm a sucker for nice stuff that is well priced and that I've not tried yet - I ought to bar myself from UK Astro Buy & Sell and the SGL classifieds really 😬

 

 

Edited February 24 by John

[Albir phil]

1 minute ago, Albir phil said:

Yeah think I'm guilty of comfort buying although I do use most of what I buy.Problem knowing what I need rather than what I need 

Correction what I need rather than what I want

[bosun21]

I think I have a very serious case of this affliction regarding buying and selling astro gear. I am now going to venture into the 100° wide field eyepieces after selling my Morpheus eyepieces which I loved to raise funds for the former. Perhaps when I grow up, although being 64 this year and I'm still exhibiting this affliction. Hopefully I will settle on a complete setup that I can settle on and extinguish the need to browse the astro classified section wherever it may be.

Edited February 25 by bosun21
Typo

[ONIKKINEN]

I've managed to not make any new purchases in what, maybe a year? Before that, since 2020 when i started i had a package at the parcel locker every month, or so it seemed.

It helps that I'm broke at the moment, think i would be making purchases if that were not the case. I think i am fairly content with what i have now, and there are no major "need to have" type purchases lined up. Imaging rig works, so no point in trying to change things up, and my visual scope and binoculars give me views that satisfy that itch. Poor weather definitely gives too much time to do some window shopping rather than actual time under the stars, can relate to that.

[Nakedgun]

~

Agreed. More than once I've come to the conclusion that I need nothing more. Did I say, "more than once"?

 

 

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[ollypenrice]

Because I worship at the shrine of, 'If it ain't broke, don't fix it,' and because setting up new astrophotographic gear is usually fraught with stress and frustration, I do no astronomical comfort buying whatever. My idea of comfort is using stuff that works.

However, as for comfort buying in other areas - now you're talking!

lly

[900SL]

It's more like cloud driven browsing for me these days

I've gone through the pain of transition from DSLR - lenses - tracker to Mono - scopes - GEM, and the associated exponential rate of expenditure. 

IF the weather was better here, I'd probably still be suffering from GAS. Thankfully it's slowed down. My current set up works well in the main 

If anything I need to offload some stuff at some point. I've built up a sizeable collection of 'stuff', a lot of which mainly gathers dust

Edited February 25 by 900SL

[Ratlet]

Absolutely.

Although I do try to offset it with second hand purchases.  For a lot of second hand astro stuff it basically depreciates once, when it goes from new to second hand.  After that the value remains relatively steady, or may in fact go up depending on the item/inflation.

At least that's how I justify it.

I once had a chat with a workmate who bikes about the amount I was spending and he introduced me to 'the economics of joy'.  You basically take the cost of the item and the number of hours of enjoyment you get out of it.  You can then price it against similar activities based on a per hour cost.  

A £1000 telescope seems expensive, but if you get 50 hours 'joy' out of it then you're at £20/hour which is less than a night out for me.

I believe this is the same economic theory used by Warhammer players lol.

[MonsterMagnet]

20 minutes ago, 900SL said:

It's more like cloud driven browsing for me these days

I've gone through the pain of transition from DSLR - lenses - tracker to Mono - scopes - GEM, and the associated exponential rate of expenditure. 

IF the weather was better here, I'd probably still be suffering from GAS. Thankfully it's slowed down. My current set up works well in the main 

If anything I need to offload some stuff at some point. I've built up a sizeable collection of 'stuff', a lot of which mainly gathers dust

This is pretty much what's happened to me.

I started with an inherited DSLR and an AZ-GTI with an inappropriate scope and slowly moved on to a second hand refractor, second hand berlebach, asiair mini, ASI533MC etc.

With the clouds over the last months and browsing this place amongst others I've just decided to go for it.  Upgraded my mount to an AM3 and got a second hand ASI2600MM and filters and got an EFW and am just waiting for the clouds to go to try my first mono imaging session.

I think given my central London location this was always going to be the trajectory of travel as mono is just better given the LP but it's definitely been accelerated by the weather in my view.

MM

[PeterC65]

Not so much comfort buying for me, but more of an obsession driven by wanting to see more. I think others are driven by this too. "If I just had this eyepiece / scope / diagonal / filter I might be able to see more detail in ... ".

I'm very careful about researching the kit I buy and haven't made many bad purchases (or sold much gear), but I always have a list of "possible kit to buy" on the go, and most sessions involve a certain amount of kit testing as well as actual observation. Reading the observation reports from others, this also seems to be quite common.

I keep expecting to get to the point where I have all the kit I need, and have tested it, so that I can concentrate on observation. I think I have got there for visual now, but not so for EAA.

