JOC

That's it! I'm glad it's not just me! LOL

Mind was brand spanking new and certainly wasn't without issues. Mind you when you think what it's all trying to do inside the mechanism it's pretty clever it works at all.

FWIW my issue initially was a squeak. I still do have issues with slewing (not so much with tracking once I'm on target). I think the systems are VERY sensitive to weight/balance and I find that my own problems of not finding intended targets with the Goto system appear magnified (LOL) when I have a large EP in the system. If I slew with, say the original SW plossls in place, I get a far better results than if have the socking great Pentax in place. It might be worth some experimentation to see if your tracking is better maintained with a lighter load at the EP end. I even give up with my light shield at times too. I def. find that the lighter the load the better the finding and this even manifests itself when I am initially calibrating the system.

I did - it sounded like it had a budgie trapped in it! FLO were kind enough to take it back for a brief spell and when they sent it back to me it was fine and has been ever since.

NB. From what I see and read there is a vast difference between what is theoretically possible and what is practically possible. My take, based purely on what I have read and my own experience is that Practical magnification from a telescope seems about half that which is supposed to be theoretically possible give or take a bit.

I have an 8" F6 scope just like yours - I suspect you have a Skywatcher 200P or very similar just like mine. I have a really good pricey 5mm Pentax that gives me x240. Even on the best nights I get and I live under reasonable skies in the countryside my telescope won't go to any more magnifcation than that and I rarely get the chance to use it. 8mm seems to be about the 'sweet spot' for these telescopes I highly doubt you will gain any satisfaction from going beyond my 5mm.

@Chaza as the others have agreed you start with the lowest magnification you have because a lot of targets are easier to find at lower magnification, you then gradually sneak up the magnfiication a bit at a time until things don't improve any further. At each stage make sure the object is bang in the centre of the previous view and be very gentle as you change EP's as each higher magnification shows an increasingly smaller bit of sky and you can easily miss the target as you go up especially if you try to do so in too larger jumps. Also the object, as also mentioned, will spend less time in view at higher magnifications and therefore can be easier to get a good look at before you have to move/nudge the scope at a lower magnification. It took me a while the realise that magnfication is NOT the be all and end all of astronomy, for various optical reasons at high magnfication objects are not as bright, are often not as sharp and spend less time in view. The planets are a case in point, esp. Jupiter - Yes, I can view it in a top quality 5mm Pentax EP and get higher magnification, however, the quality is {mild expletive} and the view is far more satisifying in a 8mm BST EP or even the little 10mm Plossl the telescope came with. I also find that I can't be bothered messing around with Barlows - you have three decent magnification intervals in the EP's that you already have and you might find that after the first couple of times you consign the Barlows to the back of the cupboard and never use them again - that's what I did. I even bought a Barlow thinking that they sounded wonderful things and now rarely touch it apart from to attach my DSLR camera to my setup as it has a handy thread on it. Apparently they can be handy if you want a higher magnifcation off of an Eyepiece with good eye relief (you don't need to get your eye so close to it so the viewing is more comfortable esp. for specs wearers) as the Barlow maintains the Eye-relief, but I am un-impressed with them otherwise.

I would start with just the 25mm eyepiece and no Barlow. In fact don't even bother with messing around with the Barlows until you have seen Saturn clearly in all the stand alone Eyepieces. I expect the Barlows have been sold to you with wild promises of better magnification and you may not ever use them. Once you can see Saturn at 25mm you can try the 12.5 and then finally the 4mm if the view is clear.

Have you also looked at the pictures on page one of this thread?:

Could you make it up?

So your scope is closer in size to the 4" one (just 1cm smaller). It will therefore gather slightly less light than the 4" telescope referred to in the web-page and this will make it harder to see fainter objects in the sky because less light can be gathered by the mirror in your telescope. Whilst all factors play a part - it is the ratio between maximum mirror width size and length of your tube in combination with your eyepiece that determines how big you can make something and it is mirror size and how much light it gathers that sort of determines how faint an object you can see. Thus, if you want to see objects that are faint and also make them big you kind of really need a long telescope with a wide lens.

Have you looked at the pictures on page one here: As the others have noted, all stars will appear as just points in the sky - no disc shape to them, unless you are looking at our own star during the day with appropriate filters. All other stars are just too far away. The planets as shown in that thread will be little more than the ration of a small pea on a large dinner plate. What you need to do is to find areas of the sky where many stars and gases are together forming clusters and nebulas - then you will find some larger objects to look at, but they still won't be in colour like the images Hubble provides. Feint Grey Fuzzies is what many people call them. I think it might be a case of re-addressing your expectations.

If the join is to be permanent then a bit of heat shrink plastic might also find a use. How about a matchbox? - cut a notch in each end of the tray part, put the connection in the middle and put it together as a box again by sliding the box part over. For larger connections a similar idea with margarine tubs works.

I was going to suggest elastic bands too. Or maybe small elastic hair bands (those smooth ones for pony-tails you can get dozens on a bit of card in pound land). I guess you would pass one over the lead and down to the join, then give it a twist round so it doesn't slip off and pass the other end of the connected lead through the loop and run it down to the join.

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