Naughty Neal

If you have the space and somewhere to keep one then a Dob is the cheapest option to setting up , FLO have a 200mm F5 Dob in the Offers pages for £282 that will leave you the option of getting  three or four decent  EP's as well   .

For the  £30 mark reasonable good EP's will be used  (barring the AS ones mentioned), one may be lucky and get a BST but generally Meade 4000 's are the likely target.

Recently I picked up a silver 4000 Japan 12.4MM EP for  £30 and a 26mm & 32mm later china 4000 EP's for £38 for the pair.  Otherwise one is  looking   to £46 - £65 for new EP's, to add to  those already mentioned  Ortho lens from Baader are worth a look , a very nice compact light weight offering.  Even the china 4000  EP's are still a pretty good lense still in todays age.

Baader Classic Series Ortho & Plossl | First Light Optics

Also Starbase Japan EP's at £45 - £65.

Starbase 1.25" Orthoscopic Eyepieces | First Light Optics

Marvelous , great use of the colours to produce the hazy light affect of the Nebula and varying star brightness. 

Nice, a neat tidy solution.

The dot finder that came with my z130 worked fine with plenty of adjustment.  I tuned mine in during the day by using the scope to centre some pidgeons in a tree some disatnce away then used the dot finder to home in on the pidgeons ( excuse the intended pun).  After that I aligned the dot finder on a  dangly bit on a on an electric pylon in the distance and the centre of the scope view appeared pretty much  central.  The real proof of the pudidng is at night when one wants to locate a dso.

If not worried about a brand name then cheap rocket ones for as little as £2. 26 can be had form china on ebay.

Rocket Rubber Air Pump Dust Blower Cleaning Cleaner For DSLR Digital Camera Lens 720355346607 | eBay

Through my Zhumell Z130   venus  &  Jupiter to the  west (approx. 255 degrees), was my first viewing using the Dob.  I do believe I saw   the 4 gallieon moons  although inverted the moon Europa ( I believe) appears above  and the other three below.  Venus without any filter a very bright radiant star.

I managed to see the moons easily with  bco 10mm & both in the same view with a bco 18mm, before  both disappeared behind trees at just before 20.00hrs.

The sketchs are great, imho one interperates the views that one see's at that momemnt in time.  Inaccuracies will  come into play but that is the delight of live sketching , one doesn't have the time to get every thing spot on.

I think the two obvious answers are one , cooling down and two check collomating.

 Another 8" Dob candidate is the offering from Ursa Major and a ton under the Stellalyra asking , though the Lyra spec is a it better hence the price differential.  Raci finder , superview plossal and dual speed focuser.  One expects it depends on how tight the budget is.

Kudos for a good first effort.  Sketching isn't something that  anyone can just manage or pickup, as an art form it can be very intimidating to try.  Some likely will not post their efforts for fear of being ridiculed but I say if one doesn't post then one won't get any reaction or feed back however good or bad.

The sketch section is one of my favourite on the forum and I enjoy seeing everyones efforts, there are a varying degrees of work and all are good to see however talented one is.

Depends on type of finder one wants , related to it  though is the scope in  use as some finders are quite large and heavy.

For instance I  have a 9 x 50 RACI on my 130mm dob and it is rather large , it is a bit over kill for the scope size but does a good job compared to craneing my neck with thru laser finder.  For a laser optfor a circle imprint type finder rathr then a dot laser.

For 
 

On 12/09/2022 at 07:15, Wiu-Wiu said:

This one took a while, first I had to muster the courage to start sketching this enormous mass of stars. 

By no means possible to pinpoint every single star, but i did manage to get some of the details (like the darker lanes and the two dark "eyes" in the center).

The brightest stars have been drawn truthfully, for as far as this is possible in these kind of objects... 

 

Hope you enjoy! 

Wiu²

Awesome sketching. 

Beautiful sketches, the contrast of the far dull stars and then the near brighter stars are awesome and practically glowing in your eyes as if looking at the real view.

Fantastic  3d effect of the features, an amazing sketch. 

After seeing the impressive recent Moon sketches by two forum posters , I'm keen to try my hand at some sketching . One expects my own efforts will be very sketchy to pardon the pun.

I'm thinking of the A6 index size cards as mentioned by Josefk and Black ones, using the various white and other shades of markers /pens /brushes. 

Cloud rolled in here so nothing much visible esp from the western horizon. 

I'm impressed.

If I could sketch anything half as good I would be happy, I'm in awe of those who have the eye.

Absolutely amazng sketches, they certainly bring the moon to life. The 74% WG is fantastic, you sir have the eye.

Hello Good morning here from  West Sussex near Gatwick airport  with portle 6 skies according to online searches.

Have just procurred a very little used  Zhumell z130 for £143 on ebay , it has the std two generic 10/25mm ep's and has a  Celestron omni 2x Barlow. A red dot finder , a laser collomator tool and a collomating ep cap.

Have been  gleaning the threads/posts for a while on ideas for some better ep upgrades.  

I have so far ordered a Stellalyra /GSO 68 deg 20mm  ep  from FLO and have a china Meade 4000 26mm ep arriving via ebay, for £18.  These should I believe cover some low end  power of 32.5 x & 25x which can be doubled up to 65 & 50x respectively.

BST starguiders are highly rated on the forum so a 5mm for 130x  higher power appears to a go to ep.