Stan,
I started out doing visual observing. I enjoyed it and did it a lot with my
son. The problem I found was twofold. First, after a while, you run out of
things to observe. You can do the Herschel 400 and the Messier catalog and
others, but without a dark sky you won't see 10% of the objects in catalogs
like this. Which brings me to problem two. Since a dark site is required to
see the really faint fuzzies, you now have to drive 50 miles outside town to
observe. That was no problem when I was in my forties and it included a
night with my son. But now, with 60 not too far away and bad knees here
right now, the thought of packing up 100-150 pounds of equipment, driving 50
miles, setting it all up, then breaking it down, packing it all up and
driving 50 miles back at zero dark thirty is not as appealing as it used to
be, especially since my son is no longer around so I have to do all the
heavy lifting myself.
After a couple of years I got interested in astrophotography and getting my
first pictures was very exciting. As I was able to afford better equipment,
my results got better. However, I now had 200-300 pounds of stuff to haul 50
miles and back, so that got old quick too. I finally decided to get a remote
observatory in a dark site that I can operate remotely. Once I got that up
and running I never looked back. My results got better and better, and
pretty soon I was seeing my pictures in Astronomy magazine and on APOD and
other web sites. I even got a request from a textbook company in Denmark to
include one of my pictures in a middle school science textbook. There may be
magazines or websites that publish observing logs, but I haven't seen them.
It is hard to beat seeing your work in print.
I still do some visual observing now and then, but the imaging takes up most
of my spare time. Maybe when I retire I will have more time to start
observing again, but right now, I only have time for one and imaging has
won.
Bernard
-----Original Message-----
From: az-observing-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:az-observing-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Redacted sender
"stanfm" for DMARC
Sent: Wednesday, September 7, 2016 6:45 AM
To: az-observing@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [AZ-Observing] New stuff = rain
Sorry about the rain... I just finished a new box for my old dob and added
a motorized platform, so...
Hope my eyes are still good enough. Do folks still go out and look at
stuff, or is everyone into photography these days?
SF
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