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Hi from newbie in Derby


Guest beanz

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Hello all. Just registered here tonight after joining Stargazer's Lounge at the weekend. Thank you to damnut for replying to my 'hello' post over there and pointing me in the direction of EMS. 


 


I've been into astronomy since I was at junior school in the 60s (when my bedroom wallswere covered in space posters, at least some of which were the result of eating a lot of Heinz beans and collecting labels to send off - hence the username!) but am only now starting to have the time to invest in getting out there and doing some observing in a planned manner. My family bought me a brilliant pair of Celestron 20 x 80 binoculars for Christmas and yesterday was the first clear night when I finally got to go out and use them.


 


I'm looking forward to finding out lots of useful information and tips from the experienced folk on here. Hope to be able to contribute by posting a few of my progress milestones as time passes, humble though they will be!


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Hi Clive, a warm welcome to EMS.


 


Well you have a clouting pair of bino's to be going on with.


 


We have two dark sites, one at Wymeswold and another at Belper, you would be very welcome to come over and say hi. The first visit is free, and if it suits you then a subscription is a bargain £20 a year. Keep an eye on the announcements section for meets.


 


Enjoy the forum.


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Hi Clive, a warm welcome to EMS.

 

Well you have a clouting pair of bino's to be going on with.

 

We have two dark sites, one at Wymeswold and another at Belper, you would be very welcome to come over and say hi. The first visit is free, and if it suits you then a subscription is a bargain £20 a year. Keep an eye on the announcements section for meets.

 

Enjoy the forum.

Thanks Baz. I will kep a watch on events.

 

Yes - been fortunate with the binocs as far as I can tell. The collimation in this pair appears to be very good.

 

Up to now, I've never used any binoculars with an objective of bigger then 50mm. I thought I was prepared for the difference. Having set them up on a photography tripod and let my eyes get accustomed to the darkness, I focused on an unremarkable patch of sky for their first test and it was just breathtaking. Even here on the outskirts of the city, so many fainter stars were visible. I'm looking forward to touring parts of the sky that I've only seen through lesser binoculars or a pretty basic telescope before now.

 

And now the 'proper telescope' fund has started!

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If you haven't already done so, download "stellarium" for your computer, it is a very good application that will show you where stuff is. A really good target for you would be either M45 the pliades and the double cluster. There's loads going off in these two targets.


 


I'm fortunate as although I too am just on the outskirts of the city, I am on top of the hill so most of the light pollution is below me so I can still get pretty good skies on a good clear crisp night.


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And now the 'proper telescope' fund has started!

 

And it never ends! :lol:

 

Welcome to the forum Clive.

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If you haven't already done so, download "stellarium" for your computer, it is a very good application that will show you where stuff is. A really good target for you would be either M45 the pliades and the double cluster. There's loads going off in these two targets.

 

I'm fortunate as although I too am just on the outskirts of the city, I am on top of the hill so most of the light pollution is below me so I can still get pretty good skies on a good clear crisp night.

 

Thanks for the heads up. I'm a bit of a linux fan and came across Stellarium last year when they did a review of 5 astronomy programs - currently I'm running it under Ubuntu. I fired it up last evening with the night vision mode just before I went out. I took the planisphere and a little red torch out with me too. Last evening I had a good look at Jupiter which was an appreciable disc for the first time and also spent quite a while in Orion.

 

Light pollution isn't too bad here. When the council re-assessed the location of the street lights a few years back, they took away one that was due south of our house. How lucky was that?!

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