Gfamily

Bear in mind that moving the secondary will imply moving the focuser as well - which needn't be a problem, but will be more things to move and line up again. You might also consider getting a filterwheel and some filters for the refractor - as that should eliminate a lot of the Chromatic Aberration - Yes, you may need to set the focus each time, but it should be do-able Caveat - not done this myself - so it may be rubbish advice

The orbit of Venus is such that as seen from Earth, its evening apparitions are separated by just over 18 months. In addition, as the planets travel along the ecliptic, the height of the planet in the western sky depends on how that is angled in the evening. As it happens, this angle is greatest in the spring, and shallowest in the autumn. So, two things have come together; firstly, Venus simply wasn't suitably positioned to be visible this spring, and is only just moving away from the sun to allow it to be seen in the evening again. However, because we're later in the year, the angle of the ecliptic to the horizon is less, so Venus will track lower in the sky than last time. In addition, for those of us in more northern latitudes, the summer night sky doesn't get properly dark until after Venus has set (or at all to be honest), so it'll never stand out as much as in 2020

Plus one for this suggestion. Velcro stickypads work well to keep it circular. 2.4m x1.2 m for a fiver wiil supply half your club members too!

Unfortunately, very little astronomical darkness through the summer months. We were able to read a newspaper at 11:30pm inside our tent in July Beautiful scenery, but astronomy would have to wait until later in the year

As Herschel discovered, as well as the visible light, sunlight contains significant amounts of Infra-Red light; and it's that, that causes the damage to the eye. The IR light is absorbed rather than reflected from the moon's surface, so doesn't make it back to us when we look at the moon.

Thanks, that's useful to know.

I'm afraid that getting a setup that'll be usable for telescope astrophotography is simply outside your budget. You could consider a tracker that will work with some of her existing kit, such as the SkyWatcher Star Adventurer, that will allow her to use her cameras and tripods to take long exposure images using wide fields to great effect. Realistically, to get a telescope setup capable of good astrophotography, you would be looking at 3 times your budget. However, you can certainly consider getting a starter telescope to whet her interest, such as something like a 6" dobsonian, which will allow you both to explore the night sky without the need to capture it digitally.

How accurate is your pointing when using Skeye with a 90 degree offset? Does it give you accurate 'Push to' centering on targets to within "eyepiece viewing" precision ?

I bought one as an alternative to a Red Dot Finder, and I use it on both my SCT and my Mak, where it supplants the standard 6x30 straight through finder.

GOTO will take money away that could otherwise be spent on the optics, and it sounds as though you're willing to find your way around the sky yourself, so I would say to go with the Manual approach. If you do buy a 6", 8" or 10" Dobsonian (according to your budget), then I would very much recommend getting the Illustrated Guide to Astronomical Wonders, which is an excellent book for suggesting targets to look at. (The link is to the Google Books Preview page - so you can browse through it and get a feel for it).

That's potentially useful for a friend who is looking at the Celestron StarSense with a Manual mount , but might find Skeye useful as an alternative

I've just bought the Plus version for £5.99 - the advantage of Sky Safari Plus over Stellarium Plus is that the former allows you to adjust and align/sync on your GOTO targets, so you can compensate for any inaccuracies in the GOTO. The only issue I had was in setting the IP address and Port No needed to link to the AZ GTi (127.0.0.1 and 11882 worked for me)

One thing about both Maks and SCTs is that their relatively narrow field of view means that larger DSOs such as Open Clusters don't look at their best. For example, the Double Cluster in Perseus may only be visible as a cluster and a half - and M81/M82 can only be seen together if both of them are hard up against opposite edges of the field of view. Even smaller open clusters can look disappointing, as one of their features is how they stand out as a compact unit against the background scattering of stars. I don't think I really appreciated this until I borrowed a short f/5 refractor last summer, clusters really stood out which made a big difference to the quality of the view. Personally, I have an 8" F/10 SCT and a 5" F/12 Mak - I rarely have them both out at the same time - the 8" comes out for Star Parties and on the rare occasion we go specifically out for a night's observing under dark skies in North Wales, the Mak is what we take on holidays, as it's much more compact both as the OTA and the tripod.

