Zermelo

Agreed. The 3.2mm gives you just over 200x with your Heritage, which you'll not get to use very often (if you're in the UK, at least). It certainly wouldn't be usable with a barlow. The 8mm will give you a nice 80x, which you can then barlow to 160x, or a little more with a 2.25x, when conditions permit. The zoom option is very versatile and certainly worth considering. The Hyperflex zoom performs well in my F/5 Skywatcher, and it barlows well with the Baader classic Q (and both currently in stock at FLO). That combination would get you up to the same magnification as the solo 3.2mm, when you can get away with it. The field of view will be narrower than for most fixed eyepieces, especially at the wide end, so you'll probably stick with your stock eyepiece as an initial target finder.

These are great! Can you remember where you got them? I'm assuming they're the kind that get "charged up" by sunlight and give it out later - roughly how long after sunset do they remain visible?

Hi, be aware that some telescope designs require much more travel to achieve focus than others. This isn't a defect. What are you using? Is it a catadioptric model?

The Bresser is a Bird-Jones model, it has been discussed previously here. The Skyliner is a decent scope, and the dobsonian design gives you great value for money.

Apart from the Philips guide mentioned by Tiny Clanger, this one is often recommended for beginners: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Turn-Left-Orion-Hundreds-Telescope/dp/1108457568/ref=sr_1_1?crid=3V4FBNGNSZPOH&dchild=1&keywords=turn+left+at+orion&qid=1607192126&quartzVehicle=36-523&replacementKeywords=turn+left+at&sprefix=turn+left+at%2Caps%2C100&sr=8-1

+1 for the BST, and FLO even have them in stock which is a bonus in the current climate.

OK, so we are living in strange times. In previous years you might get several people making various suggestions and giving their reasons, then you could make your choice, and then look around for the best price. But Covid has turned that around, because of the lack of stock. Once you have a reasonable idea about your needs, see what's actually out there that might fit - which you have done. And your location is also going to be a factor, as I doubt there are many here who know the local market any better than you do already. So I'm afraid I'm going to make some general comments rather than specific recommendations. More experienced commentators may be less cautious than me. So, your suggestion the Celestron SCTW-80 is an F/5, 80mm achromat refractor. 80mm is a reasonable aperture for a starter scope. It's certainly portable, meeting your need, and the bundling of a smartphone holder and backpack suggests that it's aimed specifically at that niche. The tripod is possibly a little flimsy from the photo, though the telescope tube is light and short so it may be OK. I don't have any experience with that model, others may have opinions. You may find that it's not so steady at the highest magnifications (by the way, ignore the claim of a maximum mag of 189x, I'd say 120 under ideal conditions). Something else you should be aware of is the likelihood of chromatic aberration (coloured fringes on the images you see). This is an effect in all refractors to some extent, though it's more obvious in simpler 2-element designs like this one. The fact that it's a "fast" (short) refractor will increase the effect. On some targets you may not notice the fringes, but they are most obvious on the brightest objects - and your main subject is to be the moon. If it's really bad, it will start to affect the detail you can see. So if you go for a refractor you might want to consider a "slower" model, perhaps F/8 or even F/10 (if the spec doesn't say, you can work out the focal ratio by dividing the focal length by the diameter of the objective lens). The down side is that it won't be quite as portable; you could compromise by looking for a decent 70mm instead, which would improve your focal ratio and portability, and perhaps not lose much in terms of light grasp, if the moon is the main target. As the others mentioned, a Mak (Maksutov-Cassegrain) device would be very compact, and have a long focal ratio that would give you higher magnifications without much of the distortion of a short refractor. However I think you will struggle to find much that is reasonable under USD200. Possibly this one if you can find it? The Dobsonian reflectors are generally the best value, though it's true that they will be less portable than the Maks or refractors. But you can get some that collapse to a smaller size. If you feel confident enough, you should consider buying something second hand, for two reasons: you will get a more capable item for your budget, and the current supplier shortages won't be such an issue.

Certainly don't feel intimidated by the EQ mount now that you have bought it 😁 You are correct that beginners who are deciding on their first telescope are often advised that EQ mounts are "harder" than than ALT-AZ, but that's because - a lot of people just aren't very "spatial", and may find ALT-AZ to be less of a challenge - beginners often don't understand how the Earth relates to the heavens and how it moves, which is the reason why the EQ mount does what it does - (especially with a newtonian on an EQ mount) the eyepiece can sometimes end up in some awkward positions and especially if the beginner isn't interested in photography, EQ isn't really needed. But if you are a logical/spatial person, you will manage. Oh, and you're right, the scale markings on less expensive mounts like the EQ1 will not help you. They need to be much larger and more accurate to be useful.

