Hello everyone

This is my first post on any astronomy forum and this seems like a good place to start. I got an interest September last when my boss handed me a sheet with the ISS fly over times and insisted that I looked out for it. I saw it a few times and taught "that’s a nice quick star" I borrowed binoculars from a neighbor (7*50) to see if I could see more detail and watched it again. Still the same tiny dot. A bigger set was needed. A little research later and a pair of 15*70's arrived. I looked again and only saw the same tiny dot. Ah well I still had a nice set of bio's. One of the last viewing of the ISS came and I taught I would give it another shot. It was way down south and not very bright this time but when I looked through I could see that the reflection of the sun was only coming from one part of the middle the space station and the barest out line of the solar panels could be seen around it. The taught of seeing something the size of a football pitch hundreds of miles away was amazing and then I was hooked.
I'm looking out for a telescope but the binoculars, stellarium and my planisphere are fine for the moment.
Thats enough for now, I don't want to bore you all with my first post.

Hi Crescent, welcome along to the forums, you'll find that there are so many people here with the same interests. You have started well with the binos, the 15x70's will show you so much more than just the ISS, you can see many starclusters, nebula, planets, and of course the starfields of the milkyway, double and variable stars......

You can go for a starter telescope and eyepieces and work form there, or if you like the binos, you could get a binomount like I have, the binos sit on top, so no need for hand holding, they are super!

www.telescope-service.com/tripods/start/...start.html#Binomount

Of course, everybody has their own interest(s), it all about saving the pennies too, but it is very much worth it. Don't be afraid to ask any question, there are so many helpful friends here....

Clear Skies!

Keith.

The bio mount looks the biz, I didn’t even know something like that existed. I was looking at getting this SkyWatcher, www.firstlightoptics.com/proddetail.php?prod=200eq5 . After some research aperture seams to be the main concern but really I just don’t know what scope to get. I might even get a larger set of binoculars now after seeing that bio mount.

I have looked at some galaxies, star clusters and nebula and they all look like the same faint smug through the 15*70’s. Putting that aside the moon looks great and they are very good for picking out the fainter stars in some of the constellations. They‘re
also quick and easy to use which doesn’t seam to be the case with a telescope.

I won’t rush into any purchase yet.