I have always had an interest in astronomy and the skies, ever since I first looked up on a dark sky and seen millions of stars. what an awesome sight it is, what wonder. It has this strange phenomenon where the longer you look, the more you see.

I grew up in the golden age of space exploration. I was 7 months old when Neil Armstrong took his small step,  I was two years old when Jim Lovell had his problem, I was five when skylab went up, and 11 years old when it came back down.

I remember reading about Voyager 1 and Voyager 2 and wondering at the time if it was a good idea to tell the rest of the galaxy where we were. Then when I watched the first Star Trek Movie, I knew it was a bad idea.

We had lots of great movies growing up in the 70's and 80's like Star Wars, Close encounters of the third kind, Capricorn 1, 2001: A Space Odyssey, ET. All these movies kept me looking up at the stars with wonder.

I always wanted a telescope to get a better look at the moon and planets, but other things have always been a greater priority, so for years I only ever looked up on clear nights with the naked eye.

Roll on December 2013, and my wife Jackie and daughter Jess bought me a telescope, an awesome 150mm Maksutov-Cassegrain Skywatcher skyMAX pro 150. Unfortunately it did not come wit a mount :( so I had to save up some pennies until I could get a a mount.

A few months passed and I got myself a Skywatcher EQ5, German equatorial mount with dual axis motors and built in polar scope.

Just a word of warning about buying this mount. I noticed many places selling a polar scope separately for this mount, but it should come with one !!.  I got mine from First Light optics. a very good retailer. Very helpful and delivery was fast !

So, I spent all morning puting it together, getting the scope balanced, adding the motors, tidying up the cables.  all I need now is a clear night.....

And there is the problem.....

I got the mount on 10th May 2014, and since then, every night has been cloudy, or have not been able to get out !!