Ricochet

Stretching your budget even more, Argos have the 10x50 version of the Olympus DPS-1 listed at £60, if you can find a store close enough to your location that has it in stock. I've looked through the 8x40 version of the DPS-1 and I was pleasantly surprised at just how good they are for such a cheap price, so they are definitely worth considering.

For a new user who will only have one instrument a Skywatcher Heritage 130p or 150p would usually be my suggestion, but as these are both way out of your budget and out of stock everywhere the previously suggested voucher idea is a good one if you think your brother would really prefer a telescope and he would be able to afford the rest of the cost himself. 

In my experience the 3.2mm is a little soft. My advice would be to get the 5/8/12mm options from the Starguider range for your telescope and then use them with a barlow when you need higher powers. The other option would be to get the 7-21mm Hyperflex zoom, which gets good reviews, at least when used with a barlow, but I've not used one myself to know how it will perform at f5.

38 minutes ago, deThalion said:

2) https://www.gpspro.lv/products/lv/462/14686/sort/1/filter/0_0_0_0/SKY-WATCHER-Dobson-Reflektora-teleskops-N-150-1200-Skyliner-Classic-DOB-300X-teleskops.html

Dobsonian 

This is by far the best option that you have shared. You are right that for DSOs, aperture is key and so unless you have very deep pockets, a Newtonian is the best option. However, in my opinion, a Newtonian is best used on an Alt-Az rather than EQ mount as an EQ mount spins the telescope as it pans across the sky. This means that the focuser and finderscope end up in all sorts of positions and you have to either do contortions to use them, or stop and rotate the tube in its rings for each new object (or both). Of the different Alt-A mounts, the Dobsonian design is both the cheapest and most stable, which makes it a no-brainer to use for large Newtonians. However, there are two things that you should note:

1. This is a long scope and so you may have issues transporting it to your dark site. It will require use of a car (this also applies to all the EQ-mounted options you have found as well).
2. Despite the size, it is still quite low to the ground. You will need some sort of height-adjustable chair to sit at to observe. I use a drum stool with my (8") dob.

38 minutes ago, deThalion said:

3) https://www.skyhunters.lv/teleskopi/Ņūtona-Reflektora-Teleskops-Bresser-Pollux-SKY-150-1400-ar-EQ3-Montējumu/

This one looks really promising. Good discount and I even get smart phone adapter! Although there is "catadioptic system (integrated barlow lens)" and not sure if that makes calibration harder. 

The integrated barlow lens means that the primary is a fast spherical mirror and the lens is included in a desperate attempt to get a useable image out of it. This is commonly referred to as a Jones-Bird design. You should avoid this telescope at all costs. 

This differs from telescope 1 in your original post, which is not a Jones-Bird design, as has been previously suggested. The original choice has a real long focal length (indicated by the very long tube) and at high focal ratios, a spherical mirror is acceptable. At low (fast) focal ratios, a parabolic mirror must be used. You should note that despite the fact that the Skywatcher dobsonian you have selected has a slow focal ratio, which could allow use of a spherical mirror, it actually is fitted with a better and more expensive parabolic mirror. 

Edit: I should also add that the 6" f8 newtonian is often referred to as an "APO killer". It is not only good on DSOs, but also on the moon and planets. For your budget you won't get a better telescope, the only consideration I would have would be whether you want to increase your budget and go for the 8" or even 10" version. 

I have the 16x70 and have noticed the same. It appears to just be a push fit decorative cover unconnected to the lens cell so there is no problem with any looseness. As it is plastic it will not expand and contract at the same rate as the binocular body with temperature change so on mine it is not always loose and sometimes does require a small amount of force to confirm that yes, it really does rotate. As far as I know it is not designed to be removable, there is probably a small plastic ridge holding it in position and you would have to be very careful removing it to do so without damage. 

I think that you would run into problems mounting the binoculars onto the telescope in such a way that you could actually look through them when they're on the scope. You would also run into the problem of telescope rotation as the EQ mount moves across the sky. The binoculars would sometimes be on top of the scope, below the scope or the left or right of the scope. The yoga positions required to use the finder on an eq-mounted newt would be made even more difficult by the need to align both eyes to the binocular. I'm sure you could find a way to bolt the binocular adaptor to something that can attach to the scope,  but I'm not sure you could do so in a way that that allowed the binoculars to spin on said mount so that you could look through them wherever the telescope is pointing, and have them keep alignment with the telescope (or at least not easily and cheaply).

