allworlds

I'm not sure visual is much less of a money pit. Personally I don't like observing with glasses but I don't like my eye astigmatism spoiling the stars either. I could get Dioptrx, but a set of even Delites is going to get spendy, never mind ultrawide Tele Vue EPs.

I think Stellarium has the GRS in the wrong place unless you do a custom config? I use this webpage, https://skyandtelescope.org/observing/interactive-sky-watching-tools/transit-times-of-jupiters-great-red-spot/

Just two at the moment, a Heritage 76 and an ETX 105. They actually pair up nicely since the Heritage does widefield and the ETX very much does not. A light bucket of a Dob would be nice but so far I haven't solved the problem of all the neighbours' insecurity lights at home. I previously had a junky refractor, and a 4.5 inch Newt on an awful mount. They both ended up in the bin. That will horrify some but I'm one of two people in the house with a hoarding problem. Selling or donating them would just have given me too much chance to change my mind, I needed them gone.

Yup, that’s M31. It’s fairly bright at mag 3.5 but that’s total, but most of the light does come from the core. The full extent is about as wide as the two stars below it (Nu and 32 And), you’ll need dark skies above all else to see its outskirts. Most galaxies and nebulae are going to look like that but fainter. And that’s not a bad image either.

A fairly large Tesco I sometimes visit recently reshuffled their store a bit, shrinking the magazine and toy sections and expanding the clothes section. Since then, even before Christmas stuff had any impact, I've not seen S@N there. I think they have All About Space but that's not an astronomy magazine exactly.

Over on Reddit it came up that the Astromaster 130 now comes with a poor (spherical) mirror, so it's one to avoid. Really the whole Powerseeker and Astromaster ranges are both not great. I think Skywatcher and Bresser do a better job at the cheap end. Skywatcher's equivalent, with a parabolic mirror like it should have, https://www.firstlightoptics.com/reflectors/skywatcher-explorer-130p.html Personally I don't like Newtonians on equatorial mounts because the eyepiece tends to point in silly directions and the whole tube has to be turned in the rings to orient the eyepiece. (Whereas with a refractor or cassegrain-type you just need to turn the star diagonal.) So I might instead go for something like this. https://www.firstlightoptics.com/reflectors/sky-watcher-skyhawk-1145ps-az-pronto.html . I would have bought a Mak-Cass on the same mount myself actually except it went out of stock. It's overbudget but that same 4 1/2 inch tube is also available on a wifi goto mount, https://www.firstlightoptics.com/sky-watcher-az-go2-telescopes/sky-watcher-skyhawk-1145p-az-go2-wifi-parabolic-newtonian-telescope.html. If your son is like most kids always on a smartphone he might like a telescope he operates from his phone? (On the other hand maybe you'd rather the astronomy gets him away from the gadgets!) Skywatcher used to make a mount called the Avant, that was advertised as alt-az / equatorial dual mode, so he could try both and find which he prefers. That'd be But it's not in production so unless you get lucky finding some new old stock somewhere (or buy used but I'm guessing you'd prefer brand new for a gift) you're out of luck.

Turned out to be clear enough at 11pm. My Mak is at the menders so I was out with the little Heritage 76. Moon first, looked nice at 50x. Jupiter was meh - this really really isn't a planetary scope. So then I used it for what it is good at, widefield, panning across the sky looking at nothing in particular. And soon enough I find a fuzzy, I supposed it to be a cluster but it wouldn't resolve, well of course it wouldn't because it was M31! Then on up into the Milky Way starfields overhead. Only about half an hour overall but half an hour is better than none.

How near are the lights? For looking at anything except the moon and planets you don't want lights shining on you. If they're lighting up your garden then you'll need to either get the lights dealt with - the council may fix a shade if you raise it with them. Or observe elsewhere. If they're a bit further away and you can see them but you're not really in the beam then it's less of a problem. Some people build portable blackout screens to deal with that kind of thing.

Welcome to the forum. Deep-sky imaging is more demanding on the mount than visual use, both because you're usually adding more weight and because you need higher precision and stability. That goes some way to explaining why Skywatcher and FLO sell telescopes on relatively light mounts.

I think two setups might be the way to go, although it makes the budget for imaging tight. Among other things, you won't have to fend off the children asking to look through the scope while you're imaging! What do you have in the way of camera lenses? If you have some good telephoto ones that could remove the need to buy an imaging scope right away.

A bit off topic but what's going on with the field stop there?

I have and can recommend, the Skywatcher Heritage 76. The mount is very stable and easy to use, and it's capable of widefield views which makes finding things easy. I think that along with an introductory book would do the trick. I will admit its weak point is planets; because of the cheap mirror it's only good up to 50-75x or so. It'll show the main features - Saturn's rings, Jupiter's main bands, Venus's phase. Never had much luck on Mars with it. The Moon looks awesome in just about anything. But really just panning the Milky Way, finding open clusters and upping the magnification to resolve them into stars, seeing the easier doubles, seeing cool asterisms like the Coathanger and Kemble's Cascade, that's what it shines out. A good 6 mm eyepiece helps, but a good 6 mm eyepiece costs about as much as the scope did. Now if you can up the budget, the Heritage 100P is a better purchase. Its parabolic mirror will make a big difference to the lunar and planetary views. There's a few other scopes around similar to both. The main thing to watch for is the eyepieces. The Skywatcher ones come with "MA" (Modified Achromat) eyepieces which are alright. Kellners are also alright, but Huygens and Ramsden eyepieces are an economy too far. Edit: Oh, and these are strictly for astronomical use, because the image is upside-down. If he might be more interested in nature viewing than in astronomy, a refractor would be a better choice. It's just nearly impossible to find a refractor on a decent mount and tripod for 70 quid.

