Waddensky

Colour perception varies from person to person, and although I am very sensitive to slight differences in colour, Castor A & B appear white to me. Sometimes colour contrast also plays a part. Antares B is often described as 'greenish' in colour although the star actually is blue-white (spectral type B2.5V). Must have something to do with the striking red colour of the primary.

The maximum useful magnification for a 72ED is about 140x. Wide doubles like 61 Cygni, Castor and Algieba should be no problem. With excellent optics, you might be able to split the double double and Izar. I remember I struggled with them using a 3" table dob, but that one had a spherical primary mirror so it's nothing compared to a decent apo, I suppose.

Meteoblue has a seeing forecast. I really don't know if their indices are accurate, but at least the jet stream is shown.

Great, thanks for the heads-up!

The Sky-Watcher Heritage Dave is suggesting is a great upgrade. It's a tabledob just like the FirstScope. A 150mm dobson, the Sky-Watcher Skyliner 6" for example, would also be a decent upgrade but it's outside your budget (if I roughly convert EUR to GBP). It's also quite a large scope, keep that in mind if you need to trave to a dark site.

If you want to see better details on the planets and the Moon, you'll need more magnification (and thus a shorter focal length eyepiece). The FirstScope is more of a widefield telescope due to the short focal length and (if I recall correctly) spherical primary mirror. Your 10 mm eyepiece combined with the 2x barlow gives a magnification of 60x, I think that's about it unfortunately. A larger dobson, a 150/1200 for example, will have a higher resolution, larger focal length and a parabolic primary mirror that will all help to achieve higher magnifications. But that would require an investment in a new scope. But I'm sure you'll be able to see more detail with you current setup once you've built up experience. It's often overlooked, but you'll develop a sharp eye for detail and the ability to detect very faint objects if you use your scope regularly. I've been observing with a 76 mm scope for years and in the end I was able to see details and split double stars I could only dream of when I was just beginning.

I've seen Venus with the naked eye hours before sunset, but it's very easy to loose the sight of the planet because there are no reference points. Sometimes, it takes minutes before I can find Venus again - and once found is not difficult to see at all. A remarkable experience. The Moon is usually a good guide to find celestial objects during the day, for example Venus (June 19th, occultation) or Mars (September 6th, conjunction). The brighter stars can also be found in this way.

A team of scientists from the European Southern Observatory has discovered a black hole in the naked eye stellar system HR 6819 (mag 5.3) in the constellation of Telescopium. It's the closest black hole to us yet discovered. Here's the Astronomy & Astrophysics paper: https://www.aanda.org/articles/aa/full_html/2020/05/aa38020-20/aa38020-20.html Here's the press release from ESO: https://www.eso.org/public/news/eso2007/ Here's a BBC write-up: https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-52560812

Mars is a bit better later this year, but both Jupiter and Saturn will take a few more years to clear the horizon significantly from mid-northern latitudes, unfortunately. Yes, the amount of air most likely hinders your observations.

Messier 83 can be tough at low altitudes. It was my last unseen Messier IIRC and I tried many times before I actually observed it (it never climbs higher than about 7 degrees from my location). The core is quite bright, it appears almost star-like, so that's the thing to look for: a fuzzy star. It still is a good time to observe the galaxy, although the time of culminations slowly drifts into the evening twilight making it harder to observe as days go by. Good luck!

Perfect. Let them wait in Stockholm 😉😄. A nice example of pareidolia, I love it! Did you see it visually or only afterwards on your picture?

The late summer is a great time to see κ-Cygnid meteors. I've seen very bright ones, fiery orange with a bluish ionised 'tail' that may look like flames. Although they are slower than the average meteor, it won't take them minutes to cross the sky and they burn up reasonably fast. Do you recall the compass direction it was travelling to?

What a beautiful, detailed sketch and lovely story! Thanks for sharing. I like the coin, the 1572 SN must have been a wonderful sight. I was in Landskrona last year - unfortunately i wasn't able to visit Ven. The Tycho Brahe Museum is high on my list.

True 😄. Thanks!

Thanks for sharing your experiences, Stu! Very interesting. I've been thinking about hosting these kind of events, maybe doing some outreach (virtual star parties) for a larger audience, by looking up bright objects and tell participants about them while sharing a live feed of the telescope view. I wonder if this could work for less obvious but still bright deep-sky objects, like the Messiers. Maybe using a webcam of some sort? Any ideas?

The regulations about laser pointers are different in different countries, so make sure that you are informed about the specific regulations that apply to you. Most cheap green lasers pointers are extremely dangerous. Some of them are way more powerful than 5 mW, even if the label says otherwise. All cheap green pointers are 532 nm lasers, and they have unseen but very dangerous infrared 'leakage' by design. IR filters are often missing. So, if you really think you need a laser pointer, buy from a reputable dealer, make sure they are certified to the power advertised, make sure a proper IR filter is installed or buy a 515 or 520 nm green laser that has no infrared leakage, and use them wisely only when there is no airline traffic, never point at people and don't play with them. Heck, what I really want to say: don't buy one, don't use one. It's just too dangerous. Here's an interesting write-up about the dangers of laser pointers.

Why don't you start out with the two eyepieces that come with the telescope? They may not be the highest quality but they're good enough to rediscover your stargazing hobby. In the meantime you can save up for a nice, higher quality eyepiece that fits your observing interest.

Exactly. Planets are always in the vincinity of the ecliptic, and from the northern hemisphere, the ecliptic is low above the horizon in the summer and much higher in the winter night sky. Since the outer planets move relatively slowly in their orbits, it takes a while before their yearly oppositions climb to a higher declination (and therefore higher altitude). On this page is a chart of the declination of Saturn during oppositions between 2000 and 2115.

Yes I agree, I primarily meant finding and tracking. Once found, zenithal observing is certainly possible.

Correct 🙂

It's all about airmass. When an object is low above the horizon, you have to observe through much more atmosphere than when an object is near the zenith, causing scattering and absorption and turbulence. Unfortunately, observing near zenith is nearly impossible with horizontal mounts like dobsons, so there is a "golden mean" somewhere.

There is a comparison chart on the SkySafari website (click on comparison charts). They differ mostly in database size (number of objects) and some extra features. Plus seems to be sufficient for most amateur observers, I use Pro myself. It's on sale from time to time.

Sky Map is a great tool to learn the constellations and planets. Have fun!

Great, have fun with it!

Hello there and welcome! I'm sure a lot of people here are able to help you getting the most out of your scope.