Charic

...for me its Stellarium? its the only way I can see the planets as I don't see anything southerly from my garden, due to my restricted views, unless its as high as a kite, at least +50°. Southerly views are available only when away from the house. My normal view is between Ursa Major and Cassiopeia as they orbit the NCP. Unfortunately this time of the year precludes any observing when the night sky at 0150 looks like this............Looking North.

With the supplied Skywatcher eyepieces, I found the 25mm is the better of the two, but the 25mm does not have enough field of view for my desire to look at M31, and was a little happier with the 60° BST, but still not wide enough? It was then that rwilkey recommended the Skywatcher Panaview, and the 32mm fits my requirement admirably, with its 70° field of view and x37 power, makes the Moon look small in a sea of space, and perfect as a finder eyepiece too. Hopefully the Vixen will satisfy your need.

Nothing new there then, I bet your losing sleep too! All part of the astronomy process, supposedly in the small print! if you can find it? Advice here is normally given in good faith, and corrected if mis-leading, but non-the-less, always invaluable, but hands down, an eyepiece in the focuser is the only way to go to satisfy your eyes on your scope, and expensive as it is, even with second hand eyepieces , its how and why I have settled on the present eyepieces.

......their off my shopping list just for now, and never really had the time to fully assess them, they were returned, as there was a flaw! visible in the left eyepiece, which to say the least, was most distracting during daylight trials/use! The real pity was they would have only cost me a few notes more than 3 Starguiders? Always great to grab a bargain, but the write-ups for these binoculars has always been favourable. I don't recall any decent write-ups for the Stellar 20x80s I once owned ( my first big binocular - again, grabbed a bargain due to a pricing error?). I'm now interested in the Oberwerk Ultra 15x70, but funds are being directed elsewhere as I speak (type)! It will be a waiting game I suppose.

.......a bit late for me, but how well does the 8mm and 12mm BST's Barlow on your scope The 5mm BST would have sat halfway, but Barlowing the 5mm has limited use, though not impossible! The larger eye lens, fov and eye relief of the BST are more practical for my needs.

Welcome to the SGL.

I had the 5" Celestron Powerseeker 127EQ. Its as useful as a chocolate fireguard when it comes to having any joy with astronomy, just far too much to set up and continually adjust in order to change to another target, no fun at all ? I decided after the first nights use, this was not the way to go, just just for looking at a few Stars. There must be an easier way, there was! Sure, The moon was visible with that scope, but for anything else, it doesn't stand a chance against the 8" Skyliner. I'd still say go look at/for a 6" Skyliner as a minimum, the 150P is still portable, and far steadier on a Dobsonian Sidd, is there someone or a club nearby,whereby you could even look through a scope, it will give you a better insight as to what you need. I've seen the 130P's on the shelf, and I'd still like to try one before I pass judgment, but having experienced the Powerseeker 127EQ, thats one best to avoid. Here's a .pdf link for the 130P...... http://www.opticalvision.co.uk/user/Heritage-130P review July16AN.pdf a video too........https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FEs_MMcJ7JA

Hello Sidd, welcome to the SGL. Take a look at the 6" 150P Skyliner reflector telescope, great value for your money, easy to use and setup. I have the 8" 200P Skyliner, a bit better due to the larger aperture, then a 10" or 12" gets even better, for visual use only observations. The 150P would be a good start, but if your friend can manage it, depending on their method of travel, you would probably have more fun with the 200P. Don't discount binoculars, their not for planetary use, unless you can afford something in excess of 15x magnification, with 70mm or more objectives, but the scope will better binoculars on magnification. I have several pairs of binoculars, but favour my 8x40s for Stargazing the constellations.

There's probably in excess of 1500 active satellites up there, not including all the junk and debris?

Anything here to help..........https://celestrak.com/software/satellite/sat-trak.asp I'm envious of seeing anything this time of the Year? This image, looking South, was taken at 2304 with no editing, straight from the iphone. The image appears just a tad brighter than the visual image, but not by much at the time, and with the ever present clouds of 2017 Ive got no chance!

If you take the focal ratio of your scope 1200/200= f/6 then an eyepiece of 6mm makes for a perfect match ( matches the focal ratio and aperture ? ) providing a practical 200x power that this scope is capable of providing under the right conditions, its when you try to get the theoretical powers of 'twice the aperture' do you suffer the consequences ? The 6.5mm EP will be just fine. Its this method, using the focal ratio, that I suggest to folk when buying their first high powered eyepiece, and work from there, the next EP for this scope would be a 12mm. That said, the 12mm makes for a nice focal length on the same scope, its my sweet-spot! its twice the focal ratio, half the power, better detail, smaller image?

