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If you can't get the S&T Pocket Sky Atlas, you might want to consider the Cambridge Atlas of Herschel Objects, which seems to be available second hand for more reasonable prices.

One critical difference between HST and JWST is that JWST always has to be oriented within much narrower range of angles relative to the Sun, so that the sunshield remains effective. This means that at any time the Scope can only observe a band between 85 and 135 degrees from the Sun - but it can be rotated to see anything within this band. I assume that the use of the tertiary mirror allows fine guidance while reducing the need to use reaction wheels or propellant. Over the year, this band will cover the complete celestial sphere. You may recall that one of the first deployments was the Aft Momentum Flap - this is a 'hard fix' that was implemented to try and negate some of the torque that is imparted by the pressure of sunlight on the SunShield. Because the centre of impulse of the sunlight isn't coincident with the centre of mass of the JWST, there would always be a turning motion caused by sun pressure, and the Aft Momentum Flap is designed to reduce this by a fixed amount - however, the negating effect depends on the exact angle of the Sun - so my expectation is that the science team will try and keep observations to a much narrower range than the 85 to 135 degrees as, ultimately, the torque has to be dissipated by using the limited store of propellant.

I believe there was a discussion in today's Nasa TV transmission about this. As @AstroKeith mentioned, with the sunshield deployed, it's dark - there's no source of illumination on the 'business' side of the telescope brighter than Sirius, so there's no point in having a camera without the addition of an light source, and if it's to be of any diagnostic use it'll need to be steerable and zoomable and ... etc etc. Simply not worth it. On the Sunshield side, where would you put it? For it to be any use, it'll need some 'stand off' or otherwise you're stuck with a single field of view - simply not worth the weight, and the risk of it causing a problem in itself.

Planetary imaging is straightforward with this mount. The best approach is to capture a video stream and use Autostakkert to process the file to select and stack the best images. The fact that it's an AltAz mount is not a problem.

If meant as a pun, bravo!

Unfortunately, Synscaninit is no longer on Google Play. However, it can be downloaded as an APK from some other sites. If you download the Synscan app, the 'Location' settings page gives you the data in the right format - just make sure the longitude has 3 digits for degrees.

On my phone it looks as though Sky Safari Plus will allow you to Goto a satellite's position, but it doesn't actively track it , but continually tapping the goto button will keep the scope moving with the satellite. Not ideal, but it might work for you. ------------- I've never done it myself, but my Meade LS 8 scope allows for satellite TLEs to be imported into the handset and it'll allow you to track a satellite. Basically, you tell it in advance which satellite you want to watch, it goes to an early position on the arc, and you wait at the eyepiece and press 'Enter' when it comes into the fov. The scope will then track the satellite across the sky. That's the principle anyway. As I say, I've not tried it myself. I would assume that other Meade Autostar controlled scopes will do the same.

Mark is a great guy and well worth following on Twitter. We first came across him at Bluedot Festival when he gave one of the early talks in one of the tents. There were technical problems with the screens, and he was able to gave an absolutely flawless first half of his talk without them. When the technical team managed to get the screen working, he quickly ran through the slides and effortlessly picked up the talk to completion. A real Pro. We saw him again at the Solarsphere festival the year later and had a great chat with him in the bar afterwards.

I think the HST is moving much too quickly in its orbit to be able to get much of an image. It would need to slew at a very a-typical rate to be able to image something only a few 100,000 km away. Given the very recent issues with HST itself, they wouldn't want to risk running the existing 'best space telescope' outside its normal use case envelope for an uncertain gain.

If travel restrictions are lifted, we're aiming to get back out to Astrofarm France at the beginning of April to try and do my first Messier Marathon. Later in the year, we have outstanding re-booked tickets for Bluedot Festival (under the dish of the Lovell telescope at Jodrell Bank) in July, and the ever brilliant Solarsphere music and astronomy festival in August. In between, we hope to get back out to Astrofarm, simply because it's a great place to be.

The mirrors have individual actuators that'll be used as part of the initial collimation, and i assume they'll also be able to re align any mirror element that gets knocked out of position in an impact. What would be interesting is if they can move a very damaged element enough to make sure it was not sending any light to the focal plane

After having had the loan of a 72mm Lightwave ED refractor since 2020, I was very pleased to find one at a good price on Ebay this September. Fantastic piece of kit, and perfect with my AZ-GTi.

Massive amount of fisheye distortion in that image. Check out the shape of the doorway on the right. 🙂

This is a good dashboard for tracking its progress and stages in the deployment https://www.jwst.nasa.gov/content/webbLaunch/whereIsWebb.html

According to a tweet from Mark McCaughrean (@markmccaughrean), the rain wasn't a particular problem, but the wind direction would have been. A northerly wind on Friday meant it wouldn't be safe to launch then, but the direction is due to change by Saturday. Mark McCaughrean is the Senior Advisor for Science & Exploration at ESA; well worth following if you're on Twitter, and a great speaker if you ever get s chance to hear him.

With a current adverse weather forecast for Friday, the target launch date has now been put back to Saturday. Launch window remains at 12:20 UTC. The forecast will be reviewed again on Wednesday https://www.esa.int/Science_Exploration/Space_Science/Webb/Webb_new_target_launch_date

Oh wow - shared with a couple of FB groups - in particular how it simplifies developing an image from the data

It looks as though it's been removed from Google Play. I don't recommend this, but if you Google Synscaninit APK, you can find other places where it can be downloaded, as fifeskies has linked However, you can't guarantee that there won't be added malware, so I personally wouldn't recommend it. But if you're prepared to, it's there

Shared with my Astro Club on their Facebook page.

A further delay, now "no sooner than 24th December " https://blogs.nasa.gov/webb/2021/12/14/webb-space-telescope-launch-date-update

If you want to use a phone/tablet rather than a computer, you can also use Stellarium Plus or Sky Safari Plus / Pro. You do the initial alignment with Synscan, but then can link to control it via the App. Stellarium Plus currently £14.49 Sky Safari Plus currently £6.49 Pro £17.99

DSO will probably be out of the question with a dob. You'll need longer exposures than a Dob will allow. Planets may be do-able by capturing video streams as the planet crosses the field of view. You can then download the video stream to a laptop for processing in PIPP and AutoStakkert . There are various mounts that will attach a phone to the eyepiece. I would personally recommend the Celestron NeXYZ - which is in the range you're looking for. It has slow-mo controls which make adjustments easier. I've tried cheaper mounts, but my view is you need to be an octopus to be able to hold everything in place and tighten everything up.

Yes, as far as I can tell, the mount will take any scope with a Vixen type dovetail.

You shouldn't have any problem using the phone as a control device at the eyepiece. I'd be one of the ones to suggest the 150 Newtonian rather than the 127 Maksutov with your children. Firstly, when used as a table top scope, I think it's easier for children to look at the eyepiece from the side. YMMV of course. Secondly, the field of view is wider which has a couple of advantages * the accuracy of the GOTO becomes less critical (and if it gets nudged a bit, it's easier to re-find the targets ) * many open clusters simply don't fit in the fov of the 127. The Double Cluster (for example) turns into the cluster and a half. Finally, for any table top scope with children, if you suggest they put their hands on the table first, then they'll be less tempted to grab hold of the eyepiece as they look through it.

This Energizer is my favourite head lamp as the right button switches on the red light whereas the left button does the white. https://www.torchdirect.co.uk/energizer-head-torches/S9180.html Often available for less from 7dayshop.