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That's useful to know - I'll edit my previous post to clarify

How about leaving the OTA safely just inside the front door on our way to a star party. Fortunately, it rained all weekend.

Got all but the 'Muscle man' I think.

There was a mention of the binocularsky.com website earlier - its author Steve Tonkin has written a '10 Autumn binocular targets' for Sky at Night magazine. https://www.skyatnightmagazine.com/advice/skills/binocular-astronomy-targets-autumn/ MrsG spent a very fruitful yesterday evening picking them out at Astrofarm France with our 15x70s on a tripod.

If you're wiring your own connector, make sure you know which terminal is expected to be positive. Unless the motherboard is protected against reverse polarity, it could be distressing to get it wrong.

The other point raised in that thread is the benefit of using the L bracket as it means you can re-check the polar scope after centring on the target. But that's only an issue if you're not using the L bracket. Hope you get it sorted anyway.

Have you checked the alignment of the polar scope itself? There's a good SGL post here that outlines what's needed, and it can be a daytime check.

Not on Vyrnwy, but a favoured location for nightscape photography is the car park below Alwen Reservoir. This is about 30 minutes from Bala.

If you are imaging, you can use software to simulate the effects of an ADC. Registax6 and Autostakkert have an RGB Align option that will recentre the three colour images after stacking. http://www.ianmorison.com/combating-atmospheric-dispersion/ Not tried it myself, but Ian generally knows what he's talking about.

I had the opposite with Saturn once (a long time ago admittedly), where I was observing it with my 114mm Newt, and wondered why it was looking a little 'softer' than usual. Took my eye away from the EP and Saturn had gone - lost behind a bank of cloud - but still visible through the eyepiece.

A very good point. There's two ways that can work. 'Freedom Find' has a way of keeping track any movements you make manually (using encoders), so once you have it aligned you can move it manually and you can still use the GOTO. There are also mounts that have clutches, so you can move it manually, but then it's lost alignment. For SkyWatcher, the AZ GTi has Freedom Find, there's also the AZ GTe that only has clutches. For any of the mounts listed, the scope can take other telescopes if they're on the same type of dovetail bracket. So you could look at the Heritage 130p now and think about mounting it on a GOTO mount later. One thing I've heard (but I don't know if it's still an issue) is that Celestron mounts were less happy with rechargeable batteries. I've not had a particular problem with SkyWatcher mounts using rechargeable AA cells.

I've seen reports that the upper field at Forest Fields campsite in Mid Wales is good for astronomy, but you'd need to check. https://www.fforestfields.co.uk/

An interesting observation about using the AZ GTi with both the app and a handset (I started with a SynScan and bought the AZ GTi earlier this year). I'm currently out at the Astrofarm astronomy centre in the Charente, so able to make good use of the higher proportion of useable nights for observing. The alignment with the App is very straightforward and much easier than using the handset - the GPS provides the location and time/date info behind the scenes, and both the Two-Star and Level and North alignments are very straightforward. There's a useful feature of the L&N alignment method that seems to be designed for cloud ridden UK observers - I'll come back to that... As regards the use of a handset, I can certainly see the point that having a physical handset can make it easier to make adjustments at the eyepiece by touch, but what I notice is that if I've aligned using the app, and adjust using the handset, the object then isn't tracked, so if I have used the handset at all, I use the app to do the final up and right (even if that's only momentarily) and the scope will track after that. Another feature that I'm going to explore is that the SynScan app can be used with the telescope control built into the Pro or Plus versions of Sky Safari 6. This is easier done on Android I'm told, so long as battery optimisation is switched off for the Synscan app. On iPhones, you need to have two devices, one to have the Synscan running, and the other to have the Sky Safari running. I've not tried it myself, but the weather is looking good here for tomorrow, so that will be something i'll explore. A post below by Captain Magenta indicates that this may not be the current position, as s/he has both working on an iPhone8 About the Level and North and its useful feature: if you want to look at a planet or the Moon (so you don't need a GOTO, but you do want to have tracking), you don't really need to check the alignment of the two stars - and in principle you don't even need to be able to see them. So, let it go to where it thinks Arcturus is - click OK, then let it go to where it thinks Altair is (or whatever the two stars are). If you started pretty close to Level and North, then your alignment may be a few degrees off, but the tracking will be good enough. I found this useful when I had my first view of Saturn earlier in the year - most of the rest of the sky was either clouded out, or behind the trees in our garden, but Saturn was just about visible. So I 'faked' a L&N alignment and did a GOTO of Saturn - it was about 5 degrees out, but easily found in the finder and was then easily tracked for almost 1/4 hour.

