Waddensky

Yup, and also a greatly increased image of the turbulence of the atmosphere 😉. Most likely a 3x barlow is too much, but experiment a bit to find the sweet spot for the night. Jupiter never fills the field of view but can take quite a bit of magnification on a good night. Good luck!

These are efficient to reduce glare, I sometimes use them when viewing the Moon at outreach events. They do however reduce the telescope's resolution by a large amount and therefore the ability to see much detail...

No no, if your terrestrial views are ok, then your scope and accessories are fine. It's the atmosphere that's the limiting factor. As said in this thread, Jupiter and Saturn are not placed very well. Most likely the 3x barlow gives you way too much magnification, 130x is about the limit for your scope.

Most likely seeing. With the 10 mm, the magnification is around 200x. That's ok on a good night but most of the time it's just too much. Not much you can do about it. Some nights are better than others, so keep on trying. For really a good view of the gas giants you'll have to wait a few years, when they're much better placed.

Would be helpful if we know what kind of 'stuff' you have 😉. Keep in mind that both Jupiter and Saturn will be very low above the horizon from the northern hemisphere this year and the next few years. Not a good time for these planets, unfortunately.

Look to the southeast around midnight. Can't miss them, they are by far the brightest objects in the neighbourhood. Good luck!

It's always fascinating to realise the distance these photons travelled before they hit your retinae and cause your brain to 'see' it. They left 2.5 million years ago, around the time the first archaic humans appeared in Africa. That's one heck of a smudge! The galactic collision is predicted to occur in about 4.5 billion years. The Sun is still around by then.

We've had 17P/Holmes and C/2011 L4 (PANSTARRS) in the northern hemisphere. Holmes was a bit of an odd one out, but C/2011 L4 was comparable in brightness to C/2020 F3 as I recall correctly, but slightly less favourable. It was my last naked eye comet before C/2020 F3. None of them were comparable to C/1995 O1 (Hale-Bopp) and Hyakutake (C/1996 B2) of course, and they were no match for C/1975 V1 (West) according to the reports I read.

Again, a wonderful sight tonight. Slightly less transparent air but the comet is a bit higher above the horizon. The coma and tail are quite prominent with the naked eye, the binos showed a nice but subtle structure in the tail. The observation turned into an outreach event when some bystanders asked what I was looking for and I pointed a public tower viewer (normally used to view the sea) at the comet. People have heard of it!

For illustration, here's a graph showing the latest observations from COBS. The range in estimates is huge, varying between 1.2 and 2.0 over the last 24 hours. Possibly underlining the difficulty in estimating the brightness of a comet in twilight. Now if you'll excuse me, I have a comet to see 😁.

Most planetarium apps allow you to update the orbital elements. In SkySafari Pro it's under Settings > Solar System > Update Minor Body Orbital Data. Don't know about the basic version, though.

Ricochet has some good advice. When finding objects, a low magnification (your 25 mm) is usually best to pinpoint the location. If the object is small, you can try out higher magnifications to find the 'sweet spot' where you see the most detail. For large objects like M31 a lower magnification gives the best results. M32 looks like a fuzzy star next to M31. Clear skies and have fun!

Oof, that's quite a small dataset to draw conclusions from considering the unfavourable conditions to estimate the comet's brightness (look at the variation in the observations in your screenshot).

Depends on the object you'd like to observe. A 2x barlow doubles the magnification, so that might be useful for small objects like planets. But a barlow + your 4 mm eyepiece result in way too much magnification for your scope. Keep it under 100x, on exceptional nights you can try up to 150x (you won't see more details but some details are easier to see at higher magnifications) but that's about it under normal circumstances Jupiter and Saturn are not well-placed these years, they are always low above the horizon. This means there's a lot of air to look through, most likely causing the blurry image you're experiencing. Take your time, sometimes the air suddenly improves for a few seconds.

