www.ditl.org

Good to hear, Mark.

I was half afraid Foxfire'd have to come pick me up from where ever I got washed away too

Off until next sunday to see my little brother graduate the marines. Its funny neither of my parents had any interest in the military and now 2/3rds of their kids have gone through it. I'm excited for him so it'll be a fun trip. And its in San Diego and what's not to love about that place?

Beautiful sunny San Dog, not a bad place to be stationed either.

Somebody gave me a free telescope the other day that I understand, isn't too bad. I've spent the past few evening stargazing and saw Jupiter and it's moons last night. Think I've found a new hobby

There's a really excellent programme, free and open source for anyone interested in having a 'planetarium' on their computer. It's really cool, real-time and shows you where to look in the sky to see..well, what you want to see

http://www.stellarium.org/

Ohh, definitely checking that out. I've wanted a telescope for a long time. Decent ones can run hundreds to thousands of dollars though and that's always kept me from going for it.

Tyyr wrote:Ohh, definitely checking that out. I've wanted a telescope for a long time. Decent ones can run hundreds to thousands of dollars though and that's always kept me from going for it.

For what it's worth (and from a little bit of research I've been doing across various astronomy websites) it needn't be a costly hobby. You could pick up a pair of 10 x 50 bog standard binos for about £20/$30 and still see quite a lot of detail. Starter telescopes seem to begin at around £50/$80 but yeah, sure, you get what you pay for in the end but you can still seemingly have fun on a budget too.

Jupiter was amazing though and I'm looking forward to when Saturn's in view soon

Currently I'm in a severely depressive mood for no apparent reason, and I can't seem to put my finger on what happened, I just feel like shit and it seems like everyone is just making it worse. Damn, I have no clue what it is, and it just sucks...

Sorry to hear it, Nick. Probably just one of those teenage mood swings. It happens.

Tyyr wrote:Ohh, definitely checking that out. I've wanted a telescope for a long time. Decent ones can run hundreds to thousands of dollars though and that's always kept me from going for it.

My father has a decent one that Mom got him for xmas one year. It's a refractive {?} design and wasn't more then 200$. If you want I can call tonight and find out brand it is. We saw Mars pretty decent about 5 years ago with it.

Nickswitz wrote:Currently I'm in a severely depressive mood for no apparent reason, and I can't seem to put my finger on what happened, I just feel like s**t and it seems like everyone is just making it worse. Damn, I have no clue what it is, and it just sucks...

I remember those feelings. Oh the joys of being a teenager.....all of the hormones out of whack. Short term mood swings are normal, at least they were for me. But if they swing REALLY badly or take a long time to bounce back, then I may start taking another look at them.

I know that feeling, Nick. Sorry to hear.

Tomorrow can't be the first day of October. It can't. I won't let it.

It is.

What's so bad about it being October?

Hey, I saw Jupiter and four of it's moons again last night but this time, really clearly as there was no cloud cover etc. I thinking of joining the local astronomy club in the next town The 'scope is also really useful for examining what the Swedish female volleyball team who just moved in up the street, are up to