If it's the 102 Maksutov design, I wouldn't consider it. It's fine for really bright objects like the moon and planets, but it's not really got the aperture for much deep sky work, unless you can get to dark sky locations. I bought the 102mm as that's what I could afford at the time, but I should have pushed the budget to go for the 127mm Mak instead. I picked one up second hand a few years ago and it's now my go to GOTO scope.

I have the Star Adventurer and am very happy with it. Lots of my fellow club members have one too. I don't think I'd recommend the 'mini' version though. From what I recall, that one has a smaller payload and I'm not sure the WiFi capability adds that much to the package. Get the Astro Pack with the L bracket and counterweight, it makes it possible to check your polar alignment with the camera in place. Although I don't recommend the Mini version, the SAM Console app that goes with it is good for showing what to see in the 'polar clock' when aligning.

The UK is currently benefitting from being away from the main Jetstream, so you're getting very clear views (clouds permitting) - despite the ecliptic being at relatively low altitude. We're currently in France, so our views of the planets are atrocious. https://www.netweather.tv/charts-and-data/jetstream

I went to a talk about work being done by the University of Sheffield at the Zaatari refugee camp in Lebanon, and one of the comments was that there's nothing that a farmer needs that can't be made with a welding kit and an angle grinder.

I've not guided, but I'm pretty sure a friend with the SA used a 6x30 finder scope with an ASI 120 as the guide camera. Mounted it on the counterweight bar and used it for 10 minute exposures using a 440mm scope and dSLR

Moon imaged using a 32mm eyepiece and phone camera adapter It fits

Steve Tonkin is one of the acknowledged experts on binoculars in the UK His Binocular Sky website is one of the best places to get information about binoculars (and his monthly newsletter will give you advice on how to use them). One of his recommendations for 'reasonably priced' binoculars is the Opticron Adventurer 10x50 WP (WP indicating that they should be resistent to dew getting inside) Review here http://binocularsky.com/reviews/Opticron_Adventurer_T_WP_10x50.pdf

I don't know if it's illegal to give the lamp post a good wobble (works better with metal ones than concrete ones). They are usually fitted with cut off devices to cut live power from the base in the event of a traffic accident, so it's not doing anything that isn't part of the design requirements. As I say, I don't know if it's illegal.

I've put a link to this thread on our club Facebook page, and created a PDF of your list that people can download/print off. Hope you're ok with that.

@SteveWolves beat me to it by a fraction. A Philips Planisphere is the place to start. Make sure you get one for your latitude range, and I'd say avoid the 'glow in the dark' ones. They don't have as much detail, and the 'glow' is likely to be too bright at the start of a session, and not visible by the end. If it's still visible, you've not been out long enough 😀 They have the brighter stars named, and they will help you distinguish your Caph from your Sadr. To track your progress, get a notebook and make notes of what you've done each time, maybe aim to concentrate on a constellation or two, and sketch them, and make notes on your impressions. If looking at planets, see what else is around them, Jupiter takes 12 years or so to go around the Zodiac, so it'll be different from season to season. But keep an eye out for anything that takes your fancy, and note it down.

For focusing, set your camera to Manual Focus, then set the focus ring to the infinity symbol. Next, mount your camera on a tripod, or equivalent, set the 'short' shutter setting (it doesn't need to be 10 seconds) and set the iso to a really high setting and take a 5 second exposure of the sky including some bright stars. Look at the shot just taken, and use the image zoom to have a closer look at the bright stars near the centre. If they are tiny, you're ok, but if they show as small circles, mske a small adjustment in one direction and repeat. Compare the size of the star, if larger, go the other way, if smaller, try a little more and take another shot until it's as small as you can get. When done, without touching the focus ring, set the iso back to a lower level like 800

Hi Matt I can't give a definitive answer about the problem with using a Barlow, but one of the things that a Barlow does its to move the focal plane further out, so it's possible that (for the PDS scope) the Barlow moves the focal plane too far out for the focuser to be usable with an eyepiece. You may have more luck with a higher power eyepiece (though less need to use one with a Barlow of course!)