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Hello from the Welsh valleys

Ags

By Ags
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Ags

Ags

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I've been visiting these forums for a while and finally got round to registering. Twenty five years ago as a kid in South Africa I had a little toy-store telescope on a wobbly mount, and I'll never forget the views I had of Alpha Centauri (it must be the best double star in the sky), Omega Centauri (M13 is no comparison) and Jupiter. The telescope can't have been that good, because I don't think I ever saw detail on Jupiter. Despite the telescope's shortcomings, I had dark skies, I was observing at 2000m altitude and most nights were clear.

It took me a long time to get round to buying my next telescope! But I've finally purchased a NexStar 4se. I'm torn between craving a bigger aperture, and being delighted with the bits I can see. The things I've seen with my 0.1 metre telescope ;-) that look good are

- Saturn, Titan and Rhea?

- the Moon

- Clusters: M13 and M3 (I can just make out the twinkly stars)

- Doubles: Mizar, Albireo, 61 Cygni, Xi Bootis, Zeta Lyrae

- Nebulae: M57 (my favorite thing in the sky so far)

But I've also just enjoyed using my eyes and learning the northern hemisphere constellations at last.

I'm glad I got a telescope with goto, but goto is not as simple as the adverts suggest. It helps a lot to know where the stuff is so you can help the goto on a bit.

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Ags

Ags

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I'm in a mining village near Merthyr. It's out of the way, but light pollution is still pretty bad - even on good nights I can't see any milk in the milky way.

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Psychobilly

Psychobilly

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Welcome welcome, or as they say in Wales......dim parkio araf boyo!

The LP around Merthyr is awful. The Brecons offers the best get out clause for it.

Good luck.

The "Beacons" don't do much if your imaging South we went to the mountain center for an SGL Wales meet and you still had the LP dome from the Valleys, Cardiff , Neport and Brsitol to contend with...

Wasn't too bad in the other directions though....

Peter...

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Psychobilly

Psychobilly

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hmm, fair enough.

where I went to near Libanus (3 miles south of Brecon on the A470) the sky was one of the clearest I have seen.

It all varies though.

The mountain center is in Libanus...

Here's a shot over Pen-Y-Fan (2907 feet) :rolleyes:

post-14969-13387745754_thumb.jpeg

They are trying to get the National park to adopt a dark skies policy.. just they need to extend it to The Valleys, Cardiff, Newport and Bristol...

Visualy it was pretty dark but imaging wise unfiltered it was pants...

Peter...

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