Introduction

[ekendra]

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. :thumbsup:

[ekendra]

So here's a little on how I got back into astronomy.

I live about 15km west of Murwillumbah in Northern New South Wales. About an hours drive from here is a Chinese place we occasionally like to have dinner at on the Gold Coast. A few shops down is Star Optics.

Because the restaurant is only open in the evenings, every time I've gone there the Optics shop would already be closed. So I would look through the window at all the lovely wares they had on offer and remember the enthusiasm I had for astronomy before life sent me in another direction. I've got three boys so have been thinking about getting them interested in the night sky. Unfortunately, the cost of decent equipment has gone up so much that it is staggering.

Earlier in the week I had to pick something up during the day from Jaycar which is in the same strip of shops. I noticed a signboard in front of Star Optics that said "closing down sale - stock clearance" and naturally paid a visit.

When I woke up that morning I had no idea that in the evening I'd be assembling a 10" collapsible SkyWatcher/Saxon dob. Got it for a cool $489. It came with 25mm and 10mm plossl eyepieces. I picked up a 2x Meade Barlow for good measure.

We've had some cloudy skies since then. The only exceptions were when I've had an early start the next morning so couldn't get out more than once for some early morning moon observation. It has, however, left me with plenty of evenings that I could read extensively online about the Southern Sky.

I've got a TelRad and a laser collimator on its way from BinTel so that should help things along.

My 7 year old seems very keen on this so far.

Any advice? For all practical purposes, I'm a beginner here.

[Octane]

Welcome back to the fold, and congratulations on your purchase!

You might want to head on over to skymaps.com and download the monthly night sky charts that you and your boys can reference while gazing.

H

[GrahamL]

welcome.. good to see another north coaster on board :thumbsup:

must be good chinese to drive all that way for a meal :)

[ekendra]

Nothing around here like that and it was what the missus wanted. Have to keep her happy so she won't complain about me blowing money on hobbies like astronomy.