I still have the original Skywatcher eyepieces in storage which will sell, if I sell the scope, but I, like many others, will upgrade their eyepiece collection, on the merits and good advice from others. I followed this advice and chose an 8mm BST ED Starguider as my first upgrade, the rest followed, and so became my first eyepiece set! I also believed back then that I needed a Plössl set of some description? Meade being the target eyepiece! and I have also tried TeleVue Plössl's, Revelation Plössl's and even some Baader Classic Orthoscopic's as their often described as being very sharp on the Planets? I also discovered from the purchase of the TeleVue Delos range that brand and cost alone is not the end to a means of getting a great image? Although the Delos is a nice eyepiece, its wasted on something like my f/6 telescope unless you need the wider field of view or the longer eye-relief! ( I was hoping to obtain a larger telescope last year, hence buying and trialling the Delos! ) so apart from that, the difference in cost between my cheapest Plössl and say the 6mm Delos is enormous , but does not equate to a massive difference in image quality? Just because its a Delos!...its still a six millimetre eyepiece, and on axis, the image detail is still, if not exactly the same as that provide from the less expensive brand. I sold the Delos and was able to obtain some long awaited studio monitors for another project? Of all the Plössl's, one thing to note is the short eye-relief, especially on the shorter focal lengths, say 11mm and below, your eye could easily touch the eyepiece? The eye-relief was the main reason to discount the TeleVue Plössl range, the second decision because the TeleVue Plössl range stopped at 8mm, whereby my scope can take shorter, therefore not able to maximise anything by choosing the TV's over say another brand that go down to 6mm and shorter, but if the TV Plössl was difficult to use, how come the Revelations I now own, are just as short, yet somehow seem more useable? I've also tried a second run with TeleVue Plössl's starting with their longer focal lengths, but no, not going any further, its not going to improve anything over what I already have, so yet again discounted the TeleVue's for the duration of this f/6 telescope. I also believed that having plenty of eyepieces, covering all avenues was the way to go, ie. magnification , field of view, eye-relief ( even as low as 1mm can make a difference in any of these fields). I was also graced with the fact that at any one time during my session, at least one of the eyepieces would favour the situation, providing the sharpest, best framed image, under the conditions that prevailed. I'm happy with the eyepieces in my signature, the only regret, BST did not produce a 6mm ED Starguider, if that were the case, I would not have had to buy an alternative brand to fill the 6mm slot to match the focal ratio of my scope, that said, absolutely nothing wrong with the brand, William Optics 6mm SPL eyepiece, even managed to buy the remainder of the set, should BST produce the goods? The SPL set could become surplus at a bargain price? As for the original question? For me, its all dependent of the seeing conditions, I have no other issues with the present eyepieces, on my scope ( and how its setup) and at the end of the day, mine and my eyes only.

Its not until you have tried a certain eyepiece for yourself, do you realise that a mistake has been made / could have been made, after the sale? I have a mediocre f/ratio so not too demanding on eyepiece selection, but still capable of good views using the present eyepieces, when conditions allow! I've no regrets having recently sold some Meade's, BCO's, Delois and TV Plössls! I bought them mainly for testing purposes. The only problem I have now is there's nothing left to buy for this scope, job done?

From the Guru of binoculars, that will take some folk by surprise, but we know what you mean. I am one of those who will grab my Helios Nature Sport every time, their my favoured binoculars in my collection, with their +8° field of view, perfect for browsing starry skies, with an easy to hold, steady view, due to the lower magnification with a nice sharp image as far as I can see. My methods of assessment may be far inferior, but I have what I feel is right and suits my need for the task in hand, Ive no doubt the 10x50s are just as good, and further up the level, their Apollos are fine too! I took a bag of binoculars out the other night to an old friends house who thought he was going to buy some 25x100's, until he saw for himself, what different magnifications and fields of view provided, and from the collection that consisted of 8x40, 7x50, 10x50, 15x50, 12x25 he kept picking up and eventually admiring what the 10x50's offered. The only downside for my friend with those 10x50's was the IF (Individual Focusing) due to their waterproofing, he had not encountered this before, but was surprised (as was I when I first bought them ) as to how little focusing the 10x50s require due to their extensive depth of field! As you say, each to their own, it will be a personal choice at the end of the day,

Stu..they'd keep my ears warm too