Dutchie incoming

Hi everyone,

I didn’t spot an introduction topic, so hopefully I’m not polluting the forum here.

My name is Vincent Groenewold, a 40 y/o science technician from the Netherlands and I’m going to work in the city of Christchurch. As one of my hobbies, astrophotography is a thing I like a lot, so no surprise I’m very interested in taking photo’s of the southern skies. It actually was a hobby that started during my holiday visit to NZ back in 2006. I was sleeping in a tent on a remote area, woke up from some scary animal noises and looked outside to be met with the most beautiful starry night I even witnessed. I put my camera on the ground and just snapped some (terrible) pictures hoping it showed something. Ofcourse it didn’t as I had no clue what I was doing. I finally bought a telescope in 2015 and have been advancing in astrophotography a lot since then. I now have it fully remote controlled and whenever it’s clear I fire it up. In the Netherlands though this doesn’t happen a lot as the weather is aweful, even more so in recent years.

Travelling across the world though made me leave the telescope and equipment at home as I was a bit scared customs would frown upon my boxes of wires and electronics. 🙂 I’m hoping to be able to join your community, enjoy speeches and maybe even use some equipment to snap some very nice things as well. I’ll be happy, time permitting, to make myself useful as well if needed for equipment setup and maintenance.

I hope to have a nice stay and to be able to see some clear skies with all of you.

Thanks, Vincent