Astronomy group in Waterford city area?

ngcxt6

Made a post in the Kilkenny forum but doesn't look like there are any takers.

I'm new to astronomy and looking to get involved with a group or club. I already have a 6" telescope and have the basics down. Been observing for a couple of weeks now but would love to maybe meet up with people with the same interests.

Anybody know of anything in the area?

honeybadger

Maybe post in the astronomy section in the science section on here op

Edgarfrndly

Hi there,

We used to have an active astronomy group in Waterford, but it fell apart after a while. There's a group on facebook "Deise Astronomy Society". Join it, and post and see if anyone is willing to get the group going back up again. We used to have some decent nights out with our telescopes. Mine is collecting dust for the past 2 years.

longshanks

Buying a telescope for the cool clear nights is one of those things I keep promising myself. What kind of set up costs would I be looking at?




Yes I do realise that's like asking how long is a piece of string, but entertain me.

Edgarfrndly

longshanks wrote: »

Buying a telescope for the cool clear nights is one of those things I keep promising myself. What kind of set up costs would I be looking at?

Yes I do realise that's like asking how long is a piece of string, but entertain me.

Really depends on your budget and what exactly it is you want to do. If you just want to "look" at the sky, without any intention of doing astrophotography, I'd recommend getting a dobsonian telescope. It's has very basic mount that's easy to use, where all the money will be invested in the optics rather than the mount. The result is a cheap telescope with good performance.

My first telescope was a Skywatcher Skyliner 200P. It's an 8" dobsonian, that you can buy for about 300 euro or so. It's exceptional value for money. Alternatively, you can invest in a telescope with an equatorial mount that you will pre-setup to follow the rotation of the sky. It takes longer to setup, but once configured it's much easier to track objects.

The disadvantages of a dobsonian is that you can't track as easy like you can with other mounts. You pretty much manually find your object and manually move your scope to keep it in view.

The disadvantages of something with an eq-mount is that you'll have to pay a lot more money to have comparable viewing to a dobsonian.

If you give me an idea of your budget, I can maybe point you towards some suggestions.

longshanks

Unfortunately I won't be buying any time soon, I was just wondering what kind of set up costs would be involved.
Thanks for your rely though.

ngcxt6

Edgarfrndly wrote: »

Hi there,

We used to have an active astronomy group in Waterford, but it fell apart after a while. There's a group on facebook "Deise Astronomy Society". Join it, and post and see if anyone is willing to get the group going back up again. We used to have some decent nights out with our telescopes. Mine is collecting dust for the past 2 years.

Cheer's, I'll check that out. I'm based in south county kilkenny however, so hope most people arent based down towards the west of county waterford, would be a bit of a stretch.

ngcxt6

longshanks wrote: »

Buying a telescope for the cool clear nights is one of those things I keep promising myself. What kind of set up costs would I be looking at?




Yes I do realise that's like asking how long is a piece of string, but entertain me.

Seconding getting a Dobsonian, is the best bang you will get for your money.
I've been putting off telescopes for the past 3 or 4 years, and had my eye on many of them.

But in the end I settled on an Orion XT6 from astroshop.eu It cost me €290 or so which included postage.

It's quite large and heavy but it's a brilliant beginners scope.

There's nothing more to it other than building the base and attaching the scope really, took an hour. No extra costs afterwords.

Edgarfrndly

ngcxt6 wrote: »

Cheer's, I'll check that out. I'm based in south county kilkenny however, so hope most people arent based down towards the west of county waterford, would be a bit of a stretch.

There's a few in west waterford. We used to meetup in neutral spots.

aaaaaaaahhhhhh

Fyi Lidl are selling a telescope 35x525 this week. 80€