Hi Cathal, and welcome to the forum. If you are in a light polluted area, then it's lucky that your main target is the moon, which won't be badly affected. How important is the terrestrial use (shop signs, etc.) to you? That may push your choices in certain directions. Also, do you have a maximum spend in mind?

Hi, and welcome to the forum. Unfortunately, the planets do look very small in many starter telescopes. At that magnification, you might be limited to the rings of Saturn and the four largest moons of Jupiter. There's a good guide here:

I saw a suggestion somewhere (possibly in SGL) to attach lights to your tripod legs (dark-adaption-friendly ones, of course). The idea being to avoid accidental collisions, especially at star parties or outreach events. We experience this quite regularly at home too, so I decided it was worth pursuing (and also, as users of go-to functionality, I’m getting tired of repeating alignment operations throughout the evening). The very simple idea was a (removable) clip for each leg, each with an LED. I briefly considered a self-contained battery to power each, but decided that charging them was too much hassle (and I also doubted finding LEDs that would operate at such low voltage). Instead, they would be fed from the USB port on the power supply I previously rigged up. I thought the LEDs would be more noticeable if flashing, and found these. My SkyWatcher 150i tripod has 1.25” upper legs and 1” lower. Since collisions are most likely with the lower legs, it was that diameter I worked with. I looked for plastic pipe clips of this size (the most common ones are 15mm and 22mm used for plumbing) and found these. They have a hole for a fixing screw that can be used to hold an LED, and they have a hinged collar for holding the tube, which preserves a gap that allows electrical connections to pass. The screw hole in the clip was wide enough to admit the LED body but not the rim. To allow the LED to protrude from the clip I drilled out the holes a little wider, and about 2/3 of the distance through the clip. The LED could then be pushed through until the rim engaged, and the terminal leads were bent into a succession of right angles to guide them to the top of the clip. I found some twin speaker wire in my junk box, and soldered lengths to each LED’s terminals. The clips have a channel along the edge to allow them to be ganged together. I opened them out with a needle file so that the speaker wire was a tight fit when pressed in – this was for strain relief. I covered over the soldered joints with some scrap plastic strip, screwed into the clip, and pushed some Araldite into the hole and around the exposed metal, to prevent shorting: These LEDs seem to work on 5.1V without needing a series resistor, so I twisted the positive and negative ends of the three speaker cables to run directly in parallel. I cannibalised a USB cable for its male socket, and soldered it (with a bit of its flex) to the speaker wires. The USB wires were quite flimsy, so I reinforceded the joint by gluing, sliding over some bits of thin plastic tubing and wrapping with duct tape. The clips are a very tight fit onto the tripod legs; with hindsight I’d try to find some slightly larger. I’d planned on adding and removing them as needed, but decided to leave them permanently attached: Total cost: £8.39

Hello and welcome to the forum. Do you mean the 150PL, i.e. this one? If so then, yes, definitely more suited to visual than imaging. But with a max of £500 I would suggest you start with visual and see how you get on. The PL version, having a longer focal ratio, will be slightly better suited to solar system targets (for which magnification needs to be higher and field of view isn't an issue). The F/5 versions of the 150 will give slightly wider views for the same eyepieces, and so better for DSOs. They are also a bit more stable in breeze, but less tolerant of cheaper eyepieces. But either would be a good starter scope.

Welcome to the forum Roy.

"See these arms that were broken How they held you so" OK, cables rather than arms, but you don't get many songs about telescopes to choose from. This will probably be opaque to anyone under 45.

I'm running V6 Plus under Android 8.1 and it's rock solid. I'm not sure how much they could add in to a (hypothetical) V7. I've not even been tempted by V6 Pro.

Hi Shaun, - apart from the obvious restriction of available sky that a bedroom window will provide, the other big problem with looking out of a window is that you will get a lot of air disturbance caused by thermals from the house. It would be an issue for visual astronomy and I imagine even more so for astrophotography. - good results can be achieved with both 130 and 150PDS. The apo triplet will cost a lot more, if it's any good. But with imaging, the main consideration is the mount. An EQ3-2 would work for visual, but won't really cut it for imaging. You are looking at the best part of a £1000 for a decent one that will let you progress. - Making Every Photon Count is always recommended by those who know, so I'd suggest getting that first and having a read All the best

Yes, agree with all that, and I would add: - if you are likely to spend a significant amount of your observing time with a partner, family, or members of the public, you may decide that GoTo is worth having so as to reduce the time they have to spend waiting for you to find things. Even if you have it available, you could still choose to ignore it and hone your hopping skills when you're on your own.

