Very long time and no post.

You might remember me as an IAS member from 2003 / 2004 when I was moaning about my lousy Newtonian and oogling over a importing a Nighthawk from CA into Dublin in Ireland - which I was then going to lug over to Africa for a couple of weeks!!
Unfortunately, life events overtook me and I was unable to find the
money to make the purchase, and then life took over even more - even if
I had gotten the Nighthawk, I'd never have found the time to use it! I hardly even had the chance to get out the Newtonian and mess around with that. My only astro fix for the last long while has been via the web.

Happily though, I've moved up in the world, and have the means to
look at importing a Stellarvue once again - except it's no longer a
Nighthawk, it's now an SV80L (triplet apo) - hopefully in the next six months or so.

I'm hoping to rejoin the IAS as well, obviously

By the way - while in Africa (Uganda, where I was, is slap bang on the
equator), I spent a LOT of time simply oogling the Milky Way with the
naked eye. Even in light-polluted skies, it was still visible with a bit
of effort, and in dark skies, of which there are quite a lot, it was
shockingly easy to view - I knew it would be, but it really has to be
seen to be believed - and the best bit was, that unlike up here in
Ireland (53°N), I didn't even have to risk a crick in my neck to see it
properly!! And as if all that wasn't good enough, when I first turned my
binoculars on it, I almost dropped them in shock. Awesome!

Cheers,
Tom

Tom,
welcome back! its been a while alright! Obviously there is no 'net' over there! Nice to hear from you again!

Seanie.

Looking forward to meeting you when you return.

Deirdre Kelleghan
PRO IAS

welcome back! its been a while alright! Obviously there is no 'net' over there! Nice to hear from you again!

Thanks Seanie - just to clear something up though - I was out there for two weeks last year - been home in Dublin since then! It was more a case of life taking over and preventing me from astronomy

But yes, there is absolutely no internet out there!

Hi Tom,

welcome back!

Thanks Al, nice to be back!!