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Old 24-01-2013, 11:11 AM
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elfinke (Trev)
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elfinke is offline
 
Join Date: Jan 2013
Location: New England
Posts: 68
Hi all,

Another new user, though extremely long time lurker! I'm in the New England region of NSW - beautiful skies up here. About to purchase a telescope, it'll be my first 'scope in ~20 years. Like many, I had a couple growing up (including an almost fabled Tasco) and they were fantastic. I saw some pretty great stuff through them over the years.

I've been doing a little bit binocular viewing lately (without a tripod, unfortunately), just trying to remember the star hops and the constellations and so forth.

Trying to convince myself to hold out for the local Astro club meetup before I splash money, but I noticed that an 8" Dob is incredibly cheap these days. I can't remember what the chain of web links was that lead me to be even looking at them the other day, but I damn near fell out of my chair when I saw I could get an 8"er and have change out of $400, amazing (ozscopes and andrews). Must have been a slow morning!

Anyway, just wanted to drop in say g'day. I've got a handful of questions that I hope to have answered if I hold out until the Astro club meet up (I've never used a Dob, for example. I'm not sure of the compromises you make at $500-$600 to get a cheap Goto Mak-Cass or iOptron Reflector, but I suspect they're too great (crappy gears, lousy tripods, relatively poorer optics compared to the same priced Dob etc) to make the purchase that worthwhile)...

...

Despite saying all of that, chances are next pay day I'll pull the trigger on an 8" and just jump in Oh just wanted to throw a quick whinge in too: innit a bummer how cheap the Meade line of ETX 'scopes are in the US!? I've contemplated using a proxy shipto to buy one and have it shipped here.
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