Waddensky

Excellent advice here. If you want to get an idea of what to expect visually, visit the Sketching forum.

Open Camera is another great app to get more features than most stock camera apps. Note that maximum exposure time is often limited by the manufacturer camera hardware.

Unfortunately, not that I am aware of. That's why I hate it when respectable brands put low-end scopes like this on the market. Maybe others have some useful suggestions to improve what you have. Here's a great list of very nice starter scopes for all budgets, if you're thinking about buying a new one.

With respect to your second question: a 4 mm eyepiece used with a 3x barlow produces around 450x magnification, that's too much for your scope and for normal atmospheric conditions in general, causing the view to be blurry and unsharp. Even the 4 mm without the barlow is a bit of a stretch for the scope. Keep it under 100x and you'll be fine. Good luck!

These types of telescopes with a build-in corrector are usually not recommended, because they are very difficult to collimate and require high-quality optics that are not used in this price range. The first review doesn't seem to notice that it isn't a Newtonian design (let alone the massive amount of affiliate links casting doubt on the objectiveness of the website).

Thanks for your detailed description, this is very helpful! Supernovae are events that take weeks or months to appear and disappear, so that is not an option. A few other suggestions: Aircraft landing lights are very common in The Netherlands, I grew up in the Schiphol region were they appear all the time - very bright when they are pointed directly at you, and then slowly fading as the aircraft changes direction. Satellite flares are also quite common. The old Iridiums were well-known for their flares but they are no longer in orbit. Other satellites are also known to flare from time to time when their solar panels beam reflected sunlight in your direction. Head-on meteors are very rare, but not impossible. There are currently a few showers active with their radiant roughly in that direction, the closest being the alpha-capricornids shower. There are some cosmic events that are very short-lived and may become visible to the naked eye sometime. But these are extremely rare, monitored 24/7 by all-sky surveys and would undoubtly already caused a stir in the astronomical community if one as bright as you described appeared.

Yes! The 200 is even larger than the 150. Excellent scope for a beginner and comes with a decent finder and eyepieces, so you don't have to invest in other things to get started. But keep in mind that they're quite large and heavy. You can't see black holes with a scope because, well, they're black. You can see stars orbiting a black hole though!

Features on Mars are a bit subtle, and require good seeing and a well-collimated scope as said. 240x may be a bit on the high side for an 8". Did you observe Jupiter with the same magnification? What kind of details did you see?

Some satellites rotate in orbit, from time to time they reflect the sunlight on their solar panels directly at you, causing a flashing effect. The most well-known and extreme of these kind were the old Iridiums, but it's not uncommon for many other satellites to produce flashes or vary in brightness. There's also a lot of space junk, just tumbling around in orbit and producing unpredictable flashes. On Heavens Above, the passes of the brighter satellites can be found. If you enter your location and the date you observed the flashes, you may find the satellite you observed.

No you don't have to crouch fortunately 😄. You can easily sit next to a large dob (here's a picture). Smaller dobs are called 'table tops' and can be put on a table while observing (another picture). Good luck with your choice! Do you have a specific dobson in mind?

Kyle above has great advice. The Ring is bright, but very small and almost star-like at lower magnifications. You most likely saw it but didn't recognise it. It forms an isosceles triangle with two 9th magnitude field stars. No colour, just a white or greyish sharp-edged oval. Perhaps you can give Messier 13 a try next time. Easy to find and star hop to, very bright and immediately recognisable as deep-sky object. But deep-sky objects in general are very different and much more subtle than the bright planets. Once you know what to expect, they're a lot easier to find and recognise. Good luck!

Great report, thanks for sharing! Yes, it's all about taking the time to really study a target to discern a wonderful amount of detail invisible at first glance. And when the atmosphere suddenly steadies.... wow!!

As John says, these pinpoints are stars. Deep-sky objects like nebulae and galaxies look like fuzzy patches of light. If you're observing in the evening, the Andromeda Galaxy (M31) is still very low, which will make seeing it more difficult. Keep in mind that the view you get through the eyepiece is just a very small section of the sky. To find deep-sky objects, you'll need to recognise star patterns to locate the object, sometimes by 'star hopping' your way from a bright star to the deep-sky object. You'll need a good chart or app that shows you enough stars to match the field of view in your finder scope, I guess SkyView doesn't have enough stars to use it for finding faint objects. Stellarium or SkySafari are better suited for this purpose. M13 is a great object to get started. It's easy to find in Hercules' 'keystone' asterism, it's visible all night this season and it's very bright, so you can easily see it in your finder. Good luck!

It's f/8.7, very kind to cheap eyepieces. I guess it came with a stock 25mm and 10mm plössl.

Congratulations! A great accomplishment and lovely report. I once completed the Big 7 within 24 hours spread over two nights, but completing the challenge in one night is still on my list. Might be a good time to make another attempt 😄

Yes it is, congratulations!

Here's a light curve prediction based on recent observations.

Great observation! As John says, this is a real phenomenon, known as ionization trail or afterglow. Some meteor showers are known for these trails, such as the Perseids and Orionids.

For handheld use 12x usually is too much to hold steady, 10x is about the maximum, for some people even 7x or 8x. I think weight is more important than size, the 12x60 is 1.2 kg, the 10x50 0.8 kg according to my reliable sources (id est Google). That really makes a difference. I have the Nikon Action Ex 10x50 and I'm very pleased with them, for both daytime and nightime use. They are 1.0 kg so a bit heavier than other binos in the 10x50 range.

There's no scientific definition of what makes comet 'great' , but usually a great comet catches the attention of the uninformed observer. By that definition, C/2006 P1 (McNaught) probably was the last one.

What a fantastic picture!

My guess would be an internal reflection of Jupiter.

In general, £500 can get you a wonderful telescope for visual use that will give you a lifetime of joy and beautiful views of a myriad of targets - planets and deep-sky objects. On the other hand, a very basic starter setup for astrophotography costs at least three times your budget. It's just two very different branches of the hobby. Not to be discouraging of course, just to get an idea. If you are located somewhere around the mid-northern latitudes, keep in mind that Jupiter and Saturn are placed very unfavourable the next few years or so. Getting good views of them would be quite difficult. In any case: good luck with your choice and welcome to the forums! I'm sure you'll get some really good advice around here.

Wonderful observation, thanks for sharing! Do you recall the direction it was heading to? Could be a (very) early Kappa Cygnid, they are known for their bright, flaring, fireballs. The actual sound of the meteor, comparable to the thunder in a thunderstorm, would take several minutes to reach you. I've read reports of a sizzling sound heard at the same time a bright meteor appeared, but these sounds seem to have a different - though interesting - origin.

Yes, it's getting fainter but that is to be expected as it moves away from the Sun. Here's an estimated light curve with an overlay of observations. At the same time, the comet is moving to darker skies, so it might be easier to spot. On 23 July, the comet is closest to Earth.