Stu1smartcookie

I own the bresser Mak and it’s a very nice scope , but , being a Mak the corrector plate is a dew magnet so get a dew shield , also the c6 will suffer from dew as well . Although I kept the Mak I actually bought a stellalyra 6”classical cassegrain which I intend to use for planetary and Luna viewing . .. the advantage being , NO corrector plate and so the scope is less likely to be affected by dew .

i suppose the worst conditions apart from the obvious blankets of clouds are spells of showery weather . Panic stricken quick teardowns of equipment that took 30 minutes to set up ! Only for the rain to last 3 or 4 minutes . Almost makes one start to cry !

We say in the UK we have three months of winter and 9 months of bad weather 😂,which is a little unfair as we had a fantastic summer last year ... this year is more normal , cloud , wind , a bit of rain here and there . We take what we are given of course . But the good news is , the skies will slowly start to darken as from yesterday .

I think a lot of us can echo your sentiments , Mike . So many variables have to "line up " .. if its clear then the sky doens't get truly dark at this time of year or its partly cloudy or rainy or too much wind . TBH unless its luna or planetary i tend to steer clear of setting up , in the height of summer .

Great Pic Nik , saw the moon last night and really wanted to view it through my scope , alas , living on a new development which isnt finished i refuse to put my scopes out the front of the house because its like the Sahara out there, so , no moon for me at least until i can view it from the back garden .

Why not start with a Star Tracker ? Ioptron SkyGuider Pro or the Star Adventurer 2i ... these are both in the region of £350 and if you already have a tripod you will be good to go . Its debatable which of the two trackers are best , personally i would lean towards the ioptron as it has a built in powercell .

The "purists " ( not all of them) who are mainly into astrophotography scoff at the whole EAA idea . Maybe it twas ever thus , i can imagine when scopes started to be mass produced , "purists" dismissing them as "toys" . I do find an undercurrent of aloofness which tends to infiltrate the hobby . (personal opinion) . Strange really , after all , we are all in this hobby together , whatever equipment we use , whatever standard we are at ( i for one still class myself as a beginner ) . Indeed this forum encourages newcomers to the hobby to ask a question without being derided and ridiculed even if the question be a basic one . Surely we owe the same courtesy to a new product that brings another fascinating avenue to the many people who will be put off buying the larger variants due to cost . As the hobby evolves so does the equipment albeit at differing levels and quality .

Nice , Simple set up , Lee . The az-Gti in alt az mode just as it was designed to be . You never know , it might catch on

As a Dwarf Labs scope owner i am totally in favour regarding the See-Stars . If , like the Dwarf it manages to bring more people into the hobby than its a win for me . I can only speak for the guys producing the Dwarf , but they are upgrading their product "on the fly" although the updates seem to have slowed a little . The one thing missing is a complete database of objects to slew to . And that has to be updated to use the location of the user . Hopefully the See-Stars will incorporate this .

I will NEVER worry about clouds again 😂, after seeing this i am more than happy that we don't encounter such creatures (generally) in the UK

Very nice , Martin

Looks great Steve

A 5" sct is a nice starter scope , it will show you quite a lot .. i had an omni 127 ... i really liked the scope ... the DX5 will be good on planets and the moon

Not true ! you need to align the starsense with an initial 2-3 minute alignment and after that the sky need to be dark enough for it to "see" stars , not just one or two . The app will actually "tell " you that . Having said that , i love the starsense and use it on manual mounts whether it be placed on my scopes or the mount itself . It will only work properly when the sky is clear . That may seem obvious, but it does lose position sometimes ,if there are a few clouds about . its nothing major as it usually recovers . The other good thing about the starsense is that once aligned you can move the mount anywhere and it will find its position WITHOUT it needing to be re-aligned , thats a brilliant feature . GOTO's are brilliant but they also add so many variables that can fail at anytime . I have neighbours with small kids who , at this time of the year have their windows open at night . They dont want to hear whirring and screetching noises as the goto motors spring into action . So , my choice is a combination of the two ... i have a mount that accepts tracking motors but i use the starsense to find the targets first . One thing you might want to consider is that the starsense DX5 will also accept ather light weight scopes ie small fracs . So its quite versatile although the tripod is quite flimsy .

Yes , its certainly been good weather in the west ... changing now as you wrote , i agree regarding observing in the summer . Its ok for luna and trying to find venus during the daytime , and of course a bit of solar , but , bring on the autumn .

Hi Ian , only just seen your message.. I love the dwarf .. it's such a breeze to operate , mind you the iPhone app isn't up to much, whereas the Android app is fine.

Great Photo Lee ... simple , and yet it portrays the beauty of our hobby ... of course over here in cambridgeshire its recently been blowing a gale and thick cloud ( although its better now ) so its lovely to see such a relaxing scene .

Welcome to the Dwarf league , Dave . The little tripod is soooo much better than i was expecting it to be .

I had a similar thing with my 152mm starwave ... ( a scope that i sold and will buy back soon ) .. i think there is a way of tightening the focuser although i wasnt brave enough to try. But it is unerving although it never caused any real problems

Envious , as in the east we have had cold winds and grey clouds with the occasional clear hour or two

Thanks for the Heads up Geoff ... due to the lighter evenings this will be a bit challenging as a lot of the Beehive will be a bit faint , but its certainly worth a go

For information ... Most of us living on the East side of the country have seen very little apart from thick cloud !! zzz I still enjoy reading the reports of others with more luck than us , though .

I am pleasantly surprised at @John 's use of the 70mm frac to view the sn2023ixf . . Can't wait to try it for myself ( weather permitting) tonight .

Hi ... im sure many will comment on your question . I would point out that , depending on how limiting your budget is , generally budget and astrophotography do not mix well . Having said that , why not choose a star tracker and a dslr camera? it will be a fairly gentle way into the hobby and a wide angle lens will be quite forgiving with polar alignement if its not perfect . One thing you will need is a stable mount . In astrophotography a mount is the most important thing to consider .

Mass production will inevitably lead to some poor quality . a disapointing yet familiar tale .