Hello.
I'm just now getting back into astronomy after about a 20 year hiatus. When I was a teenager my Grandad would drag me to star parties. I reluctantly went along at first until I was captivated by all of the beauty in the celestial sky. Once he had me hooked, we built our own 6" dob, whacked on a TelRad and I was off.
So now, nearly 20 years later, I'm interested but so much has changed. Whatever little I can remember was in the Northern Hemisphere (Texas) and now I live in Australia. Now there is the internet so that is helping immensely. Even with that, there is no substitute for hanging out with astro-geeks and learning via association; hence my joining this forum.