Evan

Been looking at telescopes tonight. Might dig deep and splash out one a new one. You should never worry about spending money on your hobbies, the things you feel passionate about. Because they are the things that make you you I suppose.

I bought a flute three months ago and it's lovely. I worried about the £100 I was spending, but I've got a thousand pounds worth of pleasure from it. That's how it goes. If you buy something to keep up with the Jones', the bragging rights don't last that long. You're on to the next thing, back to the pissing contest with your nose to the grindstone. Better to spend a tenner on a box of pencils and a drawing book and sit on the hill earning nowt but being a groovy motherfucker. I know that's easy said and life isn't like that, but y'know what I mean.

My old telescope, (back to that) is a mighty beast, almost as tall as me, with a 10" mirror that traps enough celestrial light to see faint galaxies under a dark sky. But I'd like to get into astrophotography, and the mount I have is purely manual. You have to compensate the spinning of the Earth by turning the scope with your hands.

Which is something I enjoy too. . how often do we feel the spin of the Earth?

My old astronomy notebook has sketches and observations from 1991-1994. After that I moved to Wolverhampton and light pollution and social stuff ended my regular observations. But I've never lost the love of the night sky. I've seen two solar eclipses in recent years (France and Turkey) and only a month of so ago I was in a field in Shropshire looking at Saturn's rings (a magical site that can take your breath or move you to tears, and I'm not joking!).

And one of my reasons for buying the tent is to get back in tune with that starry dome. I'm back in Wiltshire soon, and if I get a sky like I've seen before there I'll be in heaven.