"First light"

Hello world!

I am a 42 year old computer programmer. I write data recovery software. About 3 years ago I purchased my first telescope, a Meade ETX-70, from a Lidl supermarket. The ETX saw first light at 'Ameland', a Dutch island, which compared to the main land gets pretty dark at night. As you may know the ETX-70 is a 'goto' scope and after aligning the scope I found myself taking the built-in tonight's best tour. Imagine, I had never done anything else than 'naked-eye' observations, basically nothing but the occasional look at the heavens. And then, this little scope showed me Saturn spot on! And that's where it all started.

Now, there are a lot of forums where people ask for advise; "ETX-70 or ETX-80 any good?" is a quite common question. And so often people get a negative answer to that question for various reasons, but let me tell you, if I'd have to start again I'd probably buy an ETX-70/80 again. As a matter of fact the ETX-70 was upgraded to the 80 model and I still use it. Yes, it is 'cheapish', yes, it is just an achromat, yes the aperture is only 80mm etc.. BUT, it's complete (unwrap packing and start observing right away - everything is there), it's light, views are more than decent, I can stuff it in a small backpack and I can take it everywhere. I'll do a little more on the ETX-70/80 later on. When in doubt, buy it.

I don't do it every night. So weeks can go by without me getting the scope out. But that first ETX got me hooked. Well, hooked, I am actually enjoying myself until this day. And this is what this blog will be all about. I am now somewhat experienced with several scopes and types of scopes and I have run into my share of problems with those. I have turned to others with problems and questions and I now hope I can return the favor to others.