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Astronomy has been a hobby of mine most of my li fe. It started as a curiosity when I was young with unanswerable questions such as why are we here and what else is out there. It was another 15 years before I bought my first telescope with a bonus I received for doing some overtime at work. It was a cheap department store type telescope, a 50mm refractor on an altaz wobbly tripod. Although it was a terrible telescope, it gave me my first view of craters on the moon, and my first ever view of saturn. I was hooked. I started buying astronomy magazines and dreamed of bigger aperture. I decided that as I have a short attention span normally where hobbies were concerned,  |
 I would wait 1 year and if I was still using the telescope on a regular basis I would upgrade it. One year later I ordered a 10" f/5.4 newtonian reflector. Now I was getting my first views of deep sky objects (when I could find them). I saw for the first time M13 globular cluster and I still remember the view, a ball of resolved stardust - incredible. I kept this telescope for a few years and although the views were incredible, the mount was horrible. I was also reading the magazines and my favourite section was the gallery, I wanted to take pictures but knew that I would need a motor driven mount which was out of the question at that time.  . |  It was about then that I moved to Spain and donated the telescope to a local society. After a couple of years I bought a Meade ETX125 in Spain. Immediately after looking through it, I knew I had bought the wrong telescope.Although it had goto and I could view many objects for the first time, I needed the 10" views that I was used to. This is how I arrived at my current telescope - a 10" f/10 Classic LX200. I soon added a Pictor 216 camera, then an MX7C, and then a Toucam Pro webcam. Now, several years after first gazing in amazement at the gallery images in magazines, I am realising my dream of being able to take similar images. All the images on this site were taken b  y me, Chris, from my roof terrace in the south of Spain. I hope you enjoy them. |