If you could stretch to £40 you would have a bit more choice. The Revelation 2.5x has already been mentioned, but it's usually £35- £40. There is also The Baader Classic Q for a similar price. The Celestron Omni 2x is decent but RRP is £60. However it appears to have been on sale here for £29.95, when there was stock. You could also consider https://www.365astronomy.com/GSO-2x-Barlow-2-Element-Achromatic-Barlow.html, which is another GSO at £22.40, but a 2-element low dispersion design rather than the 3-element "semi apochromat" above. Availability is, of course, restricted at the moment due to the effects of Covid.

Hi, you might find some useful opinions here: https://stargazerslounge.com/topic/365786-best-budget-scope-for-a-5-year-old/ https://www.firstlightoptics.com/beginner-telescopes.html https://lovethenightsky.com/best-telescope/for-kids/

Bortle 4 is good enough to rule out ambient light pollution being a significant problem for planets. As others have said, it's more likely to be the low altitude of Jupiter and Saturn, or incorrect collimation, or lack of focus. Well a 6mm would give you 125x magnification, did you mean that you would be using that with a 3x barlow? 375x would be too much for a 150mm to take. The maximum under ideal conditions would be around 300x, but most times in UK conditions you won't manage that. Especially not with planets close to the horizon. Your stock eyepieces give you 75x and 30x; at 75x you should certainly see Saturn's rings if everything else is OK. If you meant you were considering the 3x barlow with these, that becomes 225x and 90x - that would be more realistic than with the 6mm, but you might consider a decent 2x or 2.5x instead. Or split the difference with this.

... and if you monitor those forecasts, you'll see that they shift about quite a bit. In these conditions I wouldn't get very excited about anything more than a couple of days out, unless they're forecasting a whole week of clear stuff. If you turn on "experimental features" on CO, you get some extra lines sourced from other places, displayed as "alternative forecasts". Nightshift is also worth a look as suggested. Then there are: https://www.meteoblue.com/en/weather/outdoorsports/seeing/london_united-kingdom_2643743 https://meteoradar.co.uk/ https://www.accuweather.com/en/gb/london/ec4a 2/weather-forecast/328328 https://www.ventusky.com/ https://www.windy.com/51.501/-0.109?51.109,-0.113,8,m:e4Zaf8Y https://www.wunderground.com/weather/gb/london

Yes, that was the one I was trying to find. I did contacting Bristol Cameras previously but they don't keep any stock of that item, and they didn't seem certain that they would be able to source it. I see it does say "available to order" now, so I might give it a punt.

There have been several threads in the DIY Astronomer thread, for example: https://stargazerslounge.com/topic/187469-powertank-step-by-step/?tab=comments#comment-1952536 https://stargazerslounge.com/topic/212375-custom-power-pack-with-all-electronics/?tab=comments#comment-2271189 https://stargazerslounge.com/topic/303145-field-power-pack-battery-box/?tab=comments#comment-3316386 Some of these are very ambitious!

A challenge for M31 in particular is that it's just so big. You may have it centred perfectly, and it will fill the FOV. But with a modest scope it may not show any obvious detail, so it seems you're just looking at space. You can try nudging off in some direction and you may then see a distinction between the galaxy and background (or possibly you can see the difference between the central and outer areas, as it extends some way). Selecting a long focus eyepiece with low magnification and wider field of view might help, if you can then see the shape more clearly against the background. The possibly difficulty there is that if you have to contend with light pollution, you often need a certain level of magnification to reduce the exit pupil and darken the background, to improve the contrast with the target object. Oh, and congratulations on finding a RACI finder - I've been looking for weeks!

Hi Jason, if your scope arrives very soon, then the moon will be quite prominent, so you might as well have a look 😀 It will also restrict your chances with the "faint fuzzies", so you might like to have a look at some double stars: Beta Cygni (Albireo) Gamma Andromedae Eta Persei Iota Cassiopeiae (a triple!) Lambda Orionis There's also the Perseus double cluster and the Pleiades. You won't get a lot of magnification with the stock eyepieces, so don't expect to see too much with the planets - the discs will be small. Jupiter and Saturn are low down and not ideally placed, but you should be able to see Saturn's rings and the larger moons of Jupiter.