Thanks for replying to all the points
There's a few from the gaming community that have signed up, mainly cause I spammed the URL in the General Chat forums on GA
So far they're all staying quiet except for Soldant.. I dont' know how many people come back and read these forums..
I'm hoping more people sign up and start posting, but the Aussie astro community doesn't seem to congregate anywhere particular in aus.. I've seen half-a-dozen or so aussies posting on CloudyNights.. I'll have to try and lure them here too
Bintel was very expensive at list price, but I played them against Andrews, and they gave me a better deal.
I got the:
10" scope
4 bintel branded (GSO) Plossls (9, 15, 25, 32)
2x bintel branded (GSO) Barlow
ND96 filter
Astronomy 2004 magazine
all for $949, when their original list price of the 10" alone with the 3 eyepieces was $1099.
So I got a pretty good deal, plus they centre-spotted the mirror and did the initial collimation.
Are all your eyepieces 1.25"? I'd like a widefield 2" but i've heard mixed reports and then you'd want a 2" barlow etc.. More $$$.
On cloudy nights though a lot of people are saying that the 2" GSO 32mm are pretty good for the $$.
Thanks for the link about the washers and furniture pads, i'll probably do that to mine cause the az motion is a bit stiff sometimes.
I've had to disengage my springs for the time being, because I think i've stretched them by storing my scope on the
trolley with the springs still engaged. When I lifted the alt direction, it dropped back down marginally :/ So i'll either have to put an extra ring on the springs, or get some new ones.. But for now, I can use it without the springs cause I don't have any heavy EP's etc.
I'd love to hook up DSC to my scope, but I always have to move it around to different places in my backyard depending on which direction I want to view, because of trees etc.
Do you have an area where you can set it up and forget it?
Do you have to realign it or something every time you bring it out?
~$200 each for a single EP is pretty darn expensive
I just don't know if I can justify the cost at this stage. I'm sure they make a big difference though, and after going to the starparty and (hopefully) trying more expensive better eyepieces, i'm sure it'll make me want them.
My problem at the moment is, I'm torn between buying stuff for VISUAL use, as opposed to buying stuff for astrophotography use. I want to be able to take better photos, but without a tracking EQ mount, i'm sooo limited in what I can do..
I need a laptop with a TouCam or something, that will still limit me to planets and the moon, but it would still be better than sitting my camera on a tripod next to the eyepiece.
I also want to make an adapter to attach the camera to the eyepiece, that'll be better than the tripod until I have a laptop/webcam.
But for visual use, I want to get a telrad, a UHC/OIII filter, better eyepieces, a cheshire collimater, a solar filter (white light), etc..
And add to that, I don't have the money to buy ANYTHING so it makes it very difficult
I have signed up to that yahoo group, about 3 months ago, and read the daily digests for a while, but now i just delete them without opening them. I suppose I should start reading them again
I hate astronomy as a hobby because it's so damn expensive!