I have become an tremendous fan of on-line discussion groups. I actively participate in several of them, all in Yahoo! Groups.

CGE Uncensored is dedicated to users of the CGE mount from Celestron. There are many knowledgeable people who post to the group. Mike Dodd is a tireless contributor. His complete and accurate posts really make this a great forum for users of the CGE mount. Bud Guinn is another strong contributor. Apologies to those not mentioned. But it is a great group.

The Observatories group is also good, although I have not spent much time there recently. After all, my observatory is built 😉 Marcus (who I always think of as Jato, well OK, JAT Observatory) is a big contributor. And if you are thinking about putting sand in your pier, don’t. Dennis Persyck has shown that sand is irrelevent to pier stability.

The CCD New Astro group is over the top. This is a premier community of the best astrophotographers in the field. It may have a bit fewer postings than the SBIG group, but the SBIG group has way too many posts, most of which are “nice photo….” Certainly acceptable, but still too much traffic to weed out the chaff and get to the content.

SBIG, by the way, makes excellent cameras for astrophotography. I have an ST-10XME with an AO-7 adaptive optics device.

And content is the secret (or is content king?, I forget). The little gems of information that one gets from reading these groups is priceless. The real experience of people who shared is a powerful thing.

Vendor support is great in these forums. You can search, and if you don’t find an answer (or don’t search) it gets answered quickly. If your software or hardware vendor offers support through a forum, use it! It is a great value to you and to the company.

Better products through collaboration!