kev100

Hiya, Ive got the S&T pocket sky atlas, and while it gets some use, I tend to just use SkySafari on my phone, these days. Five of six years ago I found some downloadable star charts on the net. I printed them out and laminated them. Have a look here: https://eyesonthesky.com/charts/free-star-charts/ Again, while they saw some use, I’m ever more reliant on the phone app ...

Hi there, and well done on the scope (I have the same one and it's fantastic!). However ... You do have to be very careful when it comes to choosing eyepieces for what is a 'fast scope', i.e. a scope with a focal ratio lower than, say, 5. Focal length divided by diameter equals focal ratio (and your is 4.7). As others have said, don't rush to buy eyepieces just yet, but, if you feel you must, then research 'eyepiece for fast scope' first, and check back here with what you find to see if it is actually suitable for a faster scope. Ideally you'll want to end up with something in the lower,

There's a South Wales club here on SGL ...

How about the Xmas tree cluster, or NGC 1502 at the end of Kemble's cascade? If you have a decent southern view, m46, 47 and 41... Kev

Hiya, I've got a 20mm Myriad 2-inch EP, which weights just over a kilo. I use it with my 250PX dob, without a counterweight, though I do have to clamp up the handles pretty tight so it doesn't over balance the tube. The rest of my EPs are 1.25 inch, so I don't tend to swap them and the Myriad around too often. Kev

Hiya, I found it useful to work my way through the Messier list one constellation at a time, and printed out a chart and kept it in my notebook. After about a year or so I had most of them ticked . Did the same with the Caldwell catalog ... kev

One of my favourite open clusters is M46, as good at this time of year as it gets. The really cool thing is the planetary nebula in the foreground (ngc 2438). Well worth a look

Just chipping in here with a thumbs up for the drum stool. I wouldn’t be without one Also, M13 looks amazing whatever the magnification, be it with 10x binos, or at 200x and higher with a scope. It’s when you consider what it is that it really comes to life, a dense ball of in the region of 250,000 very old stars, possibly the stripped down core of a long gone satellite galaxy ... in more basic terms, with my dob I like using my 8.8mm, 82 degree eyepiece on it, the contrast is lovely, the field of view enough to also see the nearby galaxy ngc6207 as well, and the magnification of around 13

Hiya. I've seen two out of the three with my 10x50 binoculars, but failed on Wednesday with the 20x80s. I felt that this was due to humidity/very thin cloud to the north and east. In fact I failed with other galaxies in those directions, including M51. Looking east, M31 and M33 were obvious. On a good night, the triplet will be very obvious in your scope. Kev

Apologies if this has been pointed out already, but I've just spotted (in Stellarium, where else), that there'll be a very tight conjunction of Ceres and Aldebaran on the 5th of November 2021, whereupon the dwarf planet will move through the Hyades over the next two weeks

Hi there, it definitely should be possible to get the dot in the centre of the doughnut given the three way adjustment ... A couple of questions: have you changed the secondary adjustment screws? How old is the scope? Have you been tightening the screws really tightly? The reason I ask is that I had a similar issue. My 10 inch is about 8 years old, I replaced the adjustment screws to make them easy to tweak, but found that they were digging into the metal base at the back of the secondary, and I couldn’t get the dot centred (it would get close, but then just ‘slip’ to the side, like

Hi there, reading through my previous post again, plus a few others, I reckon it's going to have to be a 14mm ES 82 ... Cheers, Kev

Thanks @Vlaiv I've had a discussion here on the merits of the 16mm Nirvana here before ... but decided against in as I gather it's not so good with a faster scope ... the 14mm ES 82 does look good, but is a little over budget ... Kev

Hi all, I've been looking to replace my 16mm, 68 degree MaxVision with a similar power but wider FOV (82 degree) item for some time now, and wondered if anyone could recommend something that'll be suitable for a fast scope ... The catch, though, is the budget is around the 100 quid mark ... Any thoughts?

Hi there. This is, for what it's worth, from my blog re the Celestron 20x80s ... : https://theastroguy.wordpress.com/2018/10/18/celestron-skymaster-20x80-binoculars-review-and-first-light-observations/ Kev