Cosmic Geoff

It depends exactly what usage you have in mind. The C6 is more compact than the Star Discovery and being a SCT with a large range of focus will accommodate a range of devices such as binoviewers, cameras, filter wheels etc more readily than the newtonian, which may prove useful in the future. The narrow field of view of the SCT will be a drawback only on deep-sky objects that are bright enough to be seen easily and are big enough to fill up the Field of view, and asides from star clusters, there aren't many of those, especially if you are observing from a town. As for the mounts, both mounts will work for visual use but will be a bit wobbly or limited for any kind of imaging. A bigger SCT (C8 SE) works well for viewing galaxies from a dark-sky site. But a small 4" EVAA outfit works even better...

I suspect that we will see more of the integrated EV scopes such as the Dwarf2, Vespera, EVscope2, ZWO Seestar, offering EEVA in an (allegedly) easy to use package. And maybe more new, lighter weight, cleverer mounts. Maybe computer-designed refits to keep older mounts and scopes turning. Astrophotography will continue to be popular. And some will continue to use the old-style no-electrics kit. One thing that won't change is newbies complaining that they can't get their clever new electronic scopes to work. 😁

Depends on what exactly you want to do, but I have been doing EAA for a couple of years without the aid of any such device - I use a laptop connected by cables.

No. A 2" eyepiece will be large and low-powered. The small barlow will block some of the light. If you need more magnification, just use a 1.25" eyepiece of suitable focal length, or a zoom. That looks ' lost in translation'. If you mean, how bad is your night sky, you should be able to find an appropriate chart online somewhere.

A 5x barlow is an extreme device, only useful (maybe) for planetary imaging with a f5 newtonian like yours. You need a set of three or more eyepieces of good quality, plus a x2 barlow lens.

The SCT is f10, and that makes it tolerant of eyepieces like Plossls. Unless you want to have eyepieces that are widefield and/or sharp right to the edge, you could save a lot of money by sticking with the eyepieces you've got. If money is burning a hole in your pocket, buy a small number of high quality eyepieces one at a time and see if they do it for you. You don't need a Barlow with a f10, not even for imaging with today's small pixel cameras. I have never bothered trying to expand my limited selection of eyepieces, but then I am mostly interested in imaging these days.

What scope are you using for solar imaging? What technique are you using? Unless you are also intending to use the same mount for deep-sky imaging, I can't see why you would want such a heavy and expensive mount as those cited. Wouldn't you be using a small scope and a 'lucky imaging' video, with very short exposures, which would make wobble and tracking error in the mount unimportant? Actually you need to ask solar imagers what they use.

Could you buy a used handset or dongle and re-sell it? If the mount is good, a Nexstar*, Nexstar+ (or Starsense) will work - they all work with my C8 SE and SLT

It seems that the view through the eyepiece is out of focus. As a novice, and with the telescope out of focus, it may take some time to figure out which way to wind the focus knob to get it in focus. Note also that if you point the telescope at a bright point source (e.g. Venus) and it is out of focus, you will see a bright donut with a black hole in the middle (the shadow of the secondary mirror). In this case finding focus is a no-brainer - just wind the focus in the direction that makes the donut smaller. Yes. the view will also be reversed L-R. If the 40mm eyepiece is a 1.25" fit, the field of view circle is going to be quite small anyway.

I have found that platesolving needs at least 7 stars in order to work. I can only see 4 in your sample image. Possible solutions: lengthen the exposure, or jab an up/down or L/R button to shift the scope to an adjoining bit of sky, hopefully with more stars in it. Check you have entered the focal length of the scope in the relevant field(s)

Check nexstarsite.com to see if it has anything relevant. Or, if you contact your nearest astro club, somebody should be able to help you test the mount.

You will get a lot of different opinions. What kind of skies do you have? Urban skies will suggest a GoTo, so you can actually find stuff. In an urban area, it would be a good idea to get something that will work well on planets and double stars. Are you mechanically or computer minded? If not, maybe you should avoid the more complicated (equatorial) or Go To mounts. Are you interested (like many newbies these days) in imaging? Note that this is not as simple as you might think and could cost you a lot of money. If you like gadgets and want some electronic aid, check out the Celestron Starsense smartphone-app telescopes. I have not seen one in action but people here write positively about them.

You won't appreciate the advantage of the catadioptic scopes just by reading about them. You might if you actually used one for a while and experienced the advantages of the compact size, lighter weight and greater convenience of use in various roles, and the ease of inserting various accessories that lengthen the light path. SCTs are generally bought for their mechanical and physical properties, rather than optical. In the same vein, what is the advantage of buying a Mercedes-Benz motor car when a Skoda does basically the same job for much less money? Re. Meade SCTs, the OTA optics have a fine reputation, the electrics and mechanics of the mounts not so much.

You can quite easily get whatever magnification you like with any telescope by fitting a Barlow and/or short focal length eyepiece. Even dimestore telescopes with Hubble pictures of Saturn on the box offer high magnifications. The question is whether the view is sharp or blurred, and whether the mount is stable enough to make using a high magnification practical. The highest practical magnification depends on many factors, not least the quality of the atmospheric 'seeing' and also the target. Personally I hardly ever use a higher magnification than 250x with an 8" SCT. You may well find backyard telescope views of the planets disappointing. Not being a particularly keen-eyed observer, I did, until I resorted to planetary imaging. All these matters will become much clearer to you once you actually have a telescope and use it.

