Greetings, BF members!
One of the other hobbies that I am very involved in is astronomy, which led me towards doing more terrestrial observing and birding with my astronomy equipment. One day while under quarantine and doing some observing of the sun, I decided to setup one of my refractors on the side to observe some of the birds that make their way into my backyard-- I live near El Dorado Nature Center in Long Beach, which is a large 105 acre preserve that is host to many varieties of birds-- and I was hooked. It's become an enjoyable use of equipment, as is learning and observing some of the unique details.
The first scope I used for birding was my TeleVue Pronto, which I wound up selling to a birder in Belgium. (Hi Stuart, you here?) We had quite a number of discussions about optics which was intriguing and I wound up exploring using field scope instruments for astronomy as well as astronomical instruments for birding! All good fun.
I currently have a vintage Celestron 90mm Maksutov Cassegrain on a vintage tabletop tripod, a Pentax 65 ED A, and Pentax 85 ED A-2 for terrestrial/birding duty. I also occasionally use a vintage Pentax 75 EDHF II astronomical telescope for terrestrial and birding. A Leica Aspheric Zoom is probably my most widely used eyepiece, albeit I have been enjoying Nikon EDG eyepieces as well.
Cheers
One of the other hobbies that I am very involved in is astronomy, which led me towards doing more terrestrial observing and birding with my astronomy equipment. One day while under quarantine and doing some observing of the sun, I decided to setup one of my refractors on the side to observe some of the birds that make their way into my backyard-- I live near El Dorado Nature Center in Long Beach, which is a large 105 acre preserve that is host to many varieties of birds-- and I was hooked. It's become an enjoyable use of equipment, as is learning and observing some of the unique details.
The first scope I used for birding was my TeleVue Pronto, which I wound up selling to a birder in Belgium. (Hi Stuart, you here?) We had quite a number of discussions about optics which was intriguing and I wound up exploring using field scope instruments for astronomy as well as astronomical instruments for birding! All good fun.
I currently have a vintage Celestron 90mm Maksutov Cassegrain on a vintage tabletop tripod, a Pentax 65 ED A, and Pentax 85 ED A-2 for terrestrial/birding duty. I also occasionally use a vintage Pentax 75 EDHF II astronomical telescope for terrestrial and birding. A Leica Aspheric Zoom is probably my most widely used eyepiece, albeit I have been enjoying Nikon EDG eyepieces as well.
Cheers
