TheSkySearchers

Well i am out of the rabbit hole.
Sold 90% of my kit to one person who was looking for a second setup. I feel i have reached the zenith of my processing ability and limited chances of imaging targets different from ones i have done.
Its been a few days and i still feel the same after so right descision. Got a good price , getting on for £3000 which i think is nearly half of what i probably paid.
Roger

Interests evolve. Hope it works out well for you long term.

The last two times I've used my best 6x30 finder, I've thought that maybe that's all I'd need. Stars look beautiful even in such a simple piece of kit.

When I moved I decided to give up my 10" Dob as it was no longer in pristine condition....figured I'd eventually buy a new one, which I have not yet.

It happens.

Imaging, observing. When people ask which do I do I say; of course! ☺ both are sacred. Imaging looses a real connection you can only get observing. Observing is difficult to see. A gas pedal is needed to keep getting away. It gets to be too much.

A cathartic remedy is solar observing and imaging. It has been a blessing to my 15 years soon in the hobby. Google local astro groups and get in their email chain. People are people. Everyone at the end of the day still wants what's best for the hobby.

Give yourself some time. You may find that you have reached a wall in astronomy only to find another hill to climb somewhere else. I've had more hobbies than I can remember. I always throw myself into whatever kick I am on. People who meet me think I am a traveler, biker, camper, photographer, guitarist, book reviewer, astronomer, etc., etc. etc. My kids just laugh say, "No, same old guy on a new kick. He'll get bored sooner or later."

I took a few long breaks from observing, and every time sold my scopes. No regrets. If your passion rekindles, you just buy a better one.

Do you know what your plans are now? Sometimes we just need a break or something new to occupy our time.

I actually quit observing for a couple of years, but always looked up at the sky almost every night. Then I started observing again and I thought I was going to start astrophotography, but so far I'm just trying to observe with some of the scopes I rarely use a little more.

I did the same thing a few years ago, to come back better.
The most important thing in all of this is that you are happy and at peace with your decision.
ps: I hope you stay with us anyway.

Maybe (a) you are too young for this hobby and will get back to it later, and (b) your gear works too well and that's why you got bored. I spend my time fixing stuff and find that much more interesting than the imaging itself. But, to each their own. Hopefully you will stay on board and will come back to it, or visual, sometime in the future.

BTW I see you have a Redcat 51 and took some very nice images with it (my compliments on your Astrobin images, they are very nice!). I have one too and feel guilty that I have only imaged once with it. That just illustrates what I mentioned, I tinker too much and image too little. BTW if you get a longer focal length scope, more targets will open up. Just in case you end up getting back in.

Hobbies come and go. I started in astronomy as a kid back in the early 1960s. It faded away for a long time only to be rekindled some years later. It again faded as life became more complicated due to career and family. But it once again became my passion over ten years ago. I keep my amateur radio license current, but I do not operate any longer. I consider getting back into it from time to time, but honestly don't think I ever will. For me, astronomy is where I started and likely where I will end. Sometimes what we may feel as a passion at some point simply fades. It may or may not resurface. There are countless hobbies out there, as Rob can attest to! Its nice to have something to distract from the day to day. I wish you well and hope that you find what you need to find.

To add another comment to the thread I'll share my experience with losing mojo. Basically my interest started around 3 or 4 years of age, got really intense around age 10 when I got my uncle's old 60mm refractor (Good Japanese optics) and then, carrying around the Edmund Scientific catalog for a year or so, I convinced my parents to get me the Edmund Deluxe Space Conqueror 4.25" f/10 reflector with a spherical mirror for Christmas when I was 11.

The equatorial mount was a real hassle and the tube tended to swing up and down even with the counterweight. First light, since I got scope for Christmas was the Orion Nebula. Then at 14 I outgrew that scope and built an 8" Dob using hand tools and a jigsaw to cut the plywood. I ended up varnishing the tube so it was shiny but you could still see the wood grain. Actually it was a square tube as I couldn't find sonotube at the local ACE hardware. I think I used 1/4" plywood for the tube and 3/4" plywood for the base and rocker box.

For the focuser I used the rack and pinion from the Edmund scope. At the end of the tube I built a mirror cell with birch wood squares (not pine because the pitch in the wood would damage the mirror) cut to form a kind of lip around the edge of the mirror in 4 places. There was another piece of plywood at the end into which I drilled 3 holes and inserted bolts the end of which I had sanded down so that the back of the mirror could float on them, and you could collimate the scope by twisting the bolts either one way or another. First light was the Ring Nebula....

Then when I left for college at 18 I sort of dropped out of the hobby physically while remaining interested in the topic and taking an astronomy course taught by C. Stuart Bowyer a professor at the University of California. He was a cosmologist interested in high energy ultraviolet astronomy and also involved at the Hat Creek radio telescope array on the Eastern side of the Cascade range by the Medicine Hat volcano. When my parents moved to Japan the summer before college started they took the scope with them.

After that I remained inactive until July 2012 when I bought a 10" Dob. The same day I bought the Dob I found out about AF.net from a web search. I got the scope in 4 or 5 days after ordering from Zhumell by Fed Ex ground. I assembled it the next day and my first light was once again the Ring Nebula! I did the Messier program on AF.net and it took me a couple of years to finish. When I moved up to Washington in 2022 I gave the scope away as FREE to a good home by setting it outside the driveway. I had bought lowjiber's 6" refractor in 2018 or so....then in December of last year I bought my Celestron 102mm XLT. To be honest my health the last year until recently wasn't that good, I had a back problem then a foot problem which required podiatrist treatment and then a tendon problem in my right knee which caused me pain and difficulty in getting around.

However, these days I am starting to feel normal again with more strength and energy so I might consider getting a Dob again. With the physical issues I was having I started thinking I had to downsize to continue with astronomy as I age.

I am pretty optimistic I will stay involved in astronomy until I die and hope for good weather and observing conditions in the future.....anyway that's the gist of my experience.

The point is that life throws us curveballs and we can't always practice our hobbies, or we just get too busy for them. I had a pretty demanding career after college and then dealt with family stuff which required a lot of time....now not so much.

helicon wrote: ↑Sat Nov 18, 2023 7:27 pm I convinced my parents to get me the Edmund Deluxe Space Conqueror 4.25" f/10 reflector with a spherical mirror for Christmas when I was 11.

Red Ryder Carbine Action 200-shot Range Model air rifle. You'll shoot your eye out!

messier 111 wrote: ↑Wed Nov 15, 2023 4:01 pm I did the same thing a few years ago, to come back better.
The most important thing in all of this is that you are happy and at peace with your decision.
ps: I hope you stay with us anyway.

Thanks for your kind reply , it will be sea fishiing all the way down now. As in the Fleetwood Mac song i will Never Go Back Again. Observing is a poor second to imaging in my opinion..
Thanks again. Still happy after a while after the descision.
Roger

SkyHiker wrote: ↑Wed Nov 15, 2023 8:32 pm Maybe (a) you are too young for this hobby and will get back to it later, and (b) your gear works too well and that's why you got bored. I spend my time fixing stuff and find that much more interesting than the imaging itself. But, to each their own. Hopefully you will stay on board and will come back to it, or visual, sometime in the future.

BTW I see you have a Redcat 51 and took some very nice images with it (my compliments on your Astrobin images, they are very nice!). I have one too and feel guilty that I have only imaged once with it. That just illustrates what I mentioned, I tinker too much and image too little. BTW if you get a longer focal length scope, more targets will open up. Just in case you end up getting back in.

i am 58yrs. Never interested in visual.