For the tabletop telescopes, you just need *something* to put them on, but you do want it to be something good and rigid. I use a wooden stool, and another one to sit on. I have heard of people using the 130P with both the scope and themselves directly on the ground, probably works best with a picnic blanket on a nice lawn. Or some of them can be fitted to a tripod, you'll need a decent one though.

It looks like a broomstick 😀 Just need a few twigs and it'll be ready to take off. Very fitting for Halloween night.

Since this is running. Spherical aberration isn't a function of f/ratio alone. My understanding is it's proportional to diameter divided by f/ratio cubed. (Or equivalently, to diameter^4 divided by focal length cubed.) The classic 4.5 inch f/8 sphere is OK, not perfect but OK, but a 9 inch f/8 sphere would have spherical aberration twice as bad. But a 5 inch f/5 sphere is lousy. Worse than the 3 inch f/4 spheres in the mini Dobs, and they have the excuse of being a very cheap telescope with a good mount. I'm sceptical about whether the Astromaster 130 EQ has a spherical primary or whether Celestron customer service reps just don't understand their products. I've read reports of mirrors that were poorly corrected but not completely spherical. But it's easiest to not take the chance, better scopes can be bought new. If anyone's looking at a second-hand Astromaster 130 EQ, bring along a short FL eyepiece and simply try focusing it at high power before buying. (Or better, do a star test, but a simple "will it focus at 130-ish times" test will show up a spherical primary I reckon.)

Mars for me. I felt the conditions were handling 200x (15mm Plossl and 2x Barlow in ETX105) but the planet showed a clear phase but I never saw any definite surface features. Some maybe-it’s-real maybe-not sort of things but nothing certain. I tried all my (rubbish) filters to no real success.

I just wish the Met Office cloud cover maps used clearer colours. It's white on light green, very difficult to tell whether it's supposed to be dead clear or light cloud.

Nicely done. I owe it to the planetary imagers like you doing rapid turnarounds so I can confirm what I saw visually was real and not me imagining things

Jupiter for me in the 105 Mak. At 45x I thought a moon was missing, but up to 100x and I realised it was two of them close together. My guesses as to their identity were completely wrong. Best view was 150x, going to 200 didn't seem to bring any more detail and focusing was too touchy, now I know why ETX owners add bigger focusing knobs. I watched through the end of the shadow transit (the second one to finish, I completely missed the first). I was surprised at the apparent separation, about 1 Jupiter diameter, between moon and shadow - it feels like opposition was so recent but already the Sun-Jupiter-Earth angle is that much. Besides the obvious moon shadow I distinguished a sort of bulge in the NEB, darker shading towards the north pole, and two thin belts in the south as well as the SEB. I'm not actually sure which moon was casting the shadow? The larger of the two tonight. Does Ganymede cast the bigger shadow (because it's bigger) or Europa (because it's closer)? Then a fruitless hunt for Neptune. I was surrounded by too much light from neighbouring houses to stand a chance.

It's not much but these are mine. Dang solar observing shows up all the dirt on the eyepieces. ETX 105, Meade 32 mm Plossl, iPhone SE 2022 handheld. Made a filter for my Meade ETX 105 from my remaining Baader solar film and make the classic mistake with the stuff but had to use it anyway, and had an offcut left to make an "eclipse goggle" with. Had a lot of trouble finding the Sun with the scope with it being visible for just fleeting moments sometimes, until I dug out an old inclinometer to set the altitude - it was imprecise but still helped me find it. Conditions were better for the second half of the eclipse and I was able to watch through last contact. Shoulda used my Heritage 76 instead, much easier to find things with that. Visually the edge of the Moon was clearly irregular, and on the Sun itself two large sunspots and four smaller ones at 46x, and upping the power to 74x revealed a few more tiny ones mostly companions to the larger. I had to set up in the rear so no chance to show it to neighbours, and my family saw it naked eye but I couldn't really keep them outside while I faffed around with the scope.

Despite the artefacts, still a really cool image. Did you have it on the tracking mount?

Nothing identifiable except for Saturn. I made a trip out to Barr Beacon. I thought the gates were closed to cars at night but they obviously weren't so after someone parked up directly facing me with their headlights blaring I left in disgust. I was trying and failing to find M13 at the time, but the combination of the mirror image and not really knowing the finder's FOV did my head in. Might be a decent location in general but the picnic tables are a no-go for astro, I'll need to get well away from the tarmac if I go again.

I own and can suggest the Skywatcher Heritage 76. That said I came into it already with experience with binoculars and knowing what to expect. And it's lousy on planets. Get the 100P if you can afford it.

The Meade ETX manual mentions this effect in an imaging context. The EXT 105 is nominally 1470 mm focal length, but when a camera is mounted on the back the T-adapter lengthens the light path and the result is a 1640 mm focal length, or 1830 with a longer adapter. So a surprisingly large change.

Assuming you have a camera lens, for deep sky I'd start with that. Either piggyback the camera on the scope, or remove the scope altogether and fit the camera to the mount with a bracket. You'll need to keep subs short because an alt-az mount experiences field rotation. Cracking scope for planetary imaging but you'd ideally want a different camera for that. https://www.sdfalchetti.com/blog-1/2021/1/16/astrophotography-with-the-nexstar-8se