itmo

Seeing is a big problem with jupiter. Atleast in finland. I have a 200p on an equatorial. When I was starting, I could see banding on jupiter easily, problem was getting enough magnification to see soemthing interesting. Seeing will make the image sharpness flow and and flow out. On very good nights you might have a good picture all the time. 200p is good enough that one night I saw this "broken pixel" in jupiter and wondered if my eyes are playing tricks on me. Then I checked stellarium and noticed that it had been io's shadow. This was with a collimated stock 200p with cheap non-stock eyepieces. I think a 12mm TS-ED.

Astronomy is not a competition (usually) and not many people get paid to do it , so it is not productive to think how "good" you are at it. Otherwise you will go into a spiral of feeling bad about it or a spiral of trying to achieve or overachieve. This takes the fun out of it, which is the only thing you are going to get from it. As for galaxies. At first they are for some reason easy to miss. Later on you will wonder how you were able to miss them. If you saw a fuzzy blob it is either a galaxy or a comet, since there are no large comets near andromeda , it probably was andromeda. Unfortunately, light pollution will make viewing galaxies very difficult and you cant even get around it with filters. Even if you dont have a car, I suggest you try to find some way to get to really dark site ,maybe by only bringing your binos and that finder scope with you. At a really dark site the starry sky and milky way is a wonder to behold even with naked eye. If you are interested in deep sky , i suggest you try globular clusters , open clusters and brighter planetary nebulas. They tolerate light pollution better.

If you have money, anything from televue. since most people dont , check Explore Scientific and Barsta (BST) eyepieces. Since you wear glasses look for something with a 20mm eye relief and preferably adjustable eyecup, so you can leave it down.

One thing to note that galaxy nuclei are relatively well seen even in light pollution. for example I can see all of the andromeda triplet nuclei always and easily regardless of LP, but the rest of the galaxies only pop visible in dark. M33 I cant see at all from here.

most lenses that come with starter scopes are cheap, Rubbish or cheap Rubbish. It mostly depends on luck if you get total Rubbish or ok-ish modified achromats. if you are really lucky you might get a passable plössl. Seems that the danubia eyepieces might be kellners. Depending on manufacturer they might be ok or total Rubbish. I wonder if attaching a 130p flextube to an eq3 is feasible at all. That eq3 might be best utilized in astrophotography by attaching a camera straight to it (if it has a motor) or by getting a separate 6" telescope on top of it , or maybe a small achromatic refractor or maybe a 127mm mak. For 200 pounds my choice would have been an 8" dobson , but a 6" flextube is not a bad buy. Avoid buying stuff piecemeal just because "they are cheap". Gain some experience and then start trolling ebay for what you need , one by one =)

The holy eyepiece of antioch. i have a 34mm version and it is already quite huge.

Now her SO will wonder all christmas why it is so cloudy, then he will open the gift and there is a telescope, 2 more weeks of clouds.. Best to give him some books too to read while the clouds disappear and maybe tell him to download stellarium. Jupiter should be nicely visible in december already so I would start from there , then maybe some globular clusters and open clusters.

you change the letter in most scopes. take the minus off and change W to E IIRC.

my both kids love stellarium. I installed it on "their" laptop and they "watch the stars" now and then by themselves. The older one writes down the names of objects he likes to watch so he can use the "search" function to locate them again. He tells me now and then that "jupiter is visible!" =)

Btw looking through a window with a small scope is perfectly ok for training purposes. You will however get weird reflections and the image may wobble, but atleast you can turn on the lights if you need to read the manual and you dont have to swat mosquitoes or freeze your rear end. =) Once you know how stuff works you can take the scope out for a walk.

in leo you can quite easily get 3 messier galaxies in one view. M81 and 82 are also a nice pair.

i would probably take the 127 mak. portable , easy, good. If you are really light polluted, apeture is quite useless. It also makes stuff weigh more.

one good way to find m31 is to use a finder or binos to locate it first. You also do need dark skies and a full moon is more light pollution than you easily realise. Also you should look for a small fuzzy patch. nothing more. Even though the galaxy is huge, you will at first probably only see the core, and more only if you are in a really dark site.

best to use a cheshire for rough alignment. seems to me that the secondary is off and the primary is also a bit off. also might be a bagging shroud or something.

I think binos and telescopes complement eachother. Also the best for deep sky is ofcourse binocular telescope.