I am a sportsman and lover of Science fiction & facts. As I live in London all my life, the heaviest light polluted city in the world, I never thought it would be practical to to become an amatuer astronomer until I discovered a stargazing group in central just over a year ago. i attended it with enthusiasm but with heavy doubts that much can be seen only to be blown away by my first views of Jupiter and its moons, Moon craters, nebulas, star clusters and double stars. By the following week, I was the proud owner of my first telescope, a Celestron Nexstar 8SE. As I am not a driver, and worse, not actually able to use a telescope from my own house, I went for the biggest apperture that I could carry on my back. Others thought I was mad but I defied the odds. I bought a large expedition rucksack that holds the whole telescope, mount, tripod and scope with all the eyepiece accesories and a Tracer lithium battery. The expedition rucksack is a clever piece of strap on technology that distributes the weight in such a way that the contents do not feel as heavy as they are. For a few months I enjoyed taking the telescope to star parties including astro camps trips to dark skies in Wales and Romney Marsh. Soon I found ways I could sneak my telescope outside by taking it to my locals sports club and using the sports field. I then picked up a love for astrophotography. Naturally with my Alt Az mount and slow f/10 scope, I am limited to planetary imaging as you can see from my current gallery but I know own an Equinox 80 APO refractor with an HEQ5 Pro Synscan mount to do DSO imaging as my next endeavour. I have to learn to polar align it precisely but I hope soon I can add to my gallery with deep space images.
you might think I am mad but I know carry two telescope systems to star parties. You are tight to think I am mad but its not without rewards. So how do I carry two telescope systems on public transoport? Well, as I said earlier I can fit one telescope system on my back with no problem of walking even a mile with it. As a cricket team manager, I often carry a whole club kit gear in a large wheelie cricket bag. So, i use that to carry the other telescope. However, instead of one telescope system in each bag, I put both OTAs plus the Nexstar Mount in my rucksack and other mounts and both tripods into the cricket wheelie bag!
So that is my story so far in one year of embarking on this wonderful hobby, albeit very wallet thinning...
...oh and thanks for dropping by :)
Website
https://www.facebook.com/runtejrun.justrun
Job
Health and Fitness professional, Official Cricket umpire and Squash Coach
Hobbies
Cricket, Squash, Badminton, Table Tennis, 3 times a week Cinema goer and film reviewer
