New Member

[Bill Harrison]

Hello,

My name is Bill Harrison, I am an Electronic Engineering Student at the University of Surrey. I am 22 and have had an interest in Astromony over the last 2-3 years. Amateur Radio is my main hobby. I suppose they are quite similar in that you are trying to pick out weak signals/images from the Background noise. My home location is in Somerton, Somerset where I have mainly Dark skies (I live on the outskirts of the town) but I am plagued with light from a nearby streetlamp overlooking the garden.

My main equipment at the moment is a Skywatcher Explorer 200 F5 Newtonian on an HEQ5 mount and I use a pair of Helios 70x15 Binos to look around the sky with.

I found this forum by accident, I was looking for reviews on the 5" refractor telescope sold by Alan at sky's the limit and found some usefull comments here. I have just purchased one from him for Lunar/Planetary use and am waiting for it to arrive.I found the newtonian is not ideal for this. I'm still finding my feet in the hobby and deciding which area I want to specialise in.

At the moment Im stuck in Guildford which has very bad light polution and I only have a set of old 50x7 Binos for casual skywatching.

[FLO]

Welcome aboard Bill,

Thats quite a set-up you have there, and a dark-sky to boot ... some people have all the luck

I look forward to reading your posts,

Steve  

[OXO]

Welcome Bill

I have the same piece of kit as you the Skywatcher 200mm F/5 on HEQ5 mount a great piece of kit!. Some of the other members also have this setup ANT,DAZ...

Look forward to your future post's and please remember were here to help so if you want to ask anything go ahead and we will be pleased to answer if we can.

James

[Rob]

Welcome to forum Bill

Rob

[daz]

Welcome Bill

I certainly do have the newt. Only had it a few days and managed to use it once, thanks to the poxy weather!!

Look forward to sharing experiences

Daz

[Jamie]

Hi Bill nice to see another new member.

Welcome.

[Ant]

Welcome Bill,

As James mentioned several members have the same kit as you. Myself included - I can wholeheartedly recommend the crayford focuser from TS in germany. Fits straight on and is great.

Hope you have fun here.

Ant

[Bill Harrison]

Thankyou all for your warm welcome to the forum!

Ant - Ok about the crayford focuser, sounds very good! I may consider this upgrade at a later date.

At the moment, I have very little time to enjoy practical astronomy due to a heavy university workload (I am in my final year). I hope to have more free time after starting employment. Since joining the forum, I have enjoyed reading other peoples comments and opinions. I currently content myself with reading this forum and using a pair of binos to occasionally look round the sky, but I look forward to using the scope during the holiday's.

I think that astronomy will probably be a lifetime hobby for me so I intend to hang on to my scope for the time being.

Thanks to all for your support and advice

Bill

[AndyMac]

Welcome to the asylum, Bill. Always nice to welcome new members. Have fun & enjoy.......