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The downside of the SkyMax is that it has a relatively narrow field of view, and a long focal length, which has two effects. - the narrow field of view means that you need to be spot on with your alignment or otherwise you could find your actual target is outside your field of view - the long focal length can reduce the contrast of extended faint objects There's a lot to be said for the Az GTi as a mount, and with a light weight scope it works really well - however, my experience of using it with the 127 Mak is that it's not always spot on with finding its targets, and not hitting the targets can be extremely frustrating (believe me, I know this !!) I would suggest going for a lower tech solution, and would suggest you start with a Heritage 130p manual dobsonian scope. It has a nice wide field of view, and gives excellent images of clusters, the Moon and planets (with a Barlow lens to give the extra image size). One advantage of this is that your son will be able to get it out and use it by himself. One feature of the Heritage over other 'table top' telescopes is that optics can be removed from the table-top mount and mounted onto the AZ GTi, which will give you the advantage of freedom find and wifi controls. Now, in fairness I have to say that I do have a 127Mak and it is generally the first scope I go to for observing - but I often get frustrated with it, and I can see how people can be put off when it doesn't work as well as I thing it ought to. In short, rather than risking you and your son getting frustrated by the tech, start by going for something that allows a simpler, lower tech approach to whet your interests. Hope this helps

I fear that many things included on 'Tonight's Best' tours are likely to come under the category of 'faint fuzzies', and if you're looking under moderate levels of light pollution, they may be much less obvious than you might expect. If you want to check out your scope's capabilities, start with things that are not going to be swamped out. So my suggestions would be... Start with Mizar and Alcor as it shows the power of the scope to clarify what you can just make out with the naked eye. Albireo in Cygnus - is worth looking at as a double star with different colours Epsilon Lyrae (the double double) is worth examining under higher magnifications, as it can help you determine the quality of your image - how well can you identify that each of the 'double' is also a double? Messier 13 in Hercules, should be visible under moderate levels of light pollution, but it will look better if you can get to a dark sky site. https://www.lightpollutionmap.info/#zoom=11.41&lat=51.7710&lon=-2.1932&layers=B0TFFFFFFFFFFFFFFF And, of course there are the two early evening planets, Jupiter and Saturn - if you can get to a location with a good South/West aspect in the early evening, it'll be rewarding to observe them telescopically. All the best with this - and clear skies.

If you're unsure, the SyncscanInit App on your (android) phone will give you the location and the time/zone data to enter into the handset in exactly the right format

As well as using apps as others have suggested, it can be an idea to take a pair of binoculars out with you as the wider field of view can make it easier for you to get a better idea of where the scope needs to be pointed. They can be used as an intermediate stage between 'naked eye' and 'finderscope' You can also build your own star hop charts to try to familiarise yourself with how to move between the bright stars and your targets. Attached is one I prepared for hopping to M81 & M82 using Cartes de Ciel and MS Word Word

I know Mercury's best evening visibility is in February, so it's a question of whether it is still reasonably possible to observe it a few weeks later, when it's good for the Messier Marathon.

We're under a pretty extreme jetstream at the moment, so that might be affecting your view of the planets. I was out watching Jupiter and Saturn early this evening, before it was properly dark, and although I could just make out the bands of Jupiter, they were pretty much coming and going.

What's the interval between the images? Any satellite at the height of the ISS will only take a fraction of a second to cross the Moon, and any other satellites would be similar. If the moon was near the celestial equator it could be a geostationary satellite which would take longer to cross the Moon, but I don't think it would have that parh I'd say it's possibly a balloon, possibly a high altitude weather balloon.

I like to explain why Mercury is best seen as a Morning object in November whereas it's a good Evening object in February. It's all to do with the angle that the ecliptic makes with the horizon and how it varies over the year and over the 12 hours between morning and evening. With Mercury only having a small range of distances from the Sun, it's best observed when it as as high as possible above the horizon. These are for the Northern Hemisphere of course, the Southern Hemisphere has the seasons the other way around

Usefully, you can also connect to it from the Plus versions of the Stellarium and Sky Safari apps, so you can use those for GOTO as well as the SynScan apps (each around £6.50 - £7.50) You may need to adjust the battery optimisation settings for the app, but it's a neat way of using the mount. I use the Stay Awake app to keep my phone from sleeping.

