Phillips6549

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There is a free version of Stellarium for Android phones at least.

Hi Johnygail, and welcome to SGL Jupiter and Saturn are both visible in the early morning at the moment - you'll need to be looking at around 4am to see them at their best. Even then they are very low in the sky so unless you have an unobstructed view below 12 degrees from the horizon, you'll not see them. You won't see Jupiter in the evening until August. Any views of the planets will be small. Don't expect to see the wonderful detail you see on the internet! Nevertheless, seeing the planets with your own eyes is always worthwhile - and the first sighting of Saturn will be a

This forum has an excellent thread to set expectations of what you can see with different types of scope: Don't be underwhelemed by what you can't see, celebrate what you can see! If you've seen that Venus is a crescent then you have seen something which 99% of the population are entirely unaware of. Swing South from Venus you'll find stars in he constellations of Gemini, Cancer & Leo. You should be able to make out the Beehhive Cluster in Cancer even with your scope and under light polluted skies - it will be faint but visible. Get yourself a good (free) planetari

It'll turn to dust eventually

Pipnina Here's a copy of the manual for reference. Keep well Mark Synscan_V4_Hand_Control_Manual_SSHCV4-F-161208V1-EN.pdf

So what's the answer in case anyone else is searching for it? I'd certainly be interested to know and have a link to those manuals if they're online. Thanks & keep well Mark

Nat Geo is no longer available on NowTV but is available on TalkTalk Ch317 There will be more nefarious ways of watching

In space, there is no up or down!!!

Merlin You need to rotate the phone clamp so that your camera lens is on the centre-line of the adapter (see green lines). It's fiddly and requires a lot of adjustments up-down-left-right to get the camera lens in the best position. Just keep at it. Mark

My guess is that the 2 things (Cloud Cover and Seeing) are calculated independently. If the clouds were not there the seeing would be excellent! A prime example of S*d's Law in action! Mark

This from Wikipedia: "Although marketed as a converged platform, and as with Windows Phone 8, using a Windows NT-based kernel, Windows 10 Mobile still cannot run Win32 desktop applications, but is compatible with software designed for Windows Phone 8." So the chances are you'll not be able to run Polemaster Mark

Not an app but a website https://www.meteoblue.com/en/weather/outdoorsports/seeing/sheldon_united-kingdom_2638071 Set your own location obviously! Mark

Yes absolutely. But if you want to, for example, GoTo an object which is barely visible or invisible in the eyepiece then choosing alignment stars which are close together and close to your target does (in my limited experience) give the best results. If you then move to another target, you will need to re-align close to that one. The 'rules' are recommendations intended to allow your GoTo system to get you close to #any# target. Rules notwithstanding, choosing close stars really helps for one specific target.

+1 for this course of action. Even a 2 star alignment on stars close the the object of interest gives me a huge increase in goto accuracy.

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You can check when the Starlink constellations will be visible here: https://findstarlink.com/#52.5,North,1.83,West;3 Use the 'Change Location' option to correct for your location. Mark

That's really sad. She was a great ambassador for the science. Mark

Ben the Ignorant created a good thread on beefing up the other standard SkyWatcher tripod. The first tip is definitely applicable to yours.

How did you update the firmware if you can't power the mount? I know you can get away with a lower current supply just for an update but if you can do this then at least the controller is still working.

Been there, done that!!

Swings & roundabouts!

Both options will balance the scope but 2 weights weigh more and so will load the mount more.

This forum is great. Such an obvious way of making things easier but I would never of thought of it without prompting. Thanks Happy-kat.

Pankaj Great photos. You should post those in the Imaging with the 130PDS thread.