Hi all, I have been reading through this site for quite some time and thought I might sign up now that I've bought a scope at last and can get down to some viewing of my own.
I used to have a Tasco 70mm refractor about 20 years ago that kept me interested for 2 years before moving up to a 5" newtonian with a terrible shaky mount and sloppy controls but was ok for visual observing at low power.
That scope lasted about 3 years before it was tipped over and smashed by my darling nieces and now after about 15 years I have dived into the deep end and come up with an NEQ6 and 10" newtonian f4.72, its my first equatorial mount and is a bit daunting but I shall see how much is involved in time to come.
Im really interested in beginning astrophotography but I have alot more to learn yet, currently I only own a nikon coolpix digital camera for point and shoot holiday snaps!
Welcome from me too. You can buy a cheap bracket that will hold your
point and shoot up to the eyepiece, and allow you to take some basic shots to get you started.
raymo
that would be nice I like the idea of doing some eyepiece snaps with my current coolpix camera I'll have a look for one of those brackets I only have a 28mm 2 inch eyepiece (long eye relief), will have to invest in a few more.
I also have a orion guidescope that came with the set up I have no idea how its used but I think it needs a webcam to auto guide the mount.
Yeah it is a big learning curve I'm feeling the weight of that decision now, I realise how much is involved in setting it up right and how much time it takes, but I had to decide between what I wanted out of it and I decided this would be the best of all applications for the price and I love the idea of changing to an ed80 on the same mount once I get some experience in astrophotography.
I really wanted an lx200 for the past 10 years but after looking around a bit more the eq mount seemed more suitable and the f4.72 ratio is a bonus with the newt.
Good luck on your upgrade!