That price has just been dropped from (I think) £280. I can't really say it's a case of scalping.

An alternative approach is to insulate the OTA, as that also reduces the air currents.

Under the tab

At the time, Hey was working with the Army Operations Research Group, so it may be worthwhile looking online to see if they had any establishments in Richmond Park. Hey's work on Cygnus A is associated with that of Parsons and Phillips, so you could also try searching against their names.

An advantage of the Heritage 'table top' scopes is that the OTAs have a dovetail, so they can be remounted on an upgraded mount later. Edit: There's a certain amount of setting up if you want to use a tracking scope, but the manufacturers are making it very straightforward. You could look at the SkyWatcher Discovery 150 scope, which is about £450, but the Heritage will be one that you'll probably find easier for your son to use. You will need to know the locations of the brightest stars (as you use them for the initial alignment), for which I strongly recommend getting a planisphere (you can often buy them in The Works with a star chart or guide book for about a tenner). As for cost, yes, they'll be a few hundred £££ new, but you can often find them second hand for more reasonable prices.

The mount seems to have a payload of about 9kg, and the usual advice is that for astrophotography you should aim for loading no more than 50% the payload, particularly for DSO imaging. A smaller OTA may work with that mount, but I would be concerned that a 130 - 150 mm aperture scope would overload it.

A factor to be taken into consideration is the 'optical depth' of the stellar atmosphere, which depends on the amount of ionisation that determines how far light can travel before being absorbed and re-radiated. So; it's the free electrons that will prevent light from the exterior having a free path to your eyes. As recall, the 'surface' of a star is the depth at which a photon has a 70% chance of directly making it out of the star. Below that, even without the local radiation, you wouldn't be able to see the 'outside' universe (similar to the way that even thin cloud blocks our view of the night sky).

The Heritage 130p that has been recommended above is a very good scope. Compact when not in use, it's straightforward to use, and has very good optics for the price. The design came out of the work of an organisation called Astronomers Without Borders, that was looking to create a telescope that could be used to encourage interest in astronomy in developing countries. It's one that can be upgraded too - as it can easily be moved to a different mount later on.

I'd be very pleased with that image! It's worth checking the position of the Jetstream, as that's going to make a significant difference to the quality of your sky. https://www.netweather.tv/charts-and-data/jetstream It wasn't particularly good last weekend (from https://www.metcheck.com/WEATHER/jetstream_archive.asp) , but was better last night

A mobile phone running planetarium software such as Sky Safari can, in principle, be used as a sort of 'Push to' finder for telescopes - you'll need to get a suitable bracket to line it up with the scope get an accurate alignment of the phone with the sky Basic Stellarium mobile doesn't seem to do this, but Stellarium Mobile Plus (£7.49 on Android) or the free Sky Safari 6 will work for this. I'm sure there are others as well.

I've tried looking at images online, but it's not clear how the scope connects to the mount. It looks as though there might be a short dovetail, and if that has a 1/4" threaded bolt hole, then you might be able to attach it to a tripod. I have a couple of Skywatcher Maksutov scopes with mounting holes on the dovetail, but you'd need to check what there is on your scope. If it doesn't, you could look for tube rings that would hold the scope and allow it to be tripod mounted.

You can get sticky velcro pads that might work equally as well.

Hmm, I'm trying to be helpful to the OP and to anyone else that has a similar problem. Saying "you want to be looking at something at least a mile away" is very misleading if taken at face value. Most people can find something 200 metres away from their gardens in the daytime, whereas only a minority could see something a mile away. It's not being pedantic to point this out.

Yes, but it's very misleading to imply that unless you have a clear view of at least a mile then there's no point. If your focuser doesn't have 5mm of travel you have other problems

I wouldn't go that far, if you can find a target that's 200 metres away, it'll only change the focus position by about 5mm (for a 100cm focal length Newtonian). Yes, it needs to be something outside your garden, but a distant tv aerial or streetlight should be usable.

You wouldn't normally use a diagonal on a Newtonian , but it might be worth taking a photo of the focuser with the eyepiece in place.