Hi, Jon here from Chiddinsgtone Causeway near Tonbridge. I really enjoyed the meeting on Thursday, and promptly asked about joining. I have owned a meade etx for quiet a few years, but moved to a flat with no garden soon after getting it, so it ended up living in a cupboard for years. We moved to cottage last year and have recently dug the etx out and have been using it in the back garden, I have recently picked up a Skywatcher 130pds and a goto mount to experiment a bit more with AP. I do quiet a bit of very amateur photography, currently sitting here with a camera trained on the bird feeder. Work wise I have worked in optics, pharmaceutical, and currently working on industrial gas analysers using atomic emission spectrometry (burning stuff then looking at emitted light).
Hope to see you all at next meeting
Cheers
Jon
Glad you finally got in. You should now be able to see (and post in) the rest of the forum.
Thanks for your help sorting out access, think it was a Hotmail issue.
Welcome to the forum.
Are you the Jon I was sitting next to at the meeting and you were talking about your equipment for imaging/
Carole
Hi john,
welcome aboard, which etx have you ?, as i borrow an etx 105 with goto from the society and would appreciate any advice in aligning etc
:beer:
roger
Hi Carole, we did have a chat over coffee. Very new to imaging, mainly reading at the moment and trying to get some reasonable photos of the moon. Looking at getting a dedicated astro dslr that can be modded for wide wavelength, but needs to be on the cheap (D1100 possibly). Not sure how good my mount is for AP, then again nothing ventured nothing gained :)
On the etx front I have an etx-105, I tend to use it equatorially aligned, but don't bother with the GOTO, and not for photography, so alignment isn't critical. I do intend to get more to grips with the GOTO side of things with it, just need to take it out in the car for a ride. I have very limited sky visible in the back garden.
Hi Jon. Welcome on board. I missed last week's meeting but will see you at one of the next ones. Given your location, have you been out to Chiddingstone Sports Ground for some observing? It's a very dark site there.
No tried there yet, have limited myself to the back garden while getting my kit sorted.
When it clears a bit I am going to have a drive around a few local places. I live near the old Penshurst / Chiddingstone Causeway WW2 airfield, the Charcott side might be worth a try, its large and flat (no surprise). I walked across to Chiddingstone the other day, crossing the railway at the station, theres a large carpark the other side that opens onto fields with a footpath, gave very good southern views, theres a large bank of trees between the field and the railway.
If anybody wants to go out exploring I would be up for it, I can cover the UK with digital mapping down to 1:25K.
Read this thread first...
http://forum.orpington-astronomy.org.uk/index.php?topic=10128.msg74489#msg74489
Greetings.