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You hit the nail on the head
Gidday Mental,
Just back from an observing night here in Queensland at a place north of Brisbane known as Hazledean (near Kilcoy). I know exactly what you mean by your description of the Coal Sack. Reasonably dark skies but tempered in the East by the lights of Brisbane. I love Centaurus A as this was the first time I have seen her (very haunting). The Tarantula Nebula was amazing and looked great in photographs on the night as did our faithful old Orion. I'm going to have to get serious about some heating for my light bucket as around 11.00pm we were mercilessly bombarded with a heavy dew. I am looking forward to getting along to one of 'Astro Rons' observing nights at Kenilworth which I have heard have great dark skies. My scope has a two inch EP adapter and have been thinking of saving to get some EP's to complement. However, tugging me in the opposite direction is my love of planets and the notion of a high quality Barlow. I have spoken to some of the veterans in the game and two inch adaptations are widely considered to be the option for wider angles, obviously but we are starting to head into big money territory, and conversley adding a Barlow reduces the quality of the image through greater filtration. I am wondering whether a Barlow combined with my 10mm and 25mm multicoat Plossls will give me DSO and planets or should I invest in the Two inch versions of these (I'm currently at 1.25"). I'm trying to find the happy medium for good all round optics and wider FOV's up close and personal. Any advice will be added to my list and will be greatly appreciated. As you can imagine I have been talking with other astronomers and am starting to form a basic picture of where I want to go but have a limited budget (don't we all) and not much room for error.
I similarly want to convert my 10" Skywatcher to a truss and build a modified dob mount to house a laptop, some sat nav gear (not GoTo), some azimuth based rotation (if that makes sense!), and some way of setting my camera on to my focuser.
Yes we are talking pain, suffering, and agony but it should be FUN!
I had my first taste of dark skies in over a decade last night and I'm hooked for life. I guess I am trying to be pro-active with all the rest simply to increase and sustain my viewing (and photographing) pleasure through variable atmospheric conditions. As I say, your wisdom and advice are greatly appreciated (I scrolled through your Truss project on here and really enjoyed seeing it progress). I've only been actively involved in astonomy since early January but am quickly re-fanning the flames of my childhood wonder once more. After all, astronomy is not only a hobby, its a way of seeing our little world in its true and miraculous perspective.
Cheers,
John (TheThirdKind)
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