Starfazed

If it's any consolation, since getting my "new" scope a year ago I've had probably three clear nights i've ma aged to use it more than half an hour without giving in to cloud. Even spent a fortnight staying in Bortle 2 and 3 areas away from my usual city sky, and got maybe alf an hour between clouds. Do we ever have clear skies in the UK?

Definitely can't see it on my phone... Anyway, been playing further and discovered that I can use SS7 to control the scope if I connect using Synscan (Im using 2.4.10) but not Synscan Pro (2.4.16). Neither is quite the latest version but the older version of basic Synscan allows it to be controlled by SS7 whereas the newer one doesn't. Guess I'll not be updating Synscan for a while then. The main benefit to me of Synscan Pro is 3 star alignment, but as I can run Synscan and Synscan Pro together, if I launch both and let Synscan Pro do the alignment maybe I can then keep Synscan open (assuming it thinks the scope is aligned, if it's already aligned through Synscan Pro) and use SS7 to control Synscan? All this is theoretical - testing indoors on a rainy day as don't want to be wasting time trying this out in the precious few minutes without clouds!

Thanks, despite running Amdroid 12 (which os supposed to have it), that option isn't listed in developer options on my phone so so way to test it.

Hi, I'm also really struggling to get Sky Safari 7 Plus to connect to Synscan to drive my Skywatcher GOTO telescope. I bought SS7 specifically to allow me to point on the star map and go to it. This is on an Android 12 phone. I can connect without difficulty between Synscan and the scope but I just get the "can't make a wireless connection to the telescope" error message in SS7 when trying to connect. I had a big SS7 crash which prompted the ominous warning "something went wrong with sky safari 7 plus - sky safari 7 plus closed because this app has a bug. Try updating this app afyer the developer provides a fix". Next time I opened SS7 it connected to Synscan perfectly using IP 127.0.0.1 and port 11882. For a few precious minutes I could point at the SS7 sky map and the scope would go to what I clicked. Then it broke again and still won't connect. I have disabled battery optimisation settings for SS7 and Synscan and tried running g them split screen. No joy. Can anyone offer further suggestions short of seeking a refund from SS? The other program I was thinking of using to try controlling my scope was Stellarium, and in Synscan connection settings there is a built in option for Stellarium. Is that likely to work more reliably than SS7, or is there something inherent in Android phone apps that stops them talking to each other?

Oops didn't spot that, thanks!

As above. I bought Sky Safari to control Synscan as the Skywatcher software is clunky for finding objects. I really struggled at first to get the two apps to "tall" but finally managed it usomg port 11882 and IP 168.192.2.4, as advised on other fora. Since last week they aren't talking again, I've seen at least one Cloudy Nights thread on this so can't just be me. Process and equipment - Android 12 Galaxy phone, Sky Safari 7 plus, Synscan Pro and Skywatcher Discovery reflector. Turn on scope wifi, open Synscan, connect, align. Open Sky Safari and try to connect, error message "can't make a wireless connection to the scope". We'll, throughout that Synscan Pro remains connected, and I have enabled both apps to always be on in the background to avoid battery saving issues. Why won't Sky Safari connect any more? May as well not have bothered buying it if it won't do what I need, but is this a Synscan issue, SS7 or an A droid issue? Bit of a pain to find your apps are playing up at the start of an observational session.

For £100 you could get some decent 15x70 binoculars perhaps, and join a club where you might be able to look through other's scopes? Not mentioned so far but a spotting scope with a zoom would be very portable, though its small aperture, righted image, no finderscope and small tripod limits what you can see to moon and nearest planets (I have a 70mm that on full zoom shows Jupiter's moons). But overall, without a rock solid tripod anything that attempts to magnify the sky beyond where binoculars can take you will be a disappointment, and even a small scope needs quite a heavy tripod to be much use so most of what you lug around might be a tripod. That said, maybe the MAC would be a good compromise in limiting the length of a tube, if you also have to carry the tripod? Remember you can carry tripod and scope in separate bags so balance easier. My 150 Discovery would be the limit of what I'd want to carry on a train though and the two bags it requires (sourced on Amazon, generic bags) would fill the boot of a small car.

My experience of children is they can't "do" binoculars, can't get convergence or cope with each eye getting an image, can't close one eye, can't hold steady as too heavy. Living in a Bortle 8 city limits when can be seen, though I can carry my scope to the nearby park for planets and a few nice clusters. I went for a goto as I haven't time now to learn my way around the sky and the kids don't want me wasting time fumbling in the dark for obscure objects. I guess a starsense would make equal sense, for me tracking was more important than liveview of where in the sky I was. Deep sky objects are limited to Friday evenings (as no school next day) and a 30-40 min drive to a fabulous Bortle 4 site. Meal along the way, sleep 8n car coming back....can't do too often and most Fridays are cloudy or full Moon. But makes for a special evening on occasions. Pleasantly surprised myself to realise a cheap 6 inch reflector can show Uranus and Neptune so clearly.

Been at this malarkey for 8 months now and like the OP I'm still nearly always seeing white fluff down my scope. I think the cloud gods must be punishing me severely.

