jonathan

It sounds like the only things missing from your equipment list is eyeball tracking and the Celestron TeasMaid(TM) add-on. Seriously though, if you just take your time to read through and comprehend all of the instructions and assuming it all works as expected, I'm sure you'll have no trouble using it. I'd recommend doing a couple of setup and take-down dry runs indoors or during daylight hours just so that you can familiarise yourself with it fully before going for dark setup, you may find that you want a couple of good quality flight cases with pluck foam for the bits and pieces, you could be window shopping for those but I'd hold off on buying until you know exactly how much space your kit requires, check the 'Show us your eyepiece cases' thread. Standard SCT collimation should apply (no need for a Cheshire collimator, just do what it says in the manual).

Diesel or petrol? I had a bad experience in a diesel car once, the battery drained on us so were unable to use the full beam headlights, had to drive home on sidelights (we bump-started the car to get going). This was an older car which may have had inefficient parts, but draining the battery through use of the headlights without the engine running was the cause of our problems and I dont think even today full headlights can be run purely from an alternator (or today's equivalent). Moral of the story is don't use your car for something which it wasn't designed. I'd always advise on a dedicated power supply, ideally a leisure battery; they may seem pricey but cheaper than a breakdown callout.

I contacted them too regarding a different firmware issue, it's possible they just don't have the staff at the moment (literally).

What if one isn't on facebook? Any other way to contact such repair people?

That does look like quite an array of output voltages, I suppose it might auto-switch depending on the current or voltage demand so personally I'd stick with something simple like a lead-acid or leisure battery (12v), leisure batteries are preferable as they won't take any harm if discharged beyond about 50% capacity, sometimes they are known as 'deep cycle' batteries for this reason. Buy an off-the-shelf adaptor lead to plug your mount power cable into, bob's your uncle. Just make sure there's an inline fuse somewhere in the circuit.

Check out snowboard bags for the tripod, probably worth getting a short strap and buckle or a belt that you can use to keep the legs together. Might not be a snug fit but it should keep them from rubbing on other stuff... such as car seats. I found one in a charity shop going cheap, might even fit a small aperture newtonian in there (like 130 or something).

A 2" neodymium filter arrived for me yesterday, hoping to try it out this week on Mars. 🤞

There are bundles such as the Skywatcher Explorer 150P-DS on EQ3-2 which might be usable for astrophotography and also decent for visual, however I've heard more praise for the Evostars when it comes to photography, and they should be easier to handle and maintain for the beginner. Not disputing that reflectors can grab more light, but I do feel that is less of a problem if doing multiple long exposures and stacking etc on the computer later.

It depends really, do you want something that you can look through such as a telescope, or are you more interested in a purely photography setup? The two can be vastly different. I was just looking at these this morning - star tracking mounts. They are for you to add your own camera (such as DSLR with standard lens) for wide-field astrophotography. A really nice intro to the subject, not too complex, and should be easy to get up and running. If you're interested in visual (with a possibility of basic astrophotography later) then a scope + mount such as the SkyWatcher Evostar 120 refractor on EQ3-2 mount might give you a good starting point, it won't be quite ready for astrophotography out of the box but you can add a polar scope for accurate alignment and RA or RA + DEC motor drive for tracking, which will make longer exposures possible. Note that the 'direct DSLR camera connection' mentioned in the description is a camera mount that sits on top of one of the rings so that you can piggy-back your camera on the scope, other hardware would be required in order to attach your camera to the end of the telescope itself, typically an extension tube to achieve focus and an adaptor 'T' ring specific to your camera. Don't discount the StarTravel either, another decent budget scope with potential. Add a budget eyepiece or two (BST Starguiders are well respected) probably 12mm, maybe 18mm as well as an upgrade from the supplied ones (typically 10mm and 25mm). If you want to do precise polar alignment then a polar scope would be necessary - the EQ3-2 mount has a slot ready for it, it just screws in as far as I recall. Also get yourself a red light torch, I can recommend the dimmable Skywatcher one which has a switch for red or white LEDs, the dimming function really helps when you're out there on a dark night trying to keep your dark adapted eyes working well. A neutral density or moon filter is very useful to have for bright objects including jupiter (and currently Mars, though it should have dimmed a bit by the time you get your scope), many people choose not to observe the moon when it is full but a moon filter is still useful for when it is almost full, looking along the shadow terminator reveals mountain ranges and other details that get washed out when fully lit. Stick to a 1.25" one to fit to an eyepiece for now. Coloured filters can help to reveal detail in planets and nebulae, it's a matter of taste though whether you prefer a natural colour or a green / orange / blue colour in order to see some details. A neodymium filter is said to be excellent for pulling out detail too, resulting in just a slight yellow cast, however I have no experience in those (mine is currently on order!) A refractor on an EQ mount is probably the way to go if photography with a telescope is your aim, it can be a steep learning curve and if you really get into it then you may find yourself buying (new or used) something like an HEQ5 Pro and a Triplet Refractor, but they are far outside of the £500 starter budget. If you can learn how to setup and use an EQ mount with something more simple such as the EQ3-2 then it'll be a good grounding for later. I'm sure some imagers will probably disagree with me, I just wanted to suggest something that would be good for visual with a firm possibility of imaging too. The 120 refractor should allow you to see quite a bit visually, it might not be the best choice for imaging (80mm scopes are popular because they are light, but you can see considerably less visually through them) but there will always be a compromise. A light bucket (e.g. dobsonian / reflector) is not necessarily the thing needed for imaging, what's perhaps more important is the tracking accuracy and stability of the mount.