@Mark Allen, of the two telescopes, the Astromaster will be the superior telescope. The Powerseeker 127 is notorious for being poor. It is a Jones-Bird style telescope with a cheap "corrector" in the focuser, which can be detected by spotting that it is a Newtonian type design of telescope with a focal length that is clearly much longer than the length of the tube. The Astromaster, on the other hand is a typical 130mm, f5 Newtonian which should be optically better. 

Normally, i would suggest that you buy any telescope from a specialist astronomy retailer, however, this year we have had the dual impact of many more people buying telescopes and the supply chain being interrupted, which means that telescopes are in short supply. Due to this, I would advise that you instead use the product listings at firstlightoptics.com as a rough gauge of quality. If FLO sell a telescope, you can assume that it is at least reasonable quality and buying it would be a reasonably good bet. If they don't sell it, then I would not buy it without first getting some opinions from people here, rather than looking at reviews on Amazon, which in my experience, appear to almost always have been written by people with absolutely no experience or idea what makes a telescope good or bad. 

Additionally, FLO have a telescopes in stock page, which shows which telescope packages they currently have in stock. If you look around the website you will be able to find some OTA listings that are also in stock but not listed on the in stock page. Any OTA listing is for the telescope only, if you buy one of those you will have to buy the mount and tripod separately (and possibly some starter eyepieces).

One good thing about (relatively small) binoculars is that you could easily carry them on a walk hunting for gaps between the houses. 🙂

As far forward as you can get it and still get a good fixing on the tube I would think. From memory the rule of thumb is a minimum of 1.5x the diameter of the tube. 

I agree with the comments about using a Cheshire or barlowed laser. The Hotech I had was complete junk and worse than a £20 eBay laser. 

Assuming that you're in the UK and your budget is £200, I think it is best to look at a visual-only setup. If/when your partner decides he wants to start astrophotography a lot of prior reading and another 0 on the end of the budget will be the order of the day. Usually, the best option in my mind around the £200 mark would be the Skywatcher Skyliner 150p, but the estimated time for it to be in stock is 15-20 working days, which is pretty tight given that it is only an estimate and until the container is opened, no-one knows how many of each model have actually been sent. This is pretty much the story for every telescope so if you see something that you are interested in, I think it is worth emailing whichever shop you choose to find out how far down the queue you are in terms of back orders if you do make an order. 

FLO have added a Telescopes in stock page, which as you will see has pretty slim pickings. However, it looks like this page is only periodically updated so some telescopes listed here may have already sold out, but also you may be able to find a telescope that is in stock on its individual product page before it appears on the in stock page.

It's better in that it comes with a finder, so you can more easily point the telescope at a region of the sky that you want to look at. Other than that, they're probably pretty similar. 

2 minutes ago, Lyndsay Smith said:

Hi  

Well Aston believes he is saving up for a better telescope (exact one not decided on) but my husband and I have bought him a Celestron Nexstar 8SE for Christmas  

A great choice. I suspect this will be the Christmas he will always remember.

12 hours ago, Lyndsay Smith said:

Hi everyone. I’m Astons mum and I just wanted to say a huge thank you to everyone for your support. We are genuinely blown away by the outpouring from everyone in the astronomy community. Thank you xx

Welcome to the forum Lyndsay (and Aston). If I may, I'd like to ask the question that I know everyone here has been dying to know the answer to since they read the first post...

Which telescope is Aston saving up for?

I think if I was in your position I would keep the telescope. Your son will need you to help him find things with either instrument, but the scope will show fainter stars and magnify objects by a much greater amount. Once you have found an object I would imagine that your son will be able to turn the slow motion controls himself to keep the object in view. 

How have you attached that solar film? Is it just selotaped to the underside of the cover? I think that is a very dangerous way to do things. Under the heat of the sun the plastic cap will heat up, the tape can begin to unstick and the film could fall off, blinding you instantly. In addition, when you just remove the cap for night-time observations, there is nothing to protect the underside of the film from damage.

If you really want to only use the 2" hole, you should build a solid filter cell that slots over the outside of the hole so that gravity is pulling it down onto the cap, and you should have secondary fixing methods to 

1. Prevent the solar cell/filter from coming off the cap
2. Prevent the cap coming off the telescope.

When not in use the cell can then be stored in an airtight container to protect the film from damage.

