Can anyone help this person

[solissydney (Ken)]

Can anyone help this person who sent me this e-mail?

[blink138 (Pat)]

your not nigerian are you ken!
i am scared to open anything that would say "help me"
pat

[solissydney (Ken)]

I must admit I did not consider that.
I have in the past received such genuine requests, mainly from the USA.
I have even successfully availed myself of such method, and at one time was invited to stay overnight at a observatory in Colorado. Rattle snakes and all.
Outside the observatory of course.

[GeoffW1 (Geoff)]

Hi Ken,

The best way to communicate something like this would be to copy and paste the text of the attachment into your post.

Cheers

[solissydney (Ken)]

Thanks for that tip. I had some difficulty.
I contacted the person asking for proof by way of where he would be staying in Sydney

[solissydney (Ken)]

Fri 8:20 pm

Yes, Ken this is not spam. I just put in an application for my passport yesterday so it will take up to 4 weeks. When I get my passport, then I will earnestly get our airfare & times of flight. As of now it is not concrete as to exactly what we will do. I am going with my friend Mike whom I been a close astronomy acquaintence for some 35 yrs when we both purchased our Cave Newtonian telescopes. He and I are still researching on where to observe, where to obtain a telescope, and our accomodations whether camping or in a motel/hotel once we get to the observing dark sky site. We have no aquaintences or 'contacts' at this moment.

So, if you can help us in any way I will be grateful. Since our plan is to stay for a week, the location which has the best chance for a clear sky is a primary concern; probably well inland . . . away from the seacoast.

The attached photo is a self portrait with my scope at one of my favorite observing sites in California showing the Sagittarius Cloud and Antares just above the finder scope.

Thank you Ken for your kind thoughts on this. tokuo

[solissydney (Ken)]

The image Tokuo included in above e-mail was 2.8 MB in size.
I reduced it to suit the web
He seems genuine to me

If you can assist Tokuo please contact him directly rather than through me

[Stardrifter_WA]

Perhaps you should organise your trip around a star party, or through contact with a society, that way you will get to use various scopes and meet some really nice people; and certainly like minded people.

I am doing the opposite thing next year when I visit the US to view the northern skies. I will be attending Stellafane 2013, during my visit to the east coast of the US. The following year (2014) will be the west coast and the RTMC. I would have liked to go this year, but have only just started a new job, so it would be a bit difficult to take time off.

I just wish NEAF was on closer to Stellafane instead of May

[solissydney (Ken)]

Who Me???

[Stardrifter_WA]

Originally Posted by solissydney

Who Me???

No, the person who sent the email.

[leon]

Not that uncommon Ken, I had this happen to me quite some time ago from 3 German students who were looking to visit Australia and see some of our night skies.
Admittedly they wanted to do it on the cheap and stay with me as well which they did i might add.
They got my name and home place out of the American Sky and Telescope Magazine, after i had submitted an artical about home built Observatories.
Our communication at the time was with letter only, so it was some time ago.
I even showed them the sights of Melbourne.
Probably very legitimate.

Leon