As you have a large tube then maximum heat may be what you need, but for smaller OTAs this might be too much and result in unwanted thermals emanating from the front of the telescope. I've sometimes experimented with the settings on my dew heater controller, on minimum power the dew will form on the corrector plate almost as normal, assuming it is a dew-prone night, with the power set at 50% the dew will start to receed from the outside within seconds; the balance point will be where the dew receeds and only just does not form again, too much power and it's a risk of those thermals, at the very least a waste of amps. The ideal setting will result in a temperature just above the dew point, something which is variable from one night to the next. A dew controller can also provide additional power points, mine has two aux ports (12v), one of which I use to power the mount. My controller allows individual power levels for each of the four dew heater tape outputs, so for the smaller tapes around finders and eyepieces I might not need as much power as the main OTA heater tape. If I didn't use a controller I'd want to find a typical heat requirement for each tape (eyepiece, finder, etc) and design my electronics appropriately, buying the controller saves me a lot of time, effort, and it comes in a neat pre-made package which is better than anything I could end up building. At the end of the day we all use what works for us, there's no wrong solution if it works.

Some knicker elastic tied around it should probably do the trick! No joke, just buy some from haberdashery, add a clip or whatever, away you go.

It sounds like what you're after is a 2" to 1.25" adapter, something like this? https://www.firstlightoptics.com/adapters/baader-2-to-125-reducer-adapter.html

You could do far worse than try the targets described in this review of the 150 by Sky At Night magazine. An obvious target right now would be Mars, it'll still be around in December only dimmer and smaller than right now. By the time you get your scope the main feature of the sky will be Orion, perhaps one of the most interesting targets for most amateur telescopes, spend plenty of time exploring the nebulae and surrounding objects. Look out for Alberio, the yellow / blue double, explore Cassiopeia too for plenty of great looking clusters. In the new year Auriga will be rising high, some very nice targets there too. Mars is pretty much stealing the show as far as planets are concerned, the others are languishing low to the horizon so not that great at the moment. Worth seeing if you can spot Neptune and Uranus though, they should still look the same (small coloured dots or tiny discs), and Saturn despite the atmospheric shimmer. Whatever you look at, depending on how you want to approach observing, I'd say try to keep some variety to your sessions and plan ahead by season / month. I recommend picking up Philip's Stargazing Month-by-Month Guide To The Night Sky, The Works usually have them in at a good price. Make sure you get the 2021 edition though as it sounds like the 2020 book will be obsolete by the time you get your scope.

OK, good plan, never thought of lining up Polaris. It's likely already set for my latitude but I can't be sure. Snag is I'd have to buy a £60 adaptor to fit it to my NEQ6 tripod!

Just a quick update to this thread... I updated the firmware in the handset from 3.20 to 3.39, this fixed the problems it was having (with my NEQ6 at least), it seems to be working much better now. It might have been a corrupt firmware due to maybe running the mount with very low power (which can cause damage, as described in the SynScan manual). I enforced a database update at the same time, that went from 3.20 to 3.28. So the handset looks to be fixed, now onto the HEQ5 mount which I believe has a motor controller board firmware fault. Nice!

The plastic disc that has the latitude scale has fallen off an HEQ5 mount and it's not obvious (to me) how it should be glued back on so that it is still accurate, I can't see any kind of key or notch. Should I just set the latitude pointer to zero at one end (by turning the latitude adjustment bolts) and line up the disc that way?

I have been experiencing several problems with an HEQ5 and v3 handset recently, which I have borrowed so I don't know the history of the unit. It looks like a firmware update to the handset has fixed the problems it was having, it works fine with my NEQ6 mount but it still has intermittent problems with the HEQ5 - it sometimes states that it can't talk to the motor controller board, it won't slew or goto targets. I'm thinking that there's been some firmware corruption with this HEQ5 setup, updating the firmware in the handset seems to have fixed that, but Skywatcher only seem to have v2.x firmware for the motor controller of the HEQ5 whereas I believe this motor controller is a v1.x, Skywatcher state that v1.x cannot be updated to v2.x firmware due to hardware limitations. Does anyone know where I can get a v1.x firmware for the HEQ5 motor controller board? I take it the firmware loader should still be able to load it onto the HEQ5 for a v1.x board? Thanks!

