On 06 Nov 2004 15:04:18 GMT, (Jon Isaacs) wrote:

I wonder how many of you who post and lurk here started with a 60mm refractor
or something similar? I would like to see a show of hands, lurkers can Email
me privately...

My first scope was a 60mm refractor. I don't specifically remember it being a
Tasco, but it was certainly along those lines. I was probably 8 or 9 when I got
it. It didn't hook me on astronomy, but I used it on and off for several years.
As a kid, I liked science of all kinds, but hadn't specialized yet g.

When I was around 12, somebody gave me a 6" Newt that had been in a fire. This
thing had an aluminum tube and an equatorial mount made of pipe. I cleaned it
all up, repainted the tube and got the mirror recoated. I replaced the mirror
cell with one from Edmund, and within a year had purchased an Edmund equatorial
mount with an AC clock drive. That was a great scope, and I used it for a number
of years. In the late 70s, when I was in college, I converted the mount to goto
and added a CCD imager and autoguider. There's a picture of that setup at
http://www.cloudbait.com/history.html .

_________________________________________________

Chris L Peterson
Cloudbait Observatory
http://www.cloudbait.com