Shimrod

You won't go any wider than 10mm unless you get a fisheye lens. I've always found 10mm to be a bit too wide for landscape however it can be good for the sky! My avatar is an aurora shot taken at 10mm with the 10-22mm. I will see if I have some comparison shots with different lenses taken on the same night. A faster lens is helpful when the aurora is faint or moving fast - allowing you to capture some structure will a shorter exposure.

Oh dear, I've been to all three. Tourism travel in Antarctica has some of the strictest, self-imposed regulations on tourists which were certainly enforced on the trip I was on. Breaching them would be not being allowed off ship for the remainer of the travel. As well as expected, respectful behaviour for the environment, there was also a strict decontamination routine to avoid any accidental transfer of spores or infections into the environment. https://iaato.org/visiting-antarctica/

Here's a quick side by side comparison of the three lenses I mentioned to give you an idea of size - left to right the Canon 10-18mm, Canon 10-22mm and the Sigma 18-35mm. The Sigma is significantly heavier, and probably weighs as much as the other two together. One other possible niggle for the Sigma - the zoom ring goes the opposite way to Canon for zooming in. Both the 10-22mm and Sigma are internal zooms, the 10-18mm does extend when zooming but only by about 0.5cm. edit: as always with these things, when taking photos of of camera equipment is it customary to share a slightly out of focus photograph taken with a phone!

This motor drive is shipped as part of a package with the Starblast on the Orion website. It would let you keep an object in the eyepiece once you have found it Before buying, you might want to confirm you have the standard mount package to ensure it fits. If you want a go-to it looks like you would have to buy a new mount. https://www.telescope.com/mobileProduct/Orion-TD-1-Electronic-DC-Tracking-Drive-for-StarBlast-45-EQ/137398.uts?keyword=Td-1

Thanks for the info - do they ship from the Netherlands and does the £850 include any import fees?

I've just had a read through of the Evolution manual and with Skyalign you don't even need to point the telescope north at the start. The comment on orientation remains valid though as placement of the observatory will block out one quarter of the sky. Might still want to consider keeping one of those visible directions north in case of a mount upgrade in the future.

Interesting review - I've been considering some image stabilised binoculars as we've somehow managed to damage one of our 10x42 binoculars. I had been looking at the Canon 12x36 as they seemed to be closest equivalent at a sensible price. I'd seen the Bresser binoculars but didn't see them anywhere remotely close to £850 - where did you buy them? We use our binoculars for bird watching and general terrestrial use (their main purpose) with sky-watching a secondary activity. There's a lot of good reviews for the Canon - the only thing that has put me off buying so far has been lack of waterproofing, which the Bresser's offer (along with higher magnification). I'd be interested to hear how they perform in daylight and how well CA is controlled.

I admire your no-holds barred commitment to a new hobby! It's worth noting that the observatory you have linked to only offers 270 degree view of the sky so you might want to think carefully about orientation of the observatory in your garden - you will want at least one of those directions to be pointing north to make alignment as easy as possible.

Not quite as wide as the Samyang, but I use a Sigma 18-35mm F1.8. Both the Canon 10-18mm and 10-22mm (the 10-18mm is lighter, cheaper but a bit slower than the 10-22mm) lenses are good alternatives if you want to go wider. I own all three but the Sigma is my go to for aurora and night sky.

Great to hear it's all set up and working. Another place worth looking for accessories is picstop.co.uk. the focuser is out of stock there but is listed at £208. I've bought a celestron powertank pro (£50 cheaper) and a few other bits from them. Back in the early days of digital cameras they used to offer the best prices on memory cards (back when 256mb would cost £100)

They tend to be small, tabletop dobsonians. FLO have a Stellalyra one at 80mm, and there are few (such as the Celestron Firstscope) at 76mm. The latter is certainly targeted at children, and you have to think of the context in which they are offered. Simple to set up, simple to use and no need for the added expense of a wobbly tripod and mount at that price point.

I think you are getting mixed up with the GPS module - Starsense does not set date, time or location - it simply performs an automatic alignment routine.

I think the only challenge is getting a good wedge for the AZ-GTi. I'm using the Skywatcher wedge which can be a bit fiddly to get the altitude locked in - I wish I had spent the extra for the WO wedge which by all accounts is much nicer to use.

There is a thread reviewing and discussing the Evolux 62 in the member equipment reviews section - along with some images:

You could have a look at braided cat5 cables. I have some braided (USB) cables that I use on my mount and they remain flexible in the cold.

This can happen when the scope is pointing quite a distance from where Starsense seems to think it is pointing. Have you checked date, time are entered correctly and the location has not accidently been changed. Also that the scope was pointing north at the start of alignment?

It's so much easier spending someone else's money instead of my own! It's straight forward to fit and after that it does a short calibration to work out the start and end points of the focuser travel.

Just place the order! Looks like 3 months wait time on the FLO website

As noted above, I would go Amazon - if they say they have stock you know it's really there, no surprise import charges and nearly always delivery on time. Most of the US stuff I have ordered has turned up earlier. Just make sure the supplier is Amazon US and not a third party.

I'm using it on an AVX - it doesn't take too much to cause a bit of vibration which can be a hassle when trying to fine focus. As for problems, you implied that there were some common issues with the focuser - I can see that people occasionally have issues with them, but no more or less than you can find for any other.

I use the Celestron focuser on my Edge 8" - it means I don't have to touch the OTA while focussing and reduces any wobble I would otherwise introduce. I haven't read of any particular issues with them though, so I would be interested to know what you have seen. There were reports on here of the ZWO focuser not going full range with some Celestron equipment(software?) but I that has been fixed.

Don't you just follow this diagram (bundled as part of the Celestron CFM update software) - my understanding is the connection to the mount is to power the devices rather than a communication path. You will obviously just have the interface box as an extra connection rather than direct into the mount. Also what are you trying to update? I'm not aware there have been any firmware update to the camera for years, the updates are applied to the software in the handset.

£224 from Amazon.co.uk (but shipped from Amazon US. I've ordered a few hard to get bits recently in the last year using this method without problem. The £224 includes all shipping, import duties and taxes.

The ASI120mm is a good starter guide camera and what I have. My main camera is an ASI533mc but please don't take that as a recommendation simply because I have no experience of any other imaging equipment. Although I've had the kit for a while, I've had little chance to do much imaging so am still very much a novice! Hopefully someone like @vlaiv will be along and be able to recommend a good camera for your chosen scope.

It depends on what you want to image and your budget. I've seen quite a few using the 72ed or a Redcat 51. I use a Williams Optics ZS61. The 72ed is by far the cheapest of those three. Altair 60edf is a more affordable version of the ZS61, and the Altair 60ed (without FPL53 glass) is a similar price to the Skywatcher 72ed.