Waddensky

Not familiar with EQMOD, but the local sidereal time is the right ascension of the local meridian (an imaginary line through zenith and the south). The local sidereal time is the Greenwich sidereal time plus your longitude (divided by 15). So maybe your location is off? Or perhaps east/west is reversed?

Lovely! A few interesting dark nebulae on the bottom right of the cluster. The cluster's designation is Messier 39 by the way. It's a nice cluster visually as well.

Yes, a comet to look forward to. Unfortunately quite low above the horizon for mid-northern latitudes when it's at its brightest.

Phecda can be seen in your picture next to the flare. The star is not massive enough to go supernova. Probably a satellite flare, nice catch though!

The two eyepieces the scope comes with are basic, but good enough to get you started. I always recommend to start with the supplied eyepieces and add more after you've built some experience and have discovered what is important to you (magnification, eye relief, field of view, ...) Unfortunately, the 130EQ isn't the best telescope out there and probably* comes with a spherical mirror, which makes high-power viewing (such as planets) difficult or not possible at all. If you're not able to cancel your order, try to aim it at Saturn for example (visible from 11 PM) and use the 20 mm eyepiece without a barlow and see how it looks. You should be able to discern the rings (although they're almost edge on currently!). If the view is acceptable, try the 10mm eyepiece to magnify a bit more. The barlow is probably too much for the scope. Stars like Arcturus and Betelgeuse are always pinpoints in a telescope, so the magnification doesn't matter. Use the eyepiece that gives you the nicest view. I always enjoy stars in a low power eyepiece that also shows a few surrounding stars in the field. * Celestron gives ambiguous information about the optics, which is strange.

Celestron's app is called SkyPortal. But it's not used to set up the handset, it replaces it. But you probably need a WiFi module to make it work.

There's also the Dwarf III coming up. Better hardware than the Seestar, wider FoV and a bit cheaper. Smaller aperture though.

Here are a few: https://www.bbastrodesigns.com/precession.html https://clearskytonight.com/projects/astronomycalculator/modification/precession.html Or are you looking for a tool that can batch these calculations?

I have both, 10x50 6.5 degree binoculars and an ST80 refractor with an ES 24mm 68 degree eyepiece offering just over 4 degrees of true field of view. The refractor of course goes much deeper, showing fainter stars which is especially apparent in regions with many stars, like the denser parts of the Milky Way (which also helps to distinguish dark nebulae). Mounted on an AZ-4 mount it offers very stable views unlike the handheld binos. An additional benefit is that you can attach a filter to the eyepiece, to hunt for diffuse bright nebulae like the Veil, North America and southern gems like the Omega and the Lagoon. On the other hand, there's something about the two-eyed viewing in the binoculars. It gives a sense of depth, a more immersive experience than the ST80 offers. I also get the impression that star colours are more vivid in the binoculars (30/31 Cygni, Albireo). Might have something to do with the coatings, not really sure (the exit pupil is comparable). Although both setups are reasonably grab-n-go, the binos are much easier to carry and use. So to answer your question, ehm, both...? They both get a lot of use in my case.

The Heritage 150P Virtuoso GTi is motorised and fits your budget. Of course, you need to align the telescope first before you can press a button and centre a target, but that's the case with all GoTo telescopes. https://www.firstlightoptics.com/telescopes-in-stock/sky-watcher-heritage-150p-flextube-virtuoso-gti.html Why do you want something moterised? If you regularly go camping a manual telescope is probably the most portable option, not to mention you don't need to worry about a power source.

It's a bad time for planets currently. Jupiter disappears in the evening twilight while Saturn and Mars are just above the horizon at sunrise. But don't worry, things get much, much better in the second half of this year! If you download an app like Stellarium, you can find out exactly which planets are visible from your location. Clear skies!

Stellarium is able to control telescopes as far as I know.

Maybe they're easier/more interesting to sketch than to image? https://stargazerslounge.com/forum/52-observing-and-imaging-double-and-variable-stars/

You can download the charts for several alternative telescopes (sadly, not the originals from the paper version) from the Turn Left website and create your own table with them.

To compare observing spots, primarily. I don't use the Bortle scale myself (I use SQM values and readings), but I noticed that it gives observers an idea of how much darker a spot will be compared to other spots they're familiar with. It's easier to compare Bortle values than SQM values. Average reading in my garden is 21.05 mag/arcsec2 (Bortle 4 I believe). My favourite nearby spot reads 21.41 (Bortle 3).

Excellent scope in my opinion. I use the NexStar Evo 9.25 for outreach activities. Nice, sharp views and although significantly larger and heavier than the 8", still perfectly manageable. Dew shield is probably necessary depending on your location. No experience with AP though.

That's great! 😄 It's good to realise that the light pollution data is based on a method outlined in a paper by Cinzano et al. (link) that uses satellite data and a light propagation model to calculate the sky brightness. It's not based on actual measurements of the night sky. In my experience, the model is quite accurate though.

The Bortle scale is quite subjective and most websites use old VIIRS data to calculate the sky brightness. This website uses the most recent data I know of, from 2022. It doesn't list the Bortle scale but it has a colour legend that more or less matches the usual colours that are used for Bortle maps. If you want to know the actual sky brightness of your observing location, you can buy a Sky Quality Meter. I have one, nifty little devices.

You can also sign up for supernova early warning system alerts like this. Also based on neutrino detectors, and alerts you a few hours before the optical supernova becomes visible.

Hope this stream runs for another 100,000 years 😉.

This is incredible! Pictures like this make it so clear that M78 and the surrounding NGCs are just small, illuminated parts of the huge dust clouds in the area. What a detail. Very, very nice!

Occam's razor 😉

You can enter coordinates without cookies in the url, like this: http://clearoutside.com/forecast/52.09/5.12

Yes, both the moving lights and the flashes are most likely satellites. I can't remember a night that I didn't see them. If you enter your location on websites like Heavens Above, you can find out when they are visible with amazing accuracy.

Satellites, most likely. A few years ago I would have suggested Iridium satellites, but the ones that produced these very bright flashes are currently being or already have been de-orbited.