On Sat, 30 Aug 2014 17:38:28 -0400, Stephen Paul wrote:

On 8/8/2014 1:48 PM, Mike Collins wrote:
wrote:
On Friday, August 8, 2014 11:08:30 AM UTC-4, Chris L Peterson wrote:
On Fri, 8 Aug 2014 07:40:55 -0700 (PDT), wsnell01 wrote:

You have to admit that most of the amateur astronomers you encounter
started with cheap scopes and probably had little help when they began the hobby.

I would say that every amateur astronomer I know under the age of 30
started with a fairly expensive scope, such as a computerized SCT or a
high quality Dob.


Finally you have to admit that clubs can do little to increase serious
interest in amateur astronomy; that has to originate within each
prospective amateur astronomer.

No, I think clubs are immensely important. The problem is that many
prospective amateur astronomers are unaware of them.

Given some of the dodgy advice being dispensed by some of their members,
that's probably a good thing.

Almost every
amateur I know got serious only when they joined a club.

But those are only the ones you know or who joined your club.

I think you're both partly right. I've known lots of people who have bought
small telescopes and then given up but also some who moved from their
department store scopes on to better things. Most of those who carried on
with the hobby were members of astronomical societies who had initially
come to star parties.

My suggestion these days would be for people to buy a cheap table top
dobsonian and move to a goto scope if they were still interested in a
year's time.
Imaging can come later to those who are interested.
But contact your local club.


I'm not convinced that anyone, anywhere has a clue what turns other
people on for any endeavor. All we really do is share our stories and
look for patterns. But more importantly we need to be honest about
whether we are amateur astronomer, or merely hobbyist star gazers.

After years of poking around the sky, doing some imaging, and trying
every type of mount and finding system there is, I don't presume myself
an astronomer. I'm just a mere mortal sky-watcher, who in the infamous
words of someone here in SAA years ago, "just likes to look at stuff and
say 'neato'".

I started around the year 2000 at age 40, all by my lonesome with a
rickety 80mm refractor. I couldn't get Jupiter to come to focus, so i
sent the scope back on the 30 day guarantee and bought a JC Penney
version of the Celestron Starguide 4 GoTo scope. I'm not going to run
the list of equipment I've used over the years since then because it
reveals much foolishness (although not without merit), but when the bus
finally stopped, I got off with a 10" F5 Dob, a 6" F5 Newtonian on an
cobbled together CG-5 with RA drive, a 66mm F6.5 ED doublet that I put
on light duty alt-az mount, and a couple different binoculars. I take
the Dob out about twice a year, once in Spring once in Autumn to look at
DSOs. I use the little refractor to look at the moon, regularly, and the
6"F5 to look at sunspots, Saturn and Jupiter, occassionaly. The
binoculars are my most used because I can step out onto the south facing
deck, sit back in a deck chair and scan the sky from Cygnus down to
Sagittarius before the skeeters find me and become too much of a
nuisance. But also, I find that's enough of a trip into outer space for
me most of the time now that I've seen DSOs in a large aperture and done
some imaging. The memories are sufficient. When I do take out my big
gun, I go straight for the globulars and brighter galaxies using a green
laser pointer and a RACI 50mm finder, because I know where most of the
cool ones live, and they still make me say 'neato'.

-Steve

I agree Steve, and I think you stated things very well.

I think of myself as just a guy with astro-stuff. The observing, and
imaging, I've done - was done beacause I enjoyed it.

Bill
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