darkskyastronomy

Observing M6 and M7 is a real achievement in the UK, due to atmospheric distinction.

The Meade 4000 32mm is pretty good optically. The actual lense is embedded much lower than on the Televue, which allows one to get closer to the eyepiece, whilst retaining eye relief. Given the very large eye relief on 32mm eye pieces in general, this can be critical for viewing comfort.

It depends on the objects you are looking at. Double stars can take a lot, 0.4mm exit pupil. Planetary nebula can also take really high magnifications. With bright objects, like Jupiter, you will be limited to smaller exit pupils around 0.75mm.

Read up and learn how to optimise averted vision. That will get you more details even with light pollution.

Stu + Ags Thanks for your input. You need to make some concessions, as I believe the thread starter is still inexperienced, so will not see as much 🙂 Plus without holding binoculars totally still, seeing faint details is really difficult.

July is good for Jupiter and Saturn, as well as all of the Messiers around Scorpius and Sagittarius. It's warm, but the nights are short and not fully dark.

M31, the Andromeda Galaxy, will always only be a little white blob. - Dark skies: naked eye detectable with averted vision - Dark skies: golf ball like in binoculars - >= 8" Telescopes, one can see the golf ball like core and some swirling around the galaxy's core. If you want more, you need astro photography.

Nebulae require very dark skies, usually some form of specialist filter, low magnifications, as well as observing experience, where one's eye can distinguish between tiny contrast differences, e.g. a very faint nebula on a greyish background sky.

The important thing is to use a magnification, which should just about frame the entire open cluster. So for the Pleiades you need very low magnifications <30x , whilst some tiny open clusters might require 100x magnifications. If you can only see bits of a star cluster, then you will not recognise it for what it actually is.

Get to know the night sky well with the help of Stellarium and/or Sky Safari and plan your own viewing lists, depending on your interests.Sky Safari also has "best for tonight" suggestions.

You could keep the 10" Dobsonian and buy some tube transportation straps, which redistribute the weight better when you carry the tube separately. It is often not the weight, but the awkwardness of the tube shape and length that is the problem. Tube transportation straps can help with this.

It sounds like you need to set your home coordinates as the home location in the app. If you don't, FLO's HQ in Exeter will be the chosen start location, which can have completely different weather compared to your home location.

Double stars should always be visible, as long as you have no clouds. A full moon is the greatest source of light pollution and many DSO hunters switch from DSOs to double stars during full moon periods, as double stars are not really affected. Respective double star colours might be a bit blander under light pollution conditions, but the underlying colour trends should be visible, especially for Albireo.

Detecting DSO colours depends on a range of factors: Sky conditions, nature of one's eye, quality of eyepiece employed, viewing experience. - Sky conditions: Clouds or bad transparency, usually lead to no colour detection. - Eye nature and experience: Older eyes detect less than younger eyes, but can make up by being used by a much more experienced observer that knows what they are looking for. Some women can see into the Ha red range, which men tend to not be good at. - Quality of eyepiece: In my opinion, once one is an advanced amateur astronomer, quality eye pieces can make a difference. In the Orion nebula: - Cheap plossl: black and white colour - Quality plossl ( Televue, Baader Ortho Classic): green minty/ blue colour - Top tier eyepiece ( Televue Delite/ Baader Morpheus): green minty/ blue colour plus hints of pink in the Orion Nebula wings.

Surprise view has an excellent south-facing view. Due to being quite highly elevated, you also get some extra horizon for those really low Messiers, as you look towards a valley. If you are in the back part of the car park, main road car lights are not a problem. Cars entering the car park do interfere, but that's mainly in the summer months.