However, using a full aperture filter should give much better resolution than just the 2" hole.

17 minutes ago, jonathan said:

it says to use the vanes to adjust the secondary so that it appears as a circle in the focuser

No, it does not. You are getting two separate sections confused.

Initially, you adjust the vanes so that the central bolt of the secondary spider is centred within the tube.

When you are trying to make the secondary circular you use the secondary collimation screws. There is an image to show this under the subheading "Adjusting the secondary mirror's tilt" as you follow the guide.

1 hour ago, Ken82 said:

planned

That is the key word. The number of eyepieces from my planned collection that I still own is zero 😂. I didn't start with ethos though, so yours may only be added to, not replaced. Congrats on the new eyepiece, it is a very nice set. 

Is your friend offering to give the Jessops binoculars to you or to sell them? If they are being given away, then you might as well try them and then continue using whichever is the better binocular. If they are for sale then I probably wouldn't bother if it was me. A cheap roof prism is never going to be great, but perhaps your friend would let you borrow them to compare to your current binoculars. In any case I would use the Bresser and/or Jessops binoculars as a test to determine whether you like the size/weight and magnification/field of view that a 10x50 binocular gives you. If you find that you do like the characteristics of a 10x50, then you should decide how much you are willing to spend on a pair and see which binocular is suggested for that price in the following list:

https://binocularsky.com/binoc_choosing.php

That is the plan that I am currently using myself. I've got some (relatively) cheap 10x50s that over the next few months I will use to asses whether, on those nights where there isn't time to get a scope out, whether I find myself picking up the 10x50s, or whether I only ever find myself taking out the 16x70s. If it is a success then I will invest in a decent pair of 10x50s that I expect to keep for the rest of my life. If it doesn't work out then I can sell the cheap 10x50s without losing too much, but either scenario is better than buying cheap binocular after cheap binocular in pursuit of incremental gains, only to look back at some point in the future to realise that I've got hundreds of pounds invested in a journey that has resulted in still only owning a mediocre instrument. 

I've found adding a washer between the adaptor and binocular can help. It depends on the design of both parts how much of a help this will be though. 

I keep my dob in the shed. I don't think it has suffered any damage for it and as you guessed, is closer to the ambient temperature and so takes less time to cool. My eyepieces are kept in an eyepiece case inside the house, but I think they would be fine if kept in the case in the shed as well. I did buy a second hand eyepiece that had just been stored on a shelf in an observatory and condensation had seeped into the eyepiece and marked the interior lens surfaces so I would avoid storing anything in a damp location. 

12 hours ago, Scream said:

Can I test it indoors some how?

That's what your cheshire is for. Put the cheshire in the focuser and adjust the focuser so that you can

1. compare the positioning of the secondary to the edge of the cheshire. Is the secondary centred and circular?
2. compare the location of the crosshair to the doughnut on the primary and the shadow of the eye hole in the cheshire. All three should align.

If you can get a photo of the colimation through the cheshire we may be able to advise you about collimation. 

It looks to me like the original telescope uses a 1/4" photo thread adaptor and the non standard dovetail had been screwed to that. All you need to do is to undo the two screws shown in your photo and then fit one of the following to your telescope to fit it to any standard vixen mount. 

https://www.firstlightoptics.com/dovetails-saddles-clamps/astro-essentials-vixen-type-photo-dovetail-bar.html

If you want a filter for planetary and lunar then my first choice would be the neodymium. This filter tends to increase contrast a bit rather than just dimming the object. The Baader is the best but the cheap Chinese version is very good for a very small price. 

In my experience there seems to be a loss of detail when using polarising filters and you can also get extra reflections so I would only consider one for the moon. 

1 minute ago, Norrie65 said:

Hi thanks for the reply, yes the 5” was a dob. The 6” messier planetary seems to have different mount to the 5” no idea if that is meant to be better or not

Yes, the 6" Bresser will have the best mount of all three options. It also has a much better secondary spider than the 5" and, if it is built like its bigger brothers, much better mirror supports than the Skywatcher. 

I think an 8" dob might be too big for your travel requirements. If at all possible it would be best to wait until such a time that you can see one in the flesh before buying. Also, if you do decide to go ahead, the solid tube versions are lighter and probably more suitable for being carried on your back than the flex tube versions. 

Perhaps the smaller heritage 150p and a suitable mount with photographic tripod would be a more suitable and manageable option.