Currently £5.99 for Plus and £19.49 for Pro

Jupiter and Saturn are potentially quite visible low in the East and South East before Sunrise at the moment. Is it possible you were seeing them? If they weren't visibly moving against the backrground stars, then it's far more likely than anything human made.

Given that we live inside a galaxy very similar to M31, I think we can expect that the view from 'close up' would be similar to our view of the Milky Way, i.e. visible but not overwhelmingly bright.

Its an early morning object as we move into May - it'll be an evening object in 4 or 5 months time.

Yes, binoculars are a great idea to start with - and they are 'keepers' too, because they stay useful. Look out for the binocular sky website as there are many reviews of binoculars there, as well as ideas of what to look out for - plus a monthly newsletter you can sign up for. A good book of targets to start with - covering naked eye, binoculars and small telescopes is "Turn Left at Orion" - you can see a preview of the book on Google Books under the link. A planisphere is a circular device where you can match up the time of day and the date and it will show you the relative position of the stars in the sky. As you know, they vary hour by hour across the night and month by month across the year - and (in my view) nothing shows you how this works as simply & elegantly as a well made planisphere. Take one out at night - set it up to match time and day, hold it over your head with the pivot to the North and it'll show you how the constellations are positioned. Whereas a night sky map is just something to leave on a table or maybe bluetack to the wall.

Proplex with sticky velcro pads makes an ideal dew shield too. 2.4m. X 1.2m for less than a fiver from Wickes. Enough for n+1 scopes (the right number of scopes). Lighter than closed cell foam too.

The most fun I've had recently was with a 72mm ED refractor on an AZGTi - under a dark sky. The contrast was lovely to see, clusters stood out like diamonds on satin, nebulae were clearly visible (certainly compared to using my 127 Mak with 3x the focal length). Although the focal length is short I found I could use my shorter length eyepieces more easily than with the Mak, so I could as good views of planets in practise. The views at a dark sky easily beat those obtained from my 8" SCT at home. So if you have a dark sky, a small refractor can be very satisfying. Of course, the very faintest and most challenging targets will be easier with a larger scope, but that's not what you need from a Grab and Go scope.

I'd expect the fairing to be airtight and assembled in a clean room so that the launch maintains sterility of the payload. Separation outside the atmosphere would take any adhering spores away from anything that might end up on the surface.

As I understand it, there are Planetary Protection protocols that set tolerances for sterility depending on the characteristics of the target site. For Mars, landers have different tolerances depending on where they are about to land. I think they avoid areas where it is thought likely that there will be moisture near to the surface for the time being, So missions like Curiosity and Perseverance are in areas that may have had life billions of years ago, but are expected to be sterile now. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planetary_protection

Thanks for the heads-up - prompted me to check prices on Google Play for the Android versions £8.49 (From £12.99) for Plus £23.49 (From £34.49) for Pro

I think this is the sort of thing that using Dark frame images should allow you to manage in post processing. ETA - a quick google for Canon 450d Hot Pixel fix came up with this page - I have no idea whether it will work for you, but it's worth a try https://www.bluehoursite.com/articles/how-get-rid-stuckdead-pixels-canon-dslr-camera

It's very hard to tell, but there are some that have recently been on sale on places like 'Shpock', so my general comments would be: Start on the lowest power - look for the eyepiece with the largest number and use that one. Start with an easy big target - the moon is ideal in the next week, because it's an evening object, big enough to be found if you're in the right general area of the sky, and should allow you to get it properly in focus to the best of the telescope's capability. You might find that the mount is wobbly. If this is a problem, let the scope settle after every adjustment and practice looking through the eyepiece without touching the telescope (except to adjust the focus). When you have the moon centred, go back to the finderscope and check that the centre of the view in the main eyepiece is the same as in the finderscope. If you can get a sharp view after focussing, swap the the next biggest eyepiece ( if you have one)- but if you don't think the view is better, go back to the previous eyepiece. Spend some time looking at the 'terminator' the line of light and shadow between the lit part and the dark parts of the moon. I'd suggest you start to make notes for each session (if you have a smart phone, get some voice notes software) about what you can see (whether good, or not so good). They will be good to look back on, because it can be hard to remember next day what you looked at, and what worked. Your expertise will grow over time, but you'll always come up with problems, so it's good to have a record of how far you have come.