Hello

[Rockah (Zal)]

Hi all

It seems most new people introduce themselves in here, so I thought I'd do the same!

I've posted a few times on the site already, but figured I'd go back to where I should have started. I've always been interested in astronomy with a deep (no pun intended) facination with space. So recently I decided to purchase my first scope a few months ago, and now I have three!! Although my first is up for sale.

I'm really interested in astrophotography - I'm aware of the steep learning curve but I love the challenge and learning something new every day. One thing I have discovered about the astronomy community is that everyone is very helpful - both on a retail level and on forums, unlike other hobbies I have been interested in, not matter how silly the question people are always willing to help and be nice about it at the same time.

So anyway, I look forward to learning lots more from browsing the site and hopefully not asking too many silly question, and I hope these damn clouds go away soon!

[Blue Skies (Jacquie)]

Three scopes in a few months?? Yep, sounds like you belong here. Welcome on board!

[Rockah (Zal)]

Thanks Jacquie! Yep, four actually if you include a guide scope!

For the sake of listing it out:

Skywatcher ED80 pro
Skywatcher BD 8 inch Newtonian
ProStar 90mm short tube guidescope

And selling (on this site) a Skywatcher 5 inch BD Mak. I really really like that scope... but just can't justify having three "good" scopes as a beginner - I ended up with this many because the Mak came with the mount, then I found the Newtonian on special a couple of months later and I had to have it as I got apature fever straight away. After realising that the Mak wasn't going to serve as the best imaging scope, I thought about using the Newt, but that coupled with a guidescope and all accessories wasn't going to be too friendly on my HEQ5 pro, so I decided to replace the Mak with the ED80 and couple that with a guide scope -the two of them together weigh less than the newt by itself!

[Jen]

gday Rockah to IIS
Yep 3 scopes you will fit right in here
Ask away buddy the guys are really helpful in here

[stephenb (Stephen)]

Nah you haven't spent enough $$ yet You'll need at least another 2 scopes. Welcome to the money pit of hobbies, Zal

[Paddy (Patrick)]

Originally Posted by glenluceskies

Nah you haven't spent enough $$ yet You'll need at least another 2 scopes. Welcome to the money pit of hobbies, Zal

Yes, but at least there is a trading section! Or is that part of the problem?

anyway, Welcome!

[Rockah (Zal)]

Thanks guys!

hahah yeah I remember walking past a shop with telescopes and seeing a goto setup for about 1200 bucks and thinking "wow! that's a lot cheaper than I thought it would be" - then you find out you need this and that... definately a money eater but well worth it!

Since my first post I've already come up with a few questions which I'll try to find the answer to before creating a new thread, but I think there are going to be some more newbie questions coming your way in the future