[masraum]

Originally Posted by Eric Hahl

Headed to the Alvord Desert in SE Oregon this weekend for some astro and landscape photography close to the new Moon. Probably has some of the darkest skies in the U.S.

I'm excited. Hopefully all me gear works as it's supposed to. Wish me luck!

That's DARK!

Originally Posted by Eric Hahl

I’m back from the desert. Got a few good shots.

WOW, nice shots, and great luck to have had it coincide with the northern lights, although that likely caused issues with getting good, dark shots of DSOs.

Originally Posted by Pazuzu

So...
5 years ago, somewhere in this thread you guys inadvertently put a bug under my skin, and I ended up making a small company to fix and upgrade telescopes.

Fast forward 5 years, and I decide to (VERY suddenly) quit my daytime job and go full time with telescopes. Pretty stupid move, but it's my move. That was 2 months ago.

Now I've nearly got 2 local colleges paying me an annual contract for upgrades and maintenance on their campus observatories, a consistent line of individuals that need telescopes worked on, a few small products that I'm gearing up on (custom communication cables), and I am in collaboration with a well known local shop to do all of their mount repairs (they want to stick to optical stuff).

THEN, a well known NATIONAL telescope retailer contacted me and wants me to examine and perhaps fix all of their customer return scopes. Perhaps 10-15 a month. Receive them, check for operation, diagnose, then repair as applicable, so they can resell as seconds.

Sooo many irons in the fire, and I have room for 4 times that. Hoping to parlay the observatory gigs to at least 2, if not 3 more local observatories over the next 2 years.

Wow, That's fantastic all around (except the one wanker that sued you. I hope he drops his OTA.), and it sounds like it's working out really well!