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(IAAC) Self introduction
Well, I suppose it's my turn now...
It really began in 1980 while in the university reading a book in bed. The book was a collection of divulgation articles about Relativity Theory written by Einstein and other authors. I didn't sleep that night thinking about the universe, and I started to get hooked into astronomy.
After subscribing to Astronomy magazine in 1993 the idea of buying a telescope was starting to grow in my mind, but the weather in the region where I live (North of Spain) is so bad (rain or clouds are the usual thing here) that I decided to stop that project.
Anyway, in April, 1997 I made some lateral thinking and decided to buy a portable telescope in order to observe far from my city. I finally bought a Meade 395. The optics were good, but the mounting system was a pain when using high power, so I sold it and bought a Vixen 102M-GP achromatic refractor. "Vixus" is working now very well.
I also discovered that Internet has a tremendous potential for us, amateur astronomers. Now is possible to exchange information and experiences with people all over the world, finding new friends and feeling like a member of a great family. As a result, I built a Web page about the 395, and after selling it, I've designed a new one oriented to refractor telescopes.
Now I use 3 "standard" observing places. The first one is my own flat; it's not an advisable place for observing due to turbulences around the building and light polluted skies but it works. For example I've observed 5 stars in The Trapezium or M78 from there.
The second one is a nice improvement over observing from my flat. Only half an hour by car it's a countryside little house property of my parents-in-law. There I can reach about 4.5-5 visual naked magnitude.
The third observing place is located in the mountains at 4000 ft. There the observing conditions are usually very good, but on winter I don't like to go there because wolves seem also to enjoy observing :). It seems also that this place will be the best one for trying some
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