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Thought I'd say hello


ZZraynj

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Hi all,

It’s time I bit the bullet and stopped lurking around as a ‘vacuum’.

Dear wifey bought me a Skywatcher 1145p Goto for Christmas. Apart from the initial frustrations of never ending clouds, I’ve managed to squeeze in a few evenings.

But alas, the frustrations of cloud formations fall into insignificance compared to my seemingly endless ineptitude to get a simple motorised apparatus to do anything worthwhile.

I have to say I chuckled heartily at petuplink’s story of the aperture cover as I myself had only been using the small opening until I saw the youtube video by the astronomy-and-nature-centre (very informative) and realised you could take the whole thing off.:(

So with renewed vigour and more light available, I felt I could take on the whole universe. Sadly, I fell short at the alignment stage and couldn’t get it to align to anything meaningful. So, I’m a positive guy, surely I can just do it manually, I thought.

Well, a month later, I’ve finally managed to locate the moon. Don’t get me wrong, I love the moon, taken some pics of it, very proud of myself and my moon, but I can’t help but think it’s an easy target and nothing really to be proud of.

I’m wondering whether or not to ditch the goto and get a more ‘manual’ type tripod/mount as I think this is probably more my style and in some ways more tactile (I hope you know what I mean), I guess it’s possible to strap some rings on the tube and stick it on a different mounting/tripod.

But I’m also wondering if it’s worth, forgetting that and going for a bigger Dobsonian type, I’m not particularly worried about tracking and stuff, I quite like the idea of looking through something someone did a few hundred years ago. I mean after all, if I want fancy photos etc (and honestly, I’m not disrespecting all the good work others do and bring pleasure to themselves as well as others), there’s a plethora of imagery already out there already. Which sort of, in a way, brings me back to the just gazing part of it with no strings attached, just a pleasant evening looking up, instead of down at this sysncan, solely designed to bring me to distraction.

One benefit, though, I’ve spent a lot more time recently just looking up and learning the stars (the easy ones) where they are in the firmament and perhaps where I am in the firmament too.

By the time my little grandson is able to stand up and look through an eyepiece, I just might be able to tell him what stars we are looking at together.

I hope that doesn’t come too soon (don’t want to wish his childhood away), and I hope it’s not light years away either.

Bet you wish I’d stayed in my vacuum now :)

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Hi and welcome to the forum.

I would stick at the GOTO and try and get it sorted at least for your own satisfaction. I'm sure is something simple that you're doing wrong so post over on the equipment section and see if someone can help you.

I'm like you in that as great as imaging is, I'm quite happy to buy a book or view other's images rather than spend a lot of money on kit to take my 'own'. As your observing and targets choice grows, the connection that you can get to what you see also naturally increases and forms part of the joy in considering where we all are in the scheme of things.

Best of luck with the kit that you already have - I'm sure you'll get it sorted.

Clear skies

James

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