theritz
July 6th, 2015, 10:02 AM
Hi all. I've been mainly leeching this forum until now but my activity as an amateur has been shifting to less observing while getting more out of it. I'm hoping I might go and contribute to this forum in a way soon.
I am now months away from my 4th decennium and live in The Netherlands in the nice and lightpolluted town of Hoogland, near Amersfoort. Besides hauling out my telescope any chance I get I also love to ride my single speed mountainbike. And for a more mundaine spending of my leisure time I turn to online video games.
But what the heck do I mean by less observing while getting more out of it?
Well, thanks to my personal calendar and the great weather over here in The Netherlands, my observing time has diminished quite a bit. Also the objects I want to try and see are hardly visible (or even invisible) from where I live. So my observing is now concentrated in two long weekend astronomy trips to darker areas in Europe. And a handful of short sessions East of where I live where it still gets relatively dark (sqm 20.7+)
I have one 10" telescope. But it's a good one from Sumerian Optics with a ridiculously good mirror set by Orion Optics UK. I am getting the impression that a 10" telescope is a rather small one on this forum but I love the portability (9.5kg) of this scope.
The last two years I am focusing on objects that are harder to locate and need more skills to observe. Like Palomar 4 (in the bag!) and next up is Palomar 11. My main challenge these days is to find objects that are a hard enough for me to find and see but not impossible to find in the limited (clear) time I can make free for this lovely hobby :confused:
What I'm hoping to be able to do is bring some more focus back to the smaller aperture telescopes. On this forum I read about enormous telescopes and the things they are able to bring into the light. I am interested in observing suggestions for 10" telescopes and I think I can deliver in the form of observing reports made with one of those scopes.
Clear skies! (and go away moon, at least temporarily)
I am now months away from my 4th decennium and live in The Netherlands in the nice and lightpolluted town of Hoogland, near Amersfoort. Besides hauling out my telescope any chance I get I also love to ride my single speed mountainbike. And for a more mundaine spending of my leisure time I turn to online video games.
But what the heck do I mean by less observing while getting more out of it?
Well, thanks to my personal calendar and the great weather over here in The Netherlands, my observing time has diminished quite a bit. Also the objects I want to try and see are hardly visible (or even invisible) from where I live. So my observing is now concentrated in two long weekend astronomy trips to darker areas in Europe. And a handful of short sessions East of where I live where it still gets relatively dark (sqm 20.7+)
I have one 10" telescope. But it's a good one from Sumerian Optics with a ridiculously good mirror set by Orion Optics UK. I am getting the impression that a 10" telescope is a rather small one on this forum but I love the portability (9.5kg) of this scope.
The last two years I am focusing on objects that are harder to locate and need more skills to observe. Like Palomar 4 (in the bag!) and next up is Palomar 11. My main challenge these days is to find objects that are a hard enough for me to find and see but not impossible to find in the limited (clear) time I can make free for this lovely hobby :confused:
What I'm hoping to be able to do is bring some more focus back to the smaller aperture telescopes. On this forum I read about enormous telescopes and the things they are able to bring into the light. I am interested in observing suggestions for 10" telescopes and I think I can deliver in the form of observing reports made with one of those scopes.
Clear skies! (and go away moon, at least temporarily)