Gasman wrote:Thanks for the helpful comments guys,appreciated. Hoping to take the grandkids out finding things to look at with the scope at the weekend. Got a few streams near me, been watching some youtubes on Tardigrades they would be pretty cool to find.
Pretty interesting subject microscopy, never really bothered much with it at school (Many moons ago!).
It was the cloudy nights over here in the UK that led me to micro from observing the very large in my observatory to the very small, funny how things turn out!
best
Steve
Hi Gasman, funnily enough I've a similar story, living in Cumbria where quite honestly it never stop raining! I started as a youngster bird-watching and breeding of all things Budgerigars (learned Mendelian inheritance from this also)! Anyway, bird-watching becomes somewhat more difficult as we begin the inevitable process of crumbling away to an irrelevant old fossil...
Sooo, as I began looking at wildflowers a few years back I soon appreciated that a) they don't fly-off without even saying goodbye after 3-hrs skulking about in hedgerows like a demented trainee-Ninja trying to find them, and b) one only needs to wander over to the nearest piece of foliage to discover a fascinating and
accessible world, a piece of which, with consideration of course, may be taken to study at leisure - far easier than trying to persuade a sparrow to sit still while you measure the length of it's tail!
You've a similar problem of accessibility with astronomy I imagine!
You're in for a fascinating time with your 'scope my friend! Good hunting!
Yes John I too suffer as an astronomer not just the terrible skies we've had of late but the lure of a warm bed instead of freezing off me whatsits seems to be taking over the observing 
