JOC

This is an 8" flextube version The lad sitting next to it is 6'1". This is a flex tube - it slides shut to about the height of a dining chair (and is about the same size to store) and is very rigid and maintains good collimnation - it takes about 15 seconds to detach the OTA from the base and to reattach it - one large knurled screw. The one has a goto in the base - this makes the base heavier than non-goto units, I can lift it and waddle about 100 yards with it easily - it is more the awkwardness of the shape with the weight that makes it slightly awkward, though you can just see it does have handles on 3 sides which help and a non-goto would be lighter. The tube is really easy to carry just a hand under the tube edge at each end - there is just enough room for a hand at the back. Two quick trips (base and OTA) and it goes anywhere and fits in the back of a family car easily - the picture above is in Basildon town centre. The thing with a Dob (if you don't have a goto) is no setting up time. Plonk it on the deck point it at a target manually and view - just nudge it a bit to keep up with rotation. With the Goto you can spend a bit of time setting it up and it will track an object for about 20 minutes before you need to re-centre. This can be useful if you want to advance from a bit of iphone photography through the aperture to adding a DSLR with a, so called, T ring which allows the camera boday to lock into the focusser (or indeed attach to some EP's with the correct additional ring fittings) and the goto would then help with slightly longer exposures. Possibly up to 15-20 seconds so you can then play with stacking. My Avatar moon is a single frame taken with the camera attached to the focusser of the tube. You could also attach a cheap and cheerful webcam to the focusser and use a portable computer to process the input for more impressive results HTH NB, you can see from the shadow we were not pointing at the sun, that shadow was there for about 15 seconds and solid cloud cover all the rest of the day - we were going to do solar filter and the sun, but in the event it's looking at a distant television aerial! FWIW and something that only coalesced for me after many hours reading SGL is that it tends to be the Eyepiece that gives the magnification. If you want to see FGF's (feint grey fuzzies) - far distant objects that are little more exciting than a literally feint wisp of grey smudge in the Eyepiece then it is true that the bigger the mirror the easier these will be to see and they might be just a tad bigger. However, if you want to see stars (which will always be distant points of light unless its Sol!), planets, the Messier objects and most other named lists you can probably see a large number of them with the 8" above. It's focal length and EP size which tend to give 'magnification' of objects - OK larger scopes often have more focal length, but the difference may not be huge, especially if you are limited by your atmospherics - in the UK about x200-240 'magnification' is often our limit due to our local conditions rather than the massive theoretical possibilities stated on some websites. You will likely never get close to what is theoretically possible as I imagine every location will be limited in some way unless you are living on top of a mountain somewhere dry and cool. People get 'aperture envy' and yes, of course someone with the 12" version of mine is going to get better views, but the more I look into things I am not sure I'd ever find a use for something bigger than what I have just to want to drop it outside on the odd occasion and have an interesting hour or so looking at what I am capable for finding.

There is a whole load of paraphernalia around electric heaters etc. that you can install on telescopes that is supposed to keep things warm enough that dew doesn't form. I don't got down that route. You can also buy/make a tube extension (dew shield) out of stiff material to extend the length of the tube to help stop the ingress of cold air (I find such things unbalance my Dob and I don't want to muck around with weights on the tube to compensate. If I dew up I just give up for the night. EP's are slightly easier - drop them into your jacket pocket and they will last a little while once you take them out to use.

Nice scope, my only thought about the legs is what stops them sinking into the grass if things get a bit soft outside? This year, I agree, most lawns are like concrete, but that isn't always the cse.

For around the same budget you could get a bit more aperture and possibly an easier life, pointing it at things wise, with a Dobsonian mount with something like this: https://www.firstlightoptics.com/dobsonians/skywatcher-heritage-130p-flextube.html

Courtesy of SGL Classifieds - many thanks David for an easy transaction. Nearly a full house, 14mm, 12.5, 9mm & 6.5mm, just the two extremes to find the 17.5 and the 4.5 and I'll have the lot. However, I don't need them to come up just yet - I shouldn't really have found the funds for this one.

Everyone knows my answer, cheapo RDF and cheapish RACI optical finder both on Y mounting clamp pucked up 3D printed on ebay for £8, the whole setup probly sub £35 with secondhand bits.

I thought many of these sightings were explained by the Will'o'the wisp phenomenon, which does appear to have an explanation: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Will-o'-the-wisp

A SW 250P retails new at £422, if it's in decent order it's probably worth <2/3 of that so around <£280 Maybe offer £350-£375 like dweller25 suggests above for the lot?

