I have always been fascinated by Space and Space travel.
I had my first telescope, a Tasco refractor with Az/El mount when I was about 11 years old, I remember Saturn being very high in the winter evening sky and I would set up on my parents patio and was fascinated as I could detect the rings although in hindsight, optical quality left a lot to be desired.
My interest developed slowly over the next 30 or so years, I nearly bought a Fullerscopes 6" Reflector and equatorial mount but impending marriage meant that the funds were used elsewhere. A highlight of the late 70s was buying Norton's Star Atlas (epoch 1950) which I still use to this day. Apart from being usable with a Red torch, it also has an amazing 'text book' incorporated. At the time, it was my major source of reference.
Fast forward to the 90s (when I bought a 200mm F5 reflector and EQ5 mount) and early noughties and I was becoming very interested in Radio Astronomy and met Lawrence Newell who had just restarted the BAA Radio Astronomy Group. I was (still am) a licensed Radio Amateur (callsign G0CZD) and wanted to use my transferrable skills into building and operating Radio Astronomy instruments. I also completed 3 Astronomical course with the OU, Manchester University and Keele University which wetted my interest in theoretical Astronomy. I was also an active member of Macclesfield Astronomical Society during this time, Unfortunately, towards the end of the noughties, I became ill and lost a lot of interest in a lot of things, becoming very deaf also destroyed my interest in amateur radio. I retired in 2020 and decided to renew my interest in astronomy to keep my mind occupied. A house move a year later to a reasonable dark site and I bought a new Celestron Edge 11 with a second hand EQ6 GOTO. Shortly afterwards, I made my best (in terms of bangs per buck) purchase, a SVBONY 800mm ED F7 Refractor which I am over the moon with. This time round, I decided to concentrate on two of the nearest celestial objects, the Sun and the Moon, but of course, my Radio instruments got resurrected but as these were for observing the Sun, they complemented my optical interests perfectly.
I spent 43 years working for an IT company and when I retired I was a Senior Solutions Architect. Some of those skills were also transferrable and my instruments are now connected to Raspberry Pi computers running Linux and I use Python as a high level scripting language.
I joined SCASTRO (South Cheshire Astronomical Society) when I moved house and thoroughly enjoy contributing to their meetings.
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