Brad, There is a very active Astronomy club in the Ft. Collins area, so I'd strongly urge you to get involved with them (there is NCAS - Northern Colorado Astronomical Society and LAS - Longmont Astronomical Society). Both of these can be found off of my club (Colorado Springs Astronomical Society) web page: http://members.aol.com/bygrens/CSAS/ . Also, if you want to check out some dark skies with a ton of people, you should make plans to attend Rocky Mountain Star Stare (June 26-28). This is 60 miles west of Colorado Springs near Wilkerson Pass. We average 200+ people each year (this is our 12th year) and have scopes of all shapes and sizes (last year a guy from Washington state came down with "Hercules" which s a 41" Dob!!!). Its a great time for everyone, and you can learn quite a bit at an event like this, and the seeing is amazing (and will spoil you forever ;^). Check out our website for more info on RMSS '98, or feel free to send me email directly. /* Michael M. Frazier Oracle Internal Systems Support mfrazier@us.oracle.com Colorado Springs, Colorado frazierm@usa.net http://www.juggling.org/~michael.frazier/ "It's Microsoft versus mankind with Microsoft having only a slight lead." - Larry Ellison, CEO of Oracle Corporation, March 4, 1997 */
-- BEGIN included message
- To: netastrocatalog-announce@latrade.com
- Subject: (IAAC) Fellow Orion user
- From: Brad Moorman <bradm@cheetahware.com>
- Date: 03 Jun 98 07:45:23
- Reply-to: UNX03.US.ORACLE.COM:netastrocatalog-announce@latrade.com
- Sender: owner-netastrocatalog-announce@latrade.com
Hi Penny, My name is Brad and I live in Fort Collins, Colorado. I was reading some of the IAAC archives and noticed that you have an Orion 8" DSE. I recently purchased the 10" DSE and was very pleased to hear that you have been able to pick out some of the deep sky objects I'm wanting to see. I've been desperately searching for galaxies in the Virgo cluster and also M81/82 recently, but to no avail and I was getting nervous that maybe I bought the wrong telescope. I'm thinking now that maybe my problem is just light pollution. I live in a city of about 100,000 and deal with several annoying streetlights on my block. Do you live in a rural area? Would I have better luck if I packed up and headed out of town? I also have the 26mm Plossel (sp) eyepiece. Is this the one I should be using for viewing galaxies like M81/82? Any help or advice you can give me would be greatly appreciated. Thanks, Brad
-- END included message