Hmm, when scope shopping I looked at all the collimation videos I could find, which only confused me all the more. For now I'm increasingly glad that I went for a reflector that claims not to need collimation and doesn't have an adjustable primary, though if I bite the bullet later for anything bigger than 150mm I'm going to have to figure it out some day!

You said you want to see Jupiter's great red spot. What's the minimum someone needs to spend, what's the smallest telescope and lowest power eyepiece needed to clearly see it? With my 6 inch reflector and 250x magnification (6mm plus Barlow lens) on a still night, the entire planet looks no bigger than a pea at arms length so I'd struggle to see the red spot!

Not for much longer, 12 inchers are being advertised:-)

Had a similar dilemma to you and similar reason for getting a scope. Wow what's possible for £500 now is another universe from what was around in my childhood. I narrowed down the options to a really big "pure" Dob like 10 inch, a push to like the 8 inch Starsense, or a 6 inch GOTO. After trying out some Dobs at a public observatory the two things I realised were 1. I couldn't find a thing up there and the kids would get really frustrated waiting ages for me to find anything. So it's got to be pushto or GOTO. 2. Having found things it was frustrating to find them disappear at high power after less than a minute and search for them again. Combine that with living in a Bortle 8 city where options are carry everything to the nearest park or drive 40 mins to a decent sky and it became a choice between the Heritage GTI (tabletop 6 inch) or Star Discovery 6(tripod 6 inch ) reflectors. As the former had sold out I got the latter. So far (limited by very few clear nights this year) I've been happy enough - I can see the bands of Jupiter at 250x using a cheap 6mm and Barlow. I've seen Uranus and Neptune! But I also know they would have been brighter in a bigger scope and my son is developing aperture fever. But dead easy to carry in two modest bags I found on Amazon, so truly grab and go. I guess you need to think how you will be using the scope - how transportable it should be, how much work you want to put into finding things manually versus goto, and if you want it to just latch onto and follow whatever you find, especially if most viewing is done under city skies. My next scope meets all the needs my first scope has highlighted in use and will be a 12 inch Starsense on an equatorial platform, though we'll need to move house to find the space for it. Just don't tell my wife.

Can you get the Moon in sharp focus? If so, using a low powered eyepiece (if you have one that came it - ie higher focal length e.g. 20mm rather than 4mm) start with that then without changing the focus or the eyepiece, move the scope to something like Jupiter (currently quite close to the Moon and very easy to see as it's so bright). You'll see a much smaller circle - and with a bit of luck up to four pinpricks of light lined up in a row next to it - its four moons. Then keeping the lens the same, move to a cluster like the Pleiades that's easy to find with the naked eye - you'll see a load of individual stars, each of which is a pinprick. And no mirror vanes. That's what you should be seeing if your scope is perfectly focussed, at any rate. If you move up to a higher lens and it goes out of focus, do the same again - start with the Moon in focus. If the Moon is in focus, anything else in the sky will also be, as long as you don't change the eyepiece.

Probably two approaches in the circa £500 plus mobile app bracket for starting out with little or no prior knowledge of the sky: 1. goto - examples Skywatcher Star Discovery P150i or Skywatcher Heritage 150 virtuoso GTI. The former is a bit more expensive but comes on a tripod and doesn't need to be stood on a table or to be collimated so no need to buy a collimating device. The Synscan app allows you to control it wirelessly with an Android or Iphone and point it at selected objects on a list. You can also linke Synscan to a third party app like Stellarium or Sky safari and click on objects shown on those apps' star maps and the scope will point itself there. Once located on an object it will keep tracking it automatically so it stays in the eyepiece as the earth rotates, avoiding the need to keep nudging the scope. 2. pushto - example the Celestron Starsense models, which you clip your phone to. The phone camera takes in whatever part of the night sky the scope is pointing to and the app overlays on the screen what it's looking at. By moving the scope to centre an object of interest on your phone screen that object will be in the centre of the eyepiece. But a few minutes later you'll have to nudge the scope as it will have rotated away with the Earth's rotation, and the more powerful the lens, the faster it will drift out of sight. An 8 inch will gather more light and feint objects will be easier and clearer to see than the 6 inch but is bulkier to carry around and in the example above is more expensive. Many of those using the Starsense app seem to think it's a game changer. Worth pointing out that you might want to also add in a Barlow lens, maybe a zoom lens, perhaps a carry bag, warm gloves, spirit level, extra batteries etc, and that can bump the price up. There are also free apps such as Astrohopper and SkEye cam that attempt to use smartphone sensors to work out where in the sky the phone is pointing, so if you were brave and enjoy tinkering you could potentially get a larger or cheaper telescope and play around with these, but Starsense seems to be a proven, simple and effective tool (and comes at a price premium as a result). I recently got the Discovery 150 to learn my way around the sky with my children and we are really enjoying it, including getting some fantastic view of Saturn and Jupiter up to 250x, the Andromeda galaxy and lots of star clusters. I was tempted by the Starsense but after trying out a few Dobs at a meet for me tracking was a greater priority than a slightly more light gathering. Your mileage may vary.