Yes, you can pay a lot more than the cost of a Virtuoso for a Mak or SCT of similar aperture. What you have to bear in mind is that the advantage of the more expensive setup may only be apparent once you try using it. Try, for instance, using a filterwheel or a binoviewer with a Newtonian, or plugging in a planetary camera. Oh dear... I have a 127mm Celestron Maksutov (similar to the Skywatcher offering). It's a really well-made instrument, a handy compact size, works really well for its aperture and I have no plans to sell it. I had noticed the Celestron C6 SLT - superficially looking like a bargain, with almost a free mount (if you look at the price of an OTA only). But I acquired the same mount with my Mak, and it's just a beginners' wobble-mount which I try to avoid using. One can now buy a new Windows 10 laptop for around £100, (yes, really) apparently good enough for basic emailing and typing etc . But would you want one? My point is that you can buy cheap, or you can buy quality. Which you go for is up to you. There is also the second-hand market. SCTs in particular are heavily discounted when used and you can find some real bargains. You mean the Classic Cassegrains? Attractively priced, but with long focal ratios more suited to planetary work? The problem then is to pick a GoTo mount for it, bearing in mind the remarks above. An AZ/EQ should work, but at a cost.

A C8 8" SCT OTA weighs about 6 Kg. The SE6/8 mount weights about 6Kg. An 8" f5 Newtonian OTA weighs about 10Kg. You can expect a Dob base to be as heavy as the OTA. e.g. 60 lbs for the whole Dob outfit.

Note that I did have an 8" Newtonian + EQ-5 at one point, and I ditched it in favour of an 8" GoTo SCT, which did not cost me a lot of money, and has proved much easier to use and move around. (It is possible to pick up the whole assembly and carry it outdoors.) Beyond the 5Kg class, your choice of separate alt-az GoTo mounts is largely confined to convertible AZ/EQ mounts with large price tags.

Since you have the equipment in front of you, you are best placed to answer these questions. It would be an advantage to get a digital multimeter for testing. Is the 17 AH power tank fully charged? Do you have a connecting cable? (Typically a car cigarette lighter style an one end, plugging into a large round hole on the power tank. The other end is typically a 2.1mm/5.5 mm centre positive, plugging into a small round hole on the mount.) Is the mount switched on? Typically there is a power switch on it. Is the cable continuous (no breaks or blown internal fuse)? If you have no clue about electrics, it might be wise to get help from someone who does.

It seems that you want something of reasonable aperture and also portable for visual use, and are also interested in imaging. If operating from a city (with light pollution) and occasionally from a remote site ( with limited time) I suggest you really need GoTo if you are going to find much to look at. A smaller scope, say 6" to 8" aperture would show you enough to keep you amused for quite a while. You appear to have discounted SCTs (maybe because you didn't try one, unlike the Dobs), but a used 8" GoTo SCT would be within your budget and would be lighter and more portable than a GoTo Newtonian of the same aperture. It would also be easily adaptable for planetary imaging by attaching a planetary camera. Equatorial GoTo would be a liability for visual use, as an alt-azimuth GoTo is much easier and quicker to set up and does all that is necessary. You should regard imaging as a totally different project, and I would suggest that rather than plunging into serious deep-sky imaging you start by trying EVAA (q.v.) with a small refractor, a suitable astro camera, and either an alt-az or equatorial GoTo mount. It might come as a shock to you to discover that even a 4" achro refractor, a ASI224MC camera and an alt-az mount will show as much or more detail on a deep-sky object than the big Dobs you crave. The mooted 200mm Newt on a HEQ5 is a beast you wouldn't want to transport further than your back garden, unless you are really keen to use it in a dark-sky area. It would also be time-consuming to set up, and a beast to use, with the eyepiece potentially getting into awkward and near-inaccessible positions.

If using a water pipe as an earth in a modern property, you should check that you have copper pipe all the way to earth, and not a section in blue plastic..

Reflections of the sun etc from double glazing reveal that the glass is quite distorted. My house has some original Victorian glass and the view through that looks wonky even to the naked eye.

That makes no sense either. Unless you were selecting the laptop camera in Sharpcap (as one can), instead of the ASI120.

As an ASI120MC owner and Sharpcap user, I'd say that this doesn't make sense. Clearly you want the ASI120MC to work with the telescope. There are quite a few reasons why it might not: You have set a totally wrong exposure time. The camera/optical trail is not in focus. If it doesn't work, how can you focus it? Focus is critical - even bright objects like Jupiter can disappear if not in focus. Some physical barrier eg flip mirror or dense filter, is blocking the light path. Unreliable cable connections.

You are probably expecting too much. I looked at several planets a couple of nights ago with a C8 SE with the following results, using mostly a 25mm eyepiece. Venus: small dazzling disk, no detail. Could just make out the phase. Mars: bright orange dot, no detail, could just make out some phase. Uranus: faint dot, just distinguishable from a star (no diffraction rings). Moon: nice detail, lots of large and small craters visible. I started doing planetary imaging (which you can do with a C8 SE) some years ago, as it was the only way I could see significant detail on the planets. To see any detail visually, you need the right high-power eyepieces and some observing experience.

You have the manual, yes? So look up where to find the tracking rate in the handset menus (sidereal, lunar rate, etc). Also select the highest slew rate (Rate, 9) and see what happens after.