Last night I went out for C/2020 F3. It's circumpolar from here now, so I decided to go look for the comet around midnight near the coast, where I have an open, unobstructed view to the north. The air above the sea was incredibly transparent, I could easily make out several distant lighthouses with clear, white lights instead of the usual muted shades of yellow. The sky above the North Sea was filled with dark, floating cumulus clouds that contrasted beautifully against the deep, saturated, azure twilight sky. Capella and Menkalinan appeared from time to time from behind the clouds, they were the pointers for tonight as they almost directly lined up with the comet. I waited a few minutes for the clouds to slowly drift in and out. Had a nice view of Saturn and Jupiter in the south east while Spica was setting in the west and Pegasus, the great flying horse, was rising in the east, heralding the forthcoming autumn. Suddenly, the clouds opened up and cleared a large patch of blue sky right in the north. There it was. Just six degrees above the horizon, a scintillating, bright light surrounded by a hazy, dimly glowing patch. Tranquil and majestic, as comets go. With averted vision the tail was easily seen. I was surprised how bright it was, it's been a few years since I saw a naked-eye comet but this one was by far the brightest I've seen since Hyakutake and Hale-Bopp in the ninetees. The 10x50s revealed C/2020 F3 as the archetypal comet: a bright, well-defined coma with a long, curved tail that easily spanned the entire field of view. One thing you don't notice in photographs is the striking contrast between the bright, glinting, almost stellar core and the fuzzy coma. A wonderful, charming visitor of the inner solar system. If you haven't seen it yet, go out and try to find it. It's worth it. New clouds rolled in, hiding the comet from view. Quickly visited M31, enjoyed the silence of nature and the magnificent view of the sea for a few minutes and went home.

'Better' is quite a broad term. Do you mean sharper, or larger, with more contrast, or something else? What kind of eyepieces do you currently have? A few very general ideas: Depending on the eyepieces you currently have, you can go for one with a smaller focal length (more magnification, suitable for planets and double stars) or one with a larger focal length (less magnification, a wide field of view, suitable for some deep-sky objects). Your scope and the atmosphere support magnifications up to about 200x under normal circumstances, so assuming 1000 mm focal length a 4 mm eyepiece should be about the minimum. A 35 mm eyepiece is the maximum for your scope. I have a 8-24 mm zoom eyepiece and I find that very convenient. If your scope's focal length is 1000 mm, it's a bit fast (F/5), so cheaper eyepieces will probably struggle to produce a good view. A good narrowband filter, like UHC or OIII, will give you a (much) better view of emission nebulae but only of emission nebulae Some colour filters improve the view of the planets somewhat. I don't use them myself, so maybe others have good opinions. Light pollution filters are not so effective as they are advertised sometimes... You don't have to use accessories from the same brand as your scope, eyepiece sizes (1.25" and 2") and filter threads are more or less standard. My telescopes, eyepieces, filters and barlow are all different brands. Good luck and clear skies!

If you click your location in the Google Maps web interface, a pop up shows the coordinates for that point. There are also many apps that use your phone's GPS to show your location. Keep an eye on the accuracy though, it takes some time for the GPS sensor to accurately determine your location.

I'm gonna repeat what others have said, but for the budget you can buy a nice dobsonian type telescope. These are good allround scopes that'll give you enough to observe for a lifetime. A 8" or 10" is great size. Keep in mind though that they are quite big and heavy: if you can, visit a star party or a telescope store to see one in real life. I am also using only manually operated telescopes. Finding objects is not that complicated: if you get the hang of it, you'll point your scope to the right target in seconds. GOTO systems are expensive, require a power source and take time and effort to setup properly. Still, some find them very convenient. It's a matter of personal taste, I guess.

Simple. My 8-24mm zoom used with my 2x focal extender (comparable to a barlow) gives 4-12mm focal length. The two together give me a stepless 24mm - 4 mm focal length range to choose from, resulting in magnifications from 50 to 300x. Without the extender, this would only be 150x. The resolution of a 6" scope allows for about 150x magnification. Magnifying more is possible (up to about 300x), but will not resolve more details. Under normal circumstances (seeing), the maximum useful magnification is around 150-200x.

Available for free download here, for those interested.

Excellent, congratulations! Can't go wrong with the 8" Skyliner, a great scope for a lifetime of observing. The supplied eyepieces and the barlow are decent enough to get started and to discover the things you like to observe the most. Your next purchases will then be based on these experiences. But first of all just enjoy! A good, detailed atlas or app will help a lot with star hopping to find your way around.

What would you like to observe? Planets, deep-sky objects, double stars? Does it need to be portable? Do you wish to find objects manually or with GOTO? How dark is your observing location? Visual use or photography? In short: we need a bit more context :P. I second Jonathan's KISS adage. I think it's often better to invest in aperture/mounting/eyepieces than electronics, but that's just my opinion.

If the seeing (caused by atmospheric turbulence) was bad, the view can be a bit blurry, especially when observing objects near the horizon. Sometimes it suddenly improves or detoriates for a few seconds (look at this video to get an idea of the effect). Nothing to worry about, but also not much you can do about it. Some nights are better than others. Another eyepiece won't help.

Aren't ataxites magnetic? Could be chondrites. But so many small fragments on a single location, each with their own fusion crust... It seems unlikely to me. You can mail the photos to the BIMS for a quick opinion.

Here's a light curve based on the lastest observations. Reports on other forums seem to indicate the brightness assessments of the last days were a little overestimated.