Goldbay pay, 1st panning in 2 years

Ben Cartwright SASS

Bronze Member
Aug 7, 2012
1,619
1,537
Massachusetts
Detector(s) used
Whites, Garrett
Primary Interest:
Other
As people may remember I used to go to NH to pan before becoming disabled. Well between losing a family member almost 2 years ago and my bad knees I haven't done anything, other then search for silver in rolls.
I bought some chunky gold from Goldbay and panned it for about 2 1/2 hours today. I was sitting and had the water at my waist level (sitting) and when I went to stand up I thought I was going to scream, the knees had totally tightened up=. This getting old sucks.

But I have come to realize that I am dependent totally on buying pay or trying to get friends or my middle son to bring dirt back from NH (it hasn't happened so far)

I realize that many people look down on buying pay but for someone like me who has trouble driving more than an hour and cannot do any hills or streams it is the only choice or totally give it up.

Goldbay was recommended to me so I gave it a try, they had a 3#bag with 3 grams of gold and I added 2 grams extra

I panned it all out and ended up with 7.44 grams, mostly chunky but some 50 mesh and a bunch of 30 mesh.

I had a great time even thought it hurt my legs to do that for a couple hours!
 

Upvote 0

russau

Gold Member
May 29, 2005
7,279
6,735
St. Louis, missouri
Sorry to hear of your medical conditions ! I also have ankle/knee/back problems and haven't been out dredging for 4 years now. I ended up selling all of my equipment and HATED doing so ! I still loved dredging BUT couldn't get up out the water after dredging SOOOOOOOOOOOOOO it all had to go ! and I miss it! Yep , getting old and beat up isn't fun at all !
 

OP
OP
Ben Cartwright SASS

Ben Cartwright SASS

Bronze Member
Aug 7, 2012
1,619
1,537
Massachusetts
Detector(s) used
Whites, Garrett
Primary Interest:
Other
I have developed new hobbies and resurrected older ones. My main hobbies now are Astronomy (Solar imaging and deep sky imaging) and Photography, but even photography is affected by my having trouble walking on uneven ground and stairs.

my solar photos and other stuff can be seen here https://www.flickr.com/photos/jmpadell/albums
 

DizzyDigger

Gold Member
Dec 9, 2012
5,832
11,573
Concrete, WA
Detector(s) used
Nokta FoRs Gold, a Gold Cube, 2 Keene Sluices and Lord only knows how many pans....not to mention a load of other gear my wife still doesn't know about!
Primary Interest:
Prospecting
I have developed new hobbies and resurrected older ones. My main hobbies now are Astronomy (Solar imaging and deep sky imaging) and Photography, but even photography is affected by my having trouble walking on uneven ground and stairs.

Jeff...great camera and processing work!

As a fellow Astroholic, I gotta ask...what gear are you using?

Love astronomy, but unfortunately the skies up here in the far NW
are not too accommodating.

Ran a fairly active forum for many years with another fellow from
Australia. Unfortunately, the popularity of Cloudy Nights eventually
lured all our active members away, but the site itself is still active.
We had one member posting a daily Solar pic for nearly a full year.

Check it out: AstroHolic.com - An Amateur Astronomy Community
 

OP
OP
Ben Cartwright SASS

Ben Cartwright SASS

Bronze Member
Aug 7, 2012
1,619
1,537
Massachusetts
Detector(s) used
Whites, Garrett
Primary Interest:
Other
I will check out your site! My skies are Bortle 7.5, visual I can see down to mag 2.4 on a good night. 300 feet from a large shopping mall to the North around to East. Due south, 500 yards away is a 24 hour factory, 1/4 mile to the SW is a 24 hour Walmart. That is why I do mostly solar

Gear: (more than I need)
Solar
Lunt LS50DS
Lunt LS80 with DS
Quark Chromosphere

DSO
Celestron Edge 8" HD
Skywatcher ED100 APO
Stellarvue SV80ST
Celestron XLT120 f/8.3
Celestron XLT102 f/6.6
Orion ST120 f/5
Orion ST80 f/5
10 pairs of binoculars

Mounts
Skywatcher EQ6-R
Orion Skyview Pro (EQ4) both above go to
Orion Starseeker Alt/AZ go to

Also I am a trustee at the Seagrave Observatory Skyscrapers, Inc. Astronomical Society of Rhode Island
 

DizzyDigger

Gold Member
Dec 9, 2012
5,832
11,573
Concrete, WA
Detector(s) used
Nokta FoRs Gold, a Gold Cube, 2 Keene Sluices and Lord only knows how many pans....not to mention a load of other gear my wife still doesn't know about!
Primary Interest:
Prospecting
Feel free to peruse the site..it's got a ton of info, especially
on astrophotography. Vinne owns the site, but we started
it together after careers moderating a site that the owner
turned into a spam circus.

We still have a couple of members that stop by now and then,
but for the most part the site is done for. We tried, and had
a great time for a few years.

Vinne Legge is well known down-under, and he along with a
few other pals have several comets named after them. Haven't
talked to him in quite a while, so don't know if he's still a mod over
at Cloudy Nights.

Since your skies are so bad, you wouldn't want to rid yourself
of the SV80ST would ya? 8-) And yeah, with that much resident
light pollution I can understand why you went solar.
 

OP
OP
Ben Cartwright SASS

Ben Cartwright SASS

Bronze Member
Aug 7, 2012
1,619
1,537
Massachusetts
Detector(s) used
Whites, Garrett
Primary Interest:
Other
I still do DSO in fact many of the shots on flickr and my other site www.solarhead.net are done from my backyard, although on solarhead the fact they save as low quality jpg's hurts them, the DSO's anyway.
It is amazing what you can pull out of bad skies with ZWO cameras and enough 15 second exposures!

I have several ZWO's ASI174mm ASI174mm-cool (for solar) ASI178mc-cool ASI290 ASI120mm ASI120mc ASI071MC-COOL
 

Top Member Reactions

Users who are viewing this thread

Top