Some "old flames"

[John]

As it's been raining ....... I've been digging around my old photos and come across some pics of past scopes I've owned so I thought I'd share a few of them for posterity.

The first one, circa 1985, was my 1st "real" scope -a 6" F/6 newtonain by Astro Systems of Luton. Its mounted on a Fullerscopes MKIII equatorial with a tripod of my own making.

Then comes what was a major investment for me in 1987 - its effectively a Vixen SP102M F/9.8 102mm achro refractor but this was was branded Bresser (the Uranus model in fact) and mounted on the Super Polaris mount which was fitted with the original Skysensor system - an early GOTO. Lovely scope but I never got on with the GOTO be so just used the big hand unit to control the drives.

Then I had a scopeless gap of over 10 years (young children and little sleep can lead you to this state !) before treating myself to one of the early TAL100's in December 1999. A great scope - really looked the part and was very well built - mine was #0076. Really got me back into the hobby

[gliderpilot]

Lovely pictures there and you are obviously remembering good times with some fondness. Do you regret selling your first scope? I only ask as I was given a 6 inch f10 fullerscopea newt when still at school in the 90s but rugby parties uni and travelling caused us to part ways - something I still regret.

[Mark at Beaufort]

John

Some lovely scopes - memories!! Your first scope I noted was from Luton is this the same firm as Astro Equipment Ltd who I think built scopes around that area?

As a result of your memory lane I have had a look for any old photos that I might have. Well here we go.

The first photo is the scope that I bought in 1965 with my first pay cheque. It was a 60mm refractor and I added some 'swift' products to it.

The second was a 6" Newt on a Charles Frank eq mount. The scope was made of wood and weighed a 'ton'. I bought this scope in the early 1970s.

Like you John I stopped doing Astronomy after the children were born and then came back to the hobby in 1999 when I bought a Nexstar 5.

Mark