I'd just like to say

That this place and the people here (that's YOU) have taught me so much since i've been here. There is soooooooooo much most to amateur astronomy then just pointing a scope or bins towards the sky and looking at all the nice lovely points of light.

As a casual stargazer who used bins for about 25 yrs......................i was happy just to go outside for a while and scan the skies and pick up on a few of the "Biggest and best" things like Orion,moon,The Plough,Cassiopia(sp?).

In those 25 yrs....................i never once looked at planets. To be honest i didnt even know where they were. All i had was my trusty 7X50 bins and a planisphere.

I pretty much know the constellations like the back of my hand due to those 25 yrs of using bins..................but it is only in the last couple of months that i am learning what fills the voids between those constellations.

M class objects,NGC class objects,double stars,variable stars,asteroids,meteors etc.

Seriously if i knew then what i know now about whats what and where to find it.....................i wouldnt have left it so long to buy a scope.

My childhood dream was to be an astronomer......but i was told that to be one i had to be good with numbers/maths.I think that is what put me off astronomy for so long.

Maths is the only subject i failed in the Leaving Cert. I aced the rest and seriously thought about studying geology...............with intent to become a goelogist. Not sure if an "A" in honors geography qualifies you to study it in Uni......................when you fail maths.

Hum di hum............................

So here i am as an ever increasing avid amatuer astronomer with a thirst for the hobby.

Just thought i'd tell you all that, because it is you guys that have lit the fuse papaer on my interest in astronomy.

You can all now take a bow.....................or show i be bowing down to you?

Either way will do.

I couldn't agree more Paul. Reading these pages and seeing the things that other folks are getting up to, the images they produce etc., really spurs you on to keep trying to get as much as you can out of the funny little tube in the back garden.

Yes i agree with the above....even at the cost of your neighbours thinking your some kind of advanced perfert :lol: :lol: with the most sohpisticated spying equipment :lol:

I think the web team in particular deserve alot of credit given the amount of work in maintaining the site and in building our soon to be new site, especially given the recent increase in throughput on the site.

Increase in throughout has always been a factor for us (IFAS). We can't pay a lot of money for hosting and bandwidth the likes of boards.ie can for such a large audience. That is why we try to keep things astronomical-only here (sorry to the Newbies who think I was a prat moderating threads and passing comments on useless threads, this is the reason).

Seanie.

I think the web team in particular deserve alot of credit given the amount of work in maintaining the site and in building our soon to be new site, especially given the recent increase in throughput on the site.

We're getting too big for our boots again ... we're hitting 95% capacity on our hosting package again. That was last month with Christmas and all that .... I'm hoping thing settle down again. If we bust through this hosting package we'll have to divert our attentions to fund-raising again. Not great.

Still though, I think having too many members it a fantastic complaint to have and it's great to see people really enjoying the boards!

Bart.