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I think the intentions behind Leon's initial post was entirely reasonable and defensible: I'm sure that there was no specific personal target to his comments (sorry leon, you just don't seem to have it in you bro....!) but the jist of his remarks are something we could all do well to remember, whatever the subject matter.
I'd like to make a few personal points here; I'm thinking of getting into a bit of imaging myself soon, very slowly, dipping one knuckle of each toe in at a time so to speak, so I have my own personal perspectives and agendas on this particular topic.....
Now, things like navigating/recognizing the night sky, polar and drift aligning, collimation, mechanical fabrication, certain areas of problem solving and electronics etc are bread and butter to me (not absolute in all aspects, but the preceding is a pretty fair and honest comment.) But with imageing, there does seem to be an invisible barrier one needs to find a way over, that is rarely acknowledged or accomodated in the forum.
Having just read the excellent articles by Mike and another gentleman, whose name escapes me for the moment; what does strike a complete novice like myself are the assumptions of pc understanding/awareness below a certain point that, without which, still make these tutorials inaccessible. This isn't a criticism of Mike or anyone else for that matter: rather a bringing to people's attention issues that would, I'm sure, assist more people than just myself to get their teeth into these areas.
For someone like myself who mainly uses the pc for documents etc there are big hurdles: and I'd suggest that for quite a section of people from the late 30's onwards this could be the case - registax, avi's, various software tools for capture and processing etc are like "la-la lingo" - particularly if the person (eg me!) really wants to really get his head around it, but is so intimidated.
Just for the record, I have 2 sons still living at home whose professional occupations utilize high-end pc knowledge/skills - but I'd sooner bumble along than try their patience and mine with Dad's utter inadequacy, in their estimations, with IT matters!!!
As I've said in other posts, sometimes I'm disappointed when either a newcomer (or just someone with a problem) posts and receives sparse response: not allways, but even taking consideration of all the factors influencing people's ability to respond at any one moment, I am sometimes disappointed. Not necessarily with people's response per se, more with the sometimes lack of realization that we all start new things with none/very little knowledge.
I am also quite sure that most people, if they were approached to elaborate on specific questions etc, would freely and willingly give their time and knowledge: in fact, as some of you would know, I have often pm'd people to get more specific information and have allways been very favourably responded too!
I think that there's a tendency in pursuits like AA to bury ourselves in our own specific passionate objectives: manifested, I've noticed, in sometimes ascribing the most convoluted reasons to simple problems because they are the areas we would like to be immersed in, rather than them being the most likely causes!
I am no different to others in all these respects, but I think that we could all do well to take the substance from Leon's post and use it to be that much more responsive/empathetic to "learners" in any particular area we can each contribute in: in this way surely subscribing to one of the ideals behind this forum and each our own's passionate interest. This, if you'll pardon me, is a much better response and perspective to take from Leon's timely posting than anything else!
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