All sorts of fun astro gifts out there https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Solar-System-Model-Orrery-Ultimate-Marble-Collection-Shuttle-Rocket-Planets/252527196691?epid=0&hash=item3acbcb3a13:g:bjcAAOSw6QpbR2Zo This looks fun too https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Authentic-Models-SOLAR-SYSTEM-MOBILE-GL061-Hanging-Mobile/153159420111?hash=item23a90348cf:g:FQ0AAOSwIgNXkIxE

NB they are far cheaper on ebay!

They do them with galaxies in too https://www.amazon.co.uk/FTYtek-Colorful-Birthday-Girlfriend-Classmates/dp/B078TVQQSR/ref=asc_df_B078TVQQSR/?tag=googshopuk-21&linkCode=df0&hvadid=312374080263&hvpos=1o10&hvnetw=g&hvrand=15627166077696054198&hvpone=&hvptwo=&hvqmt=&hvdev=c&hvdvcmdl=&hvlocint=&hvlocphy=9045038&hvtargid=pla-430335221405&psc=1

How about a solar system paperweight/lamp like this one - https://www.amazon.co.uk/Erwei-International-System-Crystal-Engraved/dp/B0787PP19H/ref=asc_df_B0787PP19H/?tag=googshopuk-21&linkCode=df0&hvadid=310734995700&hvpos=1o2&hvnetw=g&hvrand=12036510559397166866&hvpone=&hvptwo=&hvqmt=&hvdev=c&hvdvcmdl=&hvlocint=&hvlocphy=9045038&hvtargid=pla-564068933008&psc=1 There are lots of options if you ask Google

Is it wrong? Isn't the telescope pointed almost straight up and he is looking down into the EP which the enterprising fellow is viewing via a star diagonal to put the image up the right way 😉

But apparently its also been moved https://sto.gamepedia.com/Mutara_Nebula

Could you not fill the watering can (clean, new?) with collected rain water from a water butt?

I watched the same documentary as the rest of you the other week and have a couple of questions/observations. 1. That tricky bit of the manoeuvre when they had to get the lunar module bit to disconnect and turn-around in space and re-connect the right way around to approach the moon. Why didn't they just build it that way round to begin with and give the astronauts swivel chairs if they needed to see where they were going? 2. My son was interested in how they might have calculated the distance to the moon prior to anything first being landed on it in terms of them knowing how much fuel would be needed to get there either during the landing mission or even before with the test approaches etc. I assume that some sort of triangulation or radar bounced signal might have been used, but I wasn't sure. Can anyone help?

Glad you enjoyed your birthday Gina - I've been on my hols hence late feedback. Nice Tee-shirt

My mum said she still has copies of some of the original newspapers that were issued to commemorate the landing would SGLers be interested if I took some photos if she dug them out?

Nope, when I finally found something that worked I stopped looking. A good tip is to dial in the raci during the day (point away from the sun at a distant object) then it shouldn't need illuminating to use it at night. Your eye is pretty good at telling when the required object is in the middle of the finder. As I noted it doesn't even matter if the rdf. Is not quite centred as long as the raci optical is as I find that once I know how much the raci might be off by the desired object is usually in the fov of the optical finder anyway.

Its a Skywarchet right angle correct image (RACI) finder, a Celestron cheap and cheerful red dot finder and a dual finder mount for a Skywdtcher attachment off ebay for £8 sent all the wsy from Poland by a guy that 3D prints them. Though you can buy more expensive versions from the various big telescope houses. I went from wasting whole sessions to being able to land on snything I can see with the the naked eye in about 30 seconds flat.

We walked back from the pub at about 21:30 - 22:00 we got a cracking view. There was a bit of hazy cloud around it, but on the whole very pleased with the view. I watched as nature intended, no bins no scope just enjoyed the view for what it was. Nipped out again at about 22:30 and it must have been about as goid as it got. We are down just above Swanage atm.

At the moment unfortunately it is - despite the scope being contained in a small plastic tool-box about 25" x 8" x 8" every inch is counting at the moment - I was going to take binoculars for bird watching anyway I've got an older set of Opticrons 10 x 42 with a 5 degree field - I reckon they would sky watch too don't you?

Would the 5mm Pentax be too much for it? That would give me x80?

OK, so I'm leaving my folks at home to look after the sheep, and I'm off to Swanage camping for a week - where apparently up on the cliff outside the town it could be respectably dark. I've run out of packing space, but am trying to decide whether to shove in the Vixen 80S at 400mm FL and 80mm diameter, I've just realised that with a 8mm BST in it that will only be a x50 magnification - is it worth taking? I could get that out of my binoculars couldn't I? Is it worth taking the space to put in the scope?

I expect it is a play on name of the music album of the same name. The dark side being the side we don't normally see. That's interesting - a whole sphere of the moon lit from both sides. I bet a lot of folks will be interested to see it lit from both sides and a chance to see the side of the moon that we don't see from our perspective here on earth.