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[StarFarmer]

Hello, I am StarFarmer (55) from Northwestern Oklahoma,  a former member of the closed Astronomy Forums.  I was there for going on 6 years.  I hated to see it fold.  I would like to accept the invitation from Mr.Curt Renz to join this site.  I am a farmer/rancher and took up astronomy as a hobby over 25 years ago, although I have loved the night sky all my life.  I have several telescopes. The 10" LX-200 Meade Classic is what I use for public viewings and the Explore Scientific 127mm APO triplet on the Celestron CGEM mount is where I'm getting my feet wet as far as imaging goes.  I'm getting acquainted with my new Canon 60Da.  I am an observational officer at Starcreek Astronomical Society which has a proposed name change to Starcreek Astronomy Club (we are a pretty motley crew) and don't want to scare anyone away.  We are partnering with Northwestern Oklahoma State University and the University of Central Oklahoma in providing students of all ranks, from all OK towns, with basic viewing and information.  Throughout July of every year we provide a monthly marathon for public outreach.  Friday and Saturday of each week some members of our club are there. It is very uplifting for me to do this.  I wanted to follow as many of my refugee friends from the Astronomy forums and I know that some very good ones have made it here.  I couldn't leave behind Dave Mitsky's wealth of information, Centaur's charts and challenges, and observational reports from members such as PoppaChris.  I really do appreciate all images, regardless of their quality, because I know the passion and patience one must have to astro-image.  Sketchers are in a league of their own. To display on canvas what the mind perceives is the one true art.  

I hope to contribute quite a bit but I'm in the really busy season now.  I'm able to introduce myself now because of rain, beautiful rain.

I'll try to not disappoint.

36° 21'N   99° 38'W                    36.35N   99.63W

[Centaur]

Welcome, StarFarmer, to the Chicago Astronomer forum. I always appreciated your comments at the now defunct astronomy.com forum. Thanks for providing information about your astronomical background and related activities with astronomy enthusiasts in Oklahoma. Good job! You seem to be to Oklahoma what our administrator Joe is to Chicagoland.

As you know, several of our astronomy.com friends are already here and have been quite active. The longer tenured members seem to enjoy interacting with them. I look forward to your posts whenever the rain distracts you from working your acreage.

[gunter]

Hi StarFarmer,

Good to see you here. Congratulations on your achievements with your local club ! Any word from PoppaChris?
Tonight was the best night we've had here since July 2nd. I was able to finally see some DSO's.
I observed :
Globular Cluster M80 in Scorpius
NGC 6231 in Scorpius along with M6 & M7. To finish off I got my 13 year old son away from his Ipod to see
Globulars M12 & M10, which were new DSO's for him. Looking forward to hearing more from you StarFarmer ! 

[StarFarmer]

Hi gunter! Yes, I'm in touch with PoppaChris via e-mail and an astronomy Facebook group. He's probably checking this site out just as I did. That's one reason it took me a week to introduce myself. My daughter helped set me up on FB and after that was done she stated on her personal page that "Mom and Dad have been married for 25 years and Dad refuses to FRIEND or LIKE her." The flood gates were open and I am getting friend requests from the whole world. Everyone now thinks that StarFarmer is an introverted jerk. I like that astronomy FB group but it needs to be moderated better.
Dave Mitsky, you, and I closed out the Astronomy forums. Near the end you asked if I would be the last to post and I said that I hoped so. Later,under the stay of execution,I said that I was just kidding and that honor should go to Dave for his moderation and 50,000+ posts. I said that at ~14:45:00CDT 09July2014 and when I hit post I got the message---Astronomy Forums No Longer Available--- R.I.P. Astronomy Forums.   I copied some of our last comments to my computer for old time's sake.
I want to thank Astronomer Joe for allowing me to be here, Dave for letting me use his information for public outreach, and Curt Renz for the invite.

[Paulie pchris00]

Welcome, StarFarmer. I hope you enjoy the forum, and I look forward to your contributions.