Hi to all

[Pacman79]

Just got my first scope an Orion Skyquest 8 inch dob, found my first open star cluster and was hooked. Been reading the forums so I thought I should say hi. Would rather be out looking at the eclipse but guess what, had perfect weather all week, night of the eclipse cloud ahh.

[brian nordstrom]

;) Sweet scope , and :welcome: to you , hope to hear lots more from you as you learn and enjoy our hobby .
Yes open clusters in an 8 inch are mind blowing , once bitten , aye Michael nice scope to start with .

Brian.

[PSALM19.1]

And Globular Clusters aren't too shabby either!;)

[Pacman79]

Thanks for the replies guys and yes 47 Tucanae look amazing the other night. I bought Astronomy Australia 2014 and a Planisphere to help me get a grasp of constellations and objects to observe and have been very helpful in improving my observing. I had been reading some of the forum posts and was looking at getting a sky atlas 2000.0 or Uranometria, with the size of my scope i thought 2000.0 would be the go. I look at Bintels site and was just about to click on buy when I thought why not look at Ebay. Lucky me I got Sky Atlas 2000.0 second edition deluxe for $1 plus $18 for postage, and its even got the overlays for the telrad with it.
Its a whole different ballgame looking at one of these but I cant wait to try and tick of some more of the messier list.