On Sat, 15 Jan 2005 09:49:17 GMT, Phil Hawkins wrote:

I won't repeat what others have said. However, being in Australia means you
don't have as obvious a point in the southern sky to use as a reference for your
mount as we do up north. That isn't a very big deal once you have an idea how
the mount works (I rarely use Polaris for alignment), but it is helpful when
starting out. I believe Perth has a rather large astronomy club. I'd suggest you
try and hook up with them and get some help from folks who've been at this
longer than you. I've never seen an astronomy club that didn't welcome newbies
to the hobby.

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