John

A barlow lens actually increases the eye relief. This can be a blessing or a curse depending on your preferences.

I think a flashing light means flat batteries ? The RA starts to track as soon as the hand set is switched on - no lights show. The lights only show when a directional button is pressed. You won't notice the RA tracking movement and it's very quiet.

I think these are the same eyepieces optically but £40 less expensive and in less flashy bodies: https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B07BFWFVNP/ref=sspa_dk_detail_5?psc=1&spLa=ZW5jcnlwdGVkUXVhbGlmaWVyPUFZN0xVOTZHTDcxTTUmZW5jcnlwdGVkSWQ9QTA3MDIzOTYxNTVFVU1ONklUSU4wJmVuY3J5cHRlZEFkSWQ9QTEwNDE2MjYxVjE3WDYwV1c5V0M3JndpZGdldE5hbWU9c3BfZGV0YWlsMiZhY3Rpb249Y2xpY2tSZWRpcmVjdCZkb05vdExvZ0NsaWNrPXRydWU= They have been marketed under a lot of different brandings over the years including Skywatcher. In your 8 inch F/5.9 dob they work quite well. The 9mm is the best one. Dont expect the stars at the field edges to be sharp though. I've owned and used a set quite happily but that was quite a few years back and my scope then was an F/10 5 inch schmidt cassegrain.

Good information Stu (and Geoff just now) I'd forgotten that a transit could be observed in a single session (daft because I've done it myself ) but also didn't link that to the time it takes for a moon to pass behind the planet. I hope the other info in my post is correct

Here is quite a bit of information about the comet and it's current location and brightness: https://theskylive.com/c2019q4-info According to that it is magnitude 16 which would need a very large aperture scope to see.

You see reappearances or disappearences of a moon but not both on the same moon in the same session - passing behind Jupiter takes quite a few hours. One interesting effect is that the reappearence of a moon does not always happen exactly as predicted because the moon can remain in the shadow of Jupiter even when it's clear of the planets limb in a line of sight sense. Seeing a moon suddenly pop into view some distance away from the limb can give you a little surprise. Very occasionally two moons do this during a session: https://astrobob.areavoices.com/2011/12/29/jupiters-moons-reappear-out-of-thin-air-tonight/ Observing for some time though mainly helps in discerning more subtle planetary features. Initially the view of Jupiter, for example, might just show the two main equatorial belts but over time your eye adjusts and begins to tease out further belts and also festoons, eddies and the red spot (if it is on our side of the planet). If conditions are decent you are usually able to see quite a bit more detail after an hour at the eyepiece than you saw when you first started to observe.

Here is another perspective of this fascinating area. This image was taken from the Apollo 16 Command Module in 1972:

We care mate ! Going to get a t-shirt made up with this from your original post: "Astronomy - the PERFECT antidote to the crappy week"

This relates to planetary observing as well as deep sky objects of course !

The more you look, the more you see Nice report on your latest M42 encounter - sounds great !

Nice report Doug - one of my favourite areas of the lunar surface to observe I snapped the rather basic pic below with my mobile phone at the eyepiece of my 12 inch dob a while back which I think shows the two features that you describe so well:

Nice "heads up" The main challenge of this split from the UK is that Sirus does not rise that high in the sky. That said, I've split it quite often with my 12 inch dobsonian, a few times with my 130mm triplet refractor and a couple of times last Winter with my Tak 100mm refractor. I've found magnifications between 180x and 280x the most effective. The seeing conditions need to bs reasonably steady to give the best chance of the split from here. This is a sketch I did of Sirius as observed with my 12 inch dobsonian back in February this year:

Personally I would suggest just getting the scope and a decent star atlas such as "Turn Left at Orion" to start with. There are loads of accessories that can be purchased and many are very useful but narrowing down what to invest in for you is going to be easier when you have a little practical experience under your belt.

My astro society purchased a Meade LX600 12 inch last year. Complex scope, if it goes wrong, I would think. It would be a shame if Meade does go to the wall. They have produced some better products over the past couple of years.

This is absoloutely true from my experience. I've owned dobs in 8, 10 and now 12 inch apertures. Goodness knows what size (and cost) an equatorial mount would need to be to hold my 12 inch F/5.3 dob steady but the simple plywood dobsonian mount that an SGL friend made for me holds the scope easily steady enough to use 300x or even 400x magnification. The atmospheric conditions are the limit on what can be usefully used, not the mounting. The Skywatcher Skyliner 200P is an excellent scope - good choice !

How does a star test look ? That is the most important thing

Although it's fit and finish are not in the same league as the AZ100, the Skytee II would fall into the category that you mention. I did compare the AZ100 with my Skytee II and the latter held up surprisingly well considering the price difference. Not quite as good at vibration damping but not far off. But if you want something new, shiny and black, the Skytee II is not that of course !

I don't know where you are but we had very dewey conditions here (North Somerset, UK) last night. My scope and finders don't usually suffer from dew much but last night I was repeatedly having to clear the dew off the finders last night. I keep my eyepieces at a bit warmer than outside temperature which stops them dewing / misting. So as Paz says, depending where you are (including height above sea level and proximity to water bodies) dew formation can vary a lot session to session.

With the F/10 SCT I'd be tempted to go for a BST Starguiders rather than a Hyperion. You can get 2 BST Starguiders for the same price as a single Hyperion and their optical quality is pretty much the same at that focal ratio. Actually I think the BST's are better corrected in faster scopes as well. You could go for the 15mm for 133x and the 12mm for 167x or even the 8mm for 250x. The Baader FT rings are an interesting concept but somewhat fiddly to fit in "field conditions" because they involve opening up the optics of the eyepiece. Or at least thats what I found when I tried them. I think I'd rather use a decent quality barlow rather than an FT ring.

Baader did just this with their 32mm Classic plossl although it's a plastic push fit extension. The AFoV of that eyepiece is a bit less than 50 degrees though. I prefer the TV 32mm plossl with the eye guard extender to the Baader 32 pl despite the price difference.

Its good to know, from a reliable and experienced observer, that you can get a decent eyepiece that will enable your scope perform well and provide enjoyable views, for under £20.00 Thanks for posting this Dave.

The main additional features that the enhanced drive set has is a 16x max slew speed and for imagers an autoguider port on the control handset. Skywatcher also do the enhanced kit for the EQ3-2 mount - I've realised that you did not specify the mount that is involved.

I have the Skywatcher Enhanced EQ5 dual axis drive fitted to my Vixen GP mount. Straightforward to fit and does just what it says on the tin. The batteries seem to last for quite a few sessions. I don't image though, just a visual observer.

The FC-100 Taks have Fluorite as the rear element and use the Steinheil design.

I spent 2 hours sharing Neptune this evening at an outreach event. Many of the 60 or so observers commented on it's blue tint but noticably more so the younger observers a few of which felt the blue tint was quite striking. I've noticed this before when sharing the views of coloured double stars so my conclusion is that younger eyes are the most sensitive to colour tints and older eyes much more variable. Very unscientific but fun ! The scope was my ED120 refractor at 281x.