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Hello from Newport

Rhye

By Rhye
in Welcome

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Rhye

Rhye

Posted
Posted

Hello all, and thank you for having me.

I'm old enough to remember when Newport Council used to switch off loads of streetlights around about midnight. I remember as a boy looking out over a local green spot called Woodland Park with the Milky Way plainly visible as a broad rash across the sky- even through a window- and being able to identify just about every constellation. Wonder why they insist on keeping all the sodium lights on now?

As the years (decades) passed, I kept my hand in, reading this and watching that and getting by with my 10x50s, but have never owned a 'scope until now. I just got a SkyWatcher 130/650 since a) I'm absolutely skint and :) it was universally well reviewed. So far, nothing but clouds.

Tonight, after owning the blessed thing for a week, the sky was clear! I ran out at 2200 (still bright twilight) to let the apparatus acclimatise. I went out at 2330 and popped the caps... and then clouds. I was just about to line up on Dubhe- an old habit- and they came scudding in. I am beginning to suspect I have bought a cloud machine or some kind of idol that clouds are drawn to. Still, the forecast for tomorrow is good...

Aaanyway, as far as astronomy goes, I'm only interested in looking at the sky, spotting a planet here or there, gazing and grazing. Just enjoying the sky, nothing more. It's not that I'm not choked with admiration for those who have branched into astrophotography and other specialities, far from it. And you couldn't pay me to have GOTO. I guess that makes me a Luddite of a kind.

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acharris77

acharris77

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Welcome to SGL. The clouds are a pain, as I went to go out last night. I set the scope up at 22:55, let it cool down, then by 23:20 it was cloudy, so back away the scope went. At least we are getting experience at assembling and dis-assembling our new scopes.....LOL.

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ashenlight

ashenlight

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Prynhawn da Rhye (to continue the Welsh theme from Peter - or should it be Nos da?!), I'm just down the road in Cardiff :)

Lovely to have you with us, I'm with you on the Go-To, nothing like the blood sweat and tears hunting down a fuzzy for yourself :headbang: Enjoy your stay here at SGL

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Rhye

Rhye

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CLEAR SKY!

After seven days of put-it-up, take-it down, put-it-up, take it down, put-it-up, leave it assembled in the front room and tell the kids it'll give them an electric shock if they even look at it funny, I think tonight wil be my first go. At last.

SAT24 doesn't seem to have any bad news for the next few hours either. I doubt the seeing will be up to much what with it being very warm and humid, but I care not one iota. 25 years- two and a half decades- I waited to buy a scope and if a terrible, blurred M31 (for this is my first target) is my first sight then I'll take it and be grateful. I don't expect to resolve it to any meaningful degree. My planisphere's all lined up and the rig is outside acclimatising. I feel like a kid, I really do. :)

I only have an hour or two, I have to get some sleep since it's my boy's 7th birthday tomorrow (for some reason 7 is a milestone in our family, always has been. More than 13, which sometimes people find a little odd) so I have to be up early to jump up and down and shout like an idiot and watch cartoons and eat sugar for breakfast.

Wish me luck, comrades.

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