kevin1

Thanks for the advice guys I will try it this evening on Venus itself rather than keep trying on the infamous chimney pot

Hi peeps I wonder if anyone can help me I've set my red dot alignment up in the day using a chimney pot in broad daylight using a 25mm super wide eyepiece on my skywatcher telescope. Thus i centred the pot dead centre in my eyepiece, then I lined up the red dot dead centre. The problem I'm having is on the evening i was trying to view the planet Venus, when I pointed the red dot direct at the planet the telescope eyepiece was miles out from the planet. Could anyone help me on this matter where I may be going wrong being a newbie. Any help would be most grateful.

Thanks for the prompt reply Cornelius and the warm welcome. As you might tell I'm new to the astronomy world well three days in. One thing I have found very helpful so far has been your forums plus a handy app called Stellarium which shows the position of certain planets and stars in the night sky. I've started with the moon choosing different eye pieces super 25mm wide angle then the 2x Barlow to get closer. The only issue I am having which is probably due lack of experience is finding anything else in the night sky to target on. I take it this comes with practice and vast knowledge. I bought the telescope second hand it's a Pentaflex D=130mm F=1000mm with the Synscan AZ goto tripod. Any ideas what age the telescope is and is it decent is really the question for a new starter like myself. Any tips would be grateful

Hi folks i just wanted a bit of info on my cordinates for the synscan AZ the cordinates I have are: 52*28'18.4"N 2*02'38.4"W I've entered them in as 5228N 00238W is this correct? After reading the manual it says for a beginner you should use brightest star setting which I have. After this it asks to select a region i take it would be Northwest. Any help would be grateful or is there an easier way like two star. I've also included pictures to describe what I'm actually describing about if that helps