[DirkSteele]

There is a reason why I have 9 telescopes! And lots of eyepieces, tripods and mounts. But I know deep down I do not need anything else (though I am thinking about a nice pair of complementary binoculars) so other than the 31mm Nagler and 13mm Ethos I purchased at AstroFest I do not see myself participating in the “what did the postman bring?” thread again this year.

Doesn’t stop me reading all the great reviews of equipment on here and elsewhere and daydreaming though… 😉

Edited February 25 by DirkSteele
Typo

[Alan White]

Guilty as charged your honour, it’s the need to try something else that does it, curiosity.

However presently under control due to finances.

[Franklin]

LOL.... yes definitely, like an Andrex puppy all snug in a blanket and hot water bottle!

[Mr Spock]

Yup. I bought an 8" f4 reflector 6 months ago. I've used it once...

 

[Stephenstargazer]

I keep a running book of purchases and sales with a balance. When the balance is too low, I justify a buy as being a necessity and therefore does not count. 🙂 I am quite good at the big bits, but the small accessories are tempting and accumulate. I like fiddling with assemblies when there is not much viewing to do. Sometimes it even works! A hobby within a hobby ? 

[Chaz2b]

Considering that a few years back I had a flat FULL of astro gear, I had stuff in boxes in the kitchen that's how much room it took up. But I had the opportunity to study the quality and workmanship that went into those items before I stupidly made the big sell off.

Now, I collect more than I need as I still enjoy cuddling that quality scope, it's the same with men and their cars!

Chaz

Edited February 26 by Chaz2b

[gorann]

I may be worse off than most and it does not have to do so much with clouds. It is my long bright summer - 3 month without astrodarkness. The result of that is not only 13 scopes (not counting Samyang and Canon lenses) and 7 mounts. It is also that I have spent four of those summers building obsies, so I now have four of them. I do have space for many more here at my small farm, but enough is enough and the cost of building material has doubled since I built my last one two summers ago. My idea behind multiple obsies is to avoid having to change telescopes on a single pier. Instead I can pick the obsy with the telescope(s) best suited for the target of the night. And a bonus has been the exercise involved in the building process. The one I use the most hosts my dual RASA rig on a Mesu. I now have an 11" Edge with a Hyperstar on an EQ8 in another obsy but mainly due to either clouds or really cold (-20°C or worse) nights I have not found the opportunity or energy to collimate it yet. In a third obsy I have another Mesu that is still eagerly waiting to hold my two Esprit 150.

Cheers, Göran

[tomato]

Looking forward to seeing the results from the dual Esprit 150 rig, what cameras are you planning to use?

[gorann]

6 minutes ago, tomato said:

Looking forward to seeing the results from the dual Esprit 150 rig, what cameras are you planning to use?

I have done the camera shopping. An ASI6200MM with a FW on one to collect Lum or NB and a QHY128C on the other for RGB. So full format on both.

Edited February 26 by gorann

[gorann]

10 minutes ago, tomato said:

Looking forward to seeing the results from the dual Esprit 150 rig, what cameras are you planning to use?

And then I bought Olly's very sturdy Cassidy holder, which hopefully will do the job without to much flex. It is much more beefy than the JTD holding my RASAs.

[jjohnson3803]

Yeah.  I was just thinking that I have enough reasonable quality scopes, mounts, and tripods.  So now I'm looking at binos, monoculars, and wondering if maybe a 60mm finder for superquick grab-n-go would be a nice improvement over my 50mm.  I mean there's a whole group.io forum for 60mm observing.

And since I have 15mm and 25mm EPs, I should get a 20mm to fill the gap, right?  ☺️

[Ratlet]

22 minutes ago, jjohnson3803 said:

Yeah.  I was just thinking that I have enough reasonable quality scopes, mounts, and tripods.  So now I'm looking at binos, monoculars, and wondering if maybe a 60mm finder for superquick grab-n-go would be a nice improvement over my 50mm.  I mean there's a whole group.io forum for 60mm observing.

And since I have 15mm and 25mm EPs, I should get a 20mm to fill the gap, right?  ☺️

Wasn't there a Borg mini 60 in the for sale section?  Had a really nice mini focuser on it too

[tomato]

51 minutes ago, gorann said:

And then I bought Olly's very sturdy Cassidy holder, which hopefully will do the job without to much flex. It is much more beefy than the JTD holding my RASAs.

Yes, that was the issue with my dual Esprit 150 rig, flexture between the guided and unguided scopes. It was brought under control by a large alloy bracing plate bolted across the top of the tube rings, a pain to set up when aligning the scopes but saves a lot of frustration thereafter. Hopefully your set up will not need one.