allworlds

With binoculars or a smaller scope I got on well with Taki's Star Atlas, but I don't know if it's deep enough for your needs. Goes down to mag 6.5 stars, fainter DSOs naturally, six charts cover each hemisphere (I found I didn't need the southern ones), they're listed as A3 but are fine printed onto A4. So rather smaller and less detailed than the books mentioned by other posters. It might be useful if you want something to "bridge the gap" between a planisphere and a more detailed atlas. http://takitoshimi.starfree.jp/atlas/atlas.htm He has a more detailed one too but I didn't use it.

I have a similar, though not identical, scope. When you get Jupiter in focus, with a bit of luck you might be able to see the two main belts across it, and up to 4 moons. What helped a lot for me was an aperture stop - just a piece of card with a hole, try 50-60 mm diameter, cut in it and taped to the front of the scope. This reduces the spherical aberration, a blurring at medium and high magnification that these small cheap scopes suffer from because they use spherical main mirrors. But still a scope like this will only ever show a planet as a small disc with some general markings.

Thanks @cajen2 and @Ivan and all. The 130 is a maybe then; I'd have to check it in person I reckon. But could be a good shout if my budget falls towards the lower end. I'd like a Mak-Cas but I'd be paying a premium for it, and I'd need to check the size of the mount too.

Getting back into the hobby after a while not doing much. I currently have a Heritage 76 but yearn for something better. I'm looking for better lunar and planetary views for at home, and also something I can stick on my bicycle and take out to somewhere semi-dark for deep sky viewing. So I need something reasonably rugged since even in a foam case it's going to get shaken around more than it would in a car. Putting the scope in a backpack would be gentler on it, but I don't like riding with a backpack, but I'll do it if it's the only reasonable option. Weight isn't the worst thing, there's 20 kilos of bike and mumblety-five kilos of me after all, but it's enough to make me disfavour EQ mounts with counterweights at least. Size is the big factor, I'd rather not be strapping an enormous Dob to the luggage rack. (Sure, I *could*, but still.) Budget is currently vague. I'd say £500 at most but I might have quite a bit less to spend, so ideas at a range of price points are welcome. So far I'm thinking a Mak-Cas might be the best, compact and good planetary performers and I think they're reasonably robust? I wondered about spotting scopes but unless there's one that can take standard astro eyepieces I think it would be too limiting. Short-tube refractor? Also compact but I don't think so good on planets? I potentially *could* take the Heritage 130 or even the 150 - can someone tell me the outside dimensions of the collapses tube on either? But would I end up arriving with the optics light-years out of collimation every time?

To add, at the moment Jupiter is almost exactly on the celestial equator, meaning the viewing is the same at equal northern and southern hemisphere latitudes. But the closer to Earth's equator you are, the higher Jupiter will appear and therefore if all else is equal the better the views. In practice unless you are in Arctic or Antarctica the weather and seeing will matter more. Currently Mars is somewhat north, and Saturn somewhat south.

Yeah, that was way out of focus. Which scope is it (Nat Geo put their branding on a few) and what eyepieces do you have?

Had a look myself tonight, second try in the opposition. Two bands clear. The one is more contrasty and "crisp" and closer to the equator, the other a bit "fuzzy" and lower contrast and more offset. And I felt at times like the zone between then was slightly darker than the rest of the planet. No luck spotting the GRS despite my efforts. (I've not idea how prominent it is right now). Clouds came in and out and the seeing sometimes went to pot but still managed to get some viewing. Heritage 76. Best views were with a 6 mm "UWA" eyepiece, I think one of those TMB/BST clones, with a Barlow element screwed in. So I think giving about 75x? The Barlow in its usual holder for 100x was empty magnification. But the big thing was putting a 60 mm aperture stop on the front, it really cut out the haze around objects at high power (which I assume is from the spherical abberation). If you have one of these 3-inch mini-Dobs it's well worth trying an aperture stop for lunar and planetary work. I also impulse bought a cheap filter set. The only one that helped was the 82A light blue, I couldn't objectively see any more but it just seemed a touch better for contrast. Alas I can't stack the filter and the Barlow element so I was stuck holding it over the eyepiece. If this page is accurate, https://skyandtelescope.org/observing/interactive-sky-watching-tools/transit-times-of-jupiters-great-red-spot/ , then on the night of the 1st/2nd October the GRS should transit about the same time Jupiter is at its highest. Clouds permitting I might have another go then.

It fits exactly with the advice thread stickied but I would want to "try before I buy" if possible. Even an 8 or 7 mm Plossl can be tight on the eye relief, you might prefer a design with more. I can't remember the actual focal length but I once had a short focal length Celestron Plossl that was awful. The focal length sorts out your medium high, and high with the Barlow, and the Barlow will give you a 12.5mm too which somewhat fills the gap between the 25 and the 10.

Six but most of them are pants. The only one I actually bought by itself was a 6 mm TMB planetary clone. Then there's the Skywatcher 25 and 10, Celestron K20 and SR4 (yuck), and an eyepiece salvaged off an old binocular which is something like 30 mm focal length. I've done very little observing for some time. When my neighbours took to leaving their lights on all night, and then got one of those horrific motion-activated insecurity lights, that really drove me away from it.

My opinion is focus on the mount and tripod. A mediocre scope on a stable mount is enjoyable, a good scope on a wobbly mount is frustrating. That's a big part of why dobs are so popular I think. You don't mention what sort of mounts the scopes you're considering have. Regarding Barlows, for visual use a Barlow lets you get two (or sometimes three magnifications) out of each eyepiece. It can work well with a smartly-chosen range of eyepiece focal lengths. Personally I'd buy an additional eyepiece or two first though, because the ones supplied with cheap scopes tend to be pretty average.