Thank you very much for a very warm welcome. What an awesome community this is!
The roll off took me some time to build but it's been worth it. Quick and easy to pack up when the clouds and rain move in very fast here.
Gfamily, I'm near Blackburn but I may very well make the trip down to your club. I've been interested in astronomy since I was 10 but have never been to a club meet. I'm sure it would be awesome and I would learn a lot. I have, however visited the McDonald observatory in Texas (bit commercial) and even better Big Bend national park (
Bortle 1) The sky is mind blowing without light pollution. I travelled most of Texas from Austin to Amarillo, then down to Big Bend and the skies were mostly better than what I've seen here. Having experienced good skies, I've built a mobile rig which I'm hoping to take to better skies in my (mini) RV. Campervan for the UK viewers.
It's an EQ5 mount and I'm using a Samyang F2 135mm ED UMC lens with a Zwo 295MCPro camera on the back. I use a Zwo narrowband filter (Had noise problems with L-extreme)
This is it in the foreground
I'm working on a mosaic at the moment but I need more data. The plan is a 3 panel but I only have data for 2.... and not enough of the 2!
I only have a narrow window to image the Orion area but hopefully if the skies are clear, I'll travel to get more data
Again, thank you for the very warm welcome. I didn't expect it and it's a pleasure to be here.
Pete (AKA Petrol due to my car restoration hobby)
Clear skies