I have the 8SE and I've found the best views of Mars by far were with the Baader Planetarium Hyperian 8-24 Zoom at the 8mm setting. This outperformed all of my other eyepieces, a moon filter helped to reduce the glare and reveal a bit more definition and surface detail contrast. I compared the views to a 12" telescope and they were very close indeed, so no need for bigger scope envy on this occasion. Keep on viewing Mars every opportunity you get over the next few weeks, that one super clear night will be the one to cherish and remember forever. Saturn and Jupiter can be observed probably from twlight, they will be higher in the sky and won't be quite as dazzling. You can probably also catch Uranus and Neptune, they will be tiny discs or points of light in your scope (same as in mine) but ones you can feel proud to have observed personally rather than in a book.

If you have a Moon filter you could try that (attach it to your eyepiece input end or the diagonal if there's a thread for it), it will just reduce the dazzling brightness as Mars is outshining all except Venus and the Moon at the moment. To dim the view further you could try reducing the aperture of your telescope with a cardboard ring taped to the front, just to reduce the amount of light from Mars entering the scope. Mars won't be this close or bright again for 15 years so worth a go to get the best views you can! Mars will start to get dimmer from tomorrow but also further away. With the disc being rather small in your scope you may not be able to discern surface detail, but if your view isn't too dazzling and keep looking you might just be able to make out differences in light and dark hemispheres.

I use the Baader Solar Film on my binoculars (it comes with instructions on how to made safe filter holders), only really useful when there are large sunspots to see, and it can still be quite dazzling to the eye, similar to viewing an almost full moon. I went for the Lunt 60 with Pressure Tuner, an expensive scope for sure considering it only has one possible target but it gives me some great views of solar activity. I use a Baader Planetarium 8-24 Hyperium Zoom eyepiece, very quickly allows me to zoom into features without faffing with different eyepieces and refocusing (which can be an art form in itself when solar viewing).

Just as a bit of an aside to this topic, the other night we were observing Saturn from a dome as it set, the scope was pointing so low that only half of the aperture was exposed to sky, the rest was pointing at the inside of the dome, yet the views through the eyepiece were perfectly fine. It's a bizarre thing to try to get your head around, totally different to our normal concept of vision, even using binoculars.

I plug mine directly into a 12v leisure battery (not exactly the same one as this, but Yuasa are a reputable brand) using a pre-made short adaptor cable, available from any auto spares shop such as Motosave. I sometimes use a smaller Yuasa 12v battery but it uses spade connectors so I had to make my own adaptor cable for that, same kind of thing though. A large leisure battery with normal car battery style terminals will be easier to connect a charger to, I used a Ring Smart Charger, maybe a bit over the top but I like the refresh and battery recondition functions it has, and it's built like a tank. Best to make sure the charger supports the type of battery you buy (there are different chemistries and construction types).

When I had my SE goto mount I stuck the little circular bubble level to the accessories tray (near the middle), I probably confirmed it's accuracy at the time with a small traditional level like the first one linked to. Both of my EQ mounts have the same small bubble level and it seems to work fine for me.

Hmm, interesting opinions. I've only been playing with it indoors with no scope attached, didn't really take note of where the items were compared to the final alignment point although when it was working once with the HEQ5 and I asked it to goto the same target twice, it noticeably slewed just a tiny amount and the handset returned to normal. When it's locked up I've left the handset alone for maybe ten minutes, no change, so after that I've just switched the mount off and on and the handset resets to the boot sequence. I played with it a bit more today on the HEQ5 Pro mount and found that it would sometimes goto a chosen target normally (fast slewing, then slow to zero in on the target, mount data updating as it does so on the display), but it would also sometimes freeze or lock up as before. I couldn't get it to goto any targets when it was connected to the NEQ6 Pro mount, it always freezes when given the final goto command (it displays the coordinates but gets no further). I am choosing targets that should obviously be above the horizon at the time I entered during setup, just as a test I also tried some that would not be and it told me they were below the horizon, but did not lock up. The mount makes recogniseable noises, I can tell when it's tracking, when it's slewing (fast or slow, I know the sounds it makes), and when it's idle; when the handset has apparently locked up, watching the mount confirms it's really not moving even after several minutes, it just makes a steady low whine noise which doesn't match any normal state that I recognise. I've tried it connected to two different 12v batteries, the handset reported a voltages of 12.4 or 12.6, both batteries were freshly charged. If the handset doesn't work from these batteries then it's of no use to me, it needs to be able to work away from a mains supply (I have heard of someone using 13v but I don't have that facility).

One trick is to keep the original packing and build a box around it, or find a strong plastic tub that it will snugly fit inside. I keep my 8SE in a large Curver plastic crate, the original styrene packing (top and bottom) fits very well and there's room for a few bits and pieces at the sides. Don't skimp on the tripod, that's the foundation of the pyramid and needs to be as strong as the rest of it.