DeathWarpedUp

Does one exist? As the celestron one seems pricey for whats essentially just a dongle. I have a cpc800 which has the aux port that the sky portal goes in, however I'm sure I read somewhere people have used other equipment plugged into the handset directly, mine being the older Nextsar+ with the RJ11 cable, not the newer USB one. Thanks

What do you use to find targets with AP?

Out of interest has anyone tried the meade 4000 8-24, looks good price wise, I'm guessing its on a par with the Celestron: https://www.harrisontelescopes.co.uk/acatalog/meade-series-4000-8-24mm-zoom-eyepiece-1.25.html#SID=1137

Just out of interest, if you have got mostly 9 to 25s. Won't you need something wider to help with your general star hopping?

Totally agree. I have a few high end insturments and kit (amps/pedals/stuff) I spent 20 years playing in bands and what not, at least the kit and chosen hobbies will last my lifetime, and possibly my sons for a while (He better ). A few bits might even gain in value.

It can be a hard lesson to learn for some more than others I feel. The feeling of diving into a new hobby, heart pounding raring to go, and most people you ask for guidance telling you to slow down before you remortgage your house for a set of Eyepeices that your current climate would never allow any usage of Its almost as frustrating as watching someone go through it offering guidance and watching them makes those same mistakes. Such is life I guess

Just think how much cheaper it would of been in the long run, knowing what you know now, as opposed to what you knew then.

A Baader Morpheus 12/76 Isnt far off. https://www.firstlightoptics.com/baader-planetarium/baader-morpheus-76-degree-wide-field-eyepieces.html#about_this_product

You know some people with 8" scts are comfortable with just a decent zoom and a good 38/68 or 70/40mm, which covers most things most of the time. Add a good UHC or OIII filter and the set is complete. All achievable for £500 for the lot new. A chunk off that 2nd hand. This gives you a solid foundation. Then spend some time with the scope, at that point, anything you are not happy with or wish to pursue will reveal itself to you, and information and advice given will tend to make more sense, and help with choices.

In your 6se, as your finding out I doubt there's not a lot of need for the barlow with the zoom, hence this thread. Like a lot of questions on this forum it comes down to the limits and spec of your scope which is why it's always good to mention your scope specs when asking about ep's ect. A Barlow and zoom works great but generally with faster scopes where it becomes somewhat obselete, as others point out. Slower scopes like maks and scts don't like the more extreme mags.

I saw a yt video that showed a star sense alignment tutorial. It might be worth watching in case there's something you missed.

I'm perched over astro buy and sell like a gnome with a fishing rod.

He who dares rodders

Just a tip with the highend stuff, at the price point between good mid and the highend you are basically getting in many cases less than a 5% improvement in experience. And even then the improvement is more often than not when using it in AP, and not viewing. The cost however is often a lot more than 5%. And visually more often than not barely noticable if it all. The leap between budget and good is a lot higher than the leap between good and great. Half the stuff out there is clones of each other and will do the job quite nicely, at that point it all comes down to the EP being within the limits of what you scope can handle. A lot of the time you are paying for the build of the kit and engineering of the kit itself and sometimes just the brand name, not the view it gives.

Have you checked out Altair Astro in Norwich, they may not have the 8se, but will probably have something closeish, at least you can probably get an idea of the mount

If we are talking about visual, then really you want to be looking at your scope in terms of its spec and basing your choices off of that. Its an 8" sct (2032) F10, which lucky for you can handle quite a wide range and a lot of the nit picking about certain ep's won't affect your scope so much, you really do not need to buy top of the range TV's to get great views. Mid price range work well. If you want a wide ep for that spec, the popular choices are the ES 38/68, or cheaper W/O Swan 40/70 or slightly cheaper Orion Q70 it all comes down to your budget. You will need a 2" diagonal for those though. As Shaun stated ES 82s are very good by all accounts, many prefer 68s however, and again it comes down to budget, and if you have a 2" diagonal to fit the thing in. If you want something with a higher mag, get a baader zoom 8-24, it works great in a scope of your spec and in the long run can save a few quid on ep's, it gives you great flexibility and comes with an adaptor to fit both 1.25 ans 2" diagonals, it ill also help you later to decide if theres anything more specific you want. You really want to be out there looking at clusters, DSO, Nebula, working out what you want to be looking at, then a plan will form in your head regarding ep's and you can make a more informed choice, it is very confusing just guessing at EP's and gets very expensive quick.

Baader is 1.25 with a 2" adaptor

I was going to mention that, I think he said it was a zoom. put the ep setting on its lowest mag (probably a 24mm)

The Baader has good reviews however as you say they do get narrower (a relative term) the lower the mag, I think 8mm is around 68 degrees, 24mm is around 50ish. From my understanding though most of the zooms tend to narrow. You can compensate that with a wider set ep of 24 or a 28 or 32 depending what your aims are. It also has a 2" adaptor if that suits you. Quality wise with the Baader Hyperion, for me its fantastic, although mines an f10 sp quite forgiving. Zooms are a lot of fun compared with set peices, the abiity to "zoom" in itself makes it a great choice being able to scan and zoom straight in there and then is highly underated. It works great imo for either planetry or general star hopping. Its nice to stick it in the holder and a little bit of focussing rather than fiddling back and forth with your eye peices in the dark, especially when you start adding filters or barlows ect. Highly recommend. They seem to go used for £140-150 on the usual sites. more expensive than some, but sometimes they are the only peice used in a session.

The cpc is heavy duty as its the same mount for the 8, 9.25 and 11" (or it was, at the time when i brought it). I don't know if the same applies for other celestron models.

Totally agree. If im feeling lazy, getting close enough works well, as long as its in a wide ep, I can slew to it from there easy enough. Or else I can use my zoom to align in to 8mm, and get it precise. Theres actually also a precide goto function that you can do after the original alignment.

Based on my cpc800 (weight wise). I don't think you want to take it in one peice (if you can even lift the thing in the first place). If its anything like the cpc it spilts into 2 and has 3 finger screw to tighten underneath, and assemble take a minute max. Also there is possibly a spirit level bubble on the mount which you might need to level the scope. My goto has one, I don't know if its the same for the star sense? In regards to height, the legs are adjustable. depending how tall you are expect the mount to be hips or slightly above kind of level.

Thats precisely what I'm after it for, I have a 2" UHC Astronomik and getting an OIII at some point. I'm guessing its a noticable difference.

Have you had a play with one, any good?

Hi John, what abut Nebula? Thats primarily what Im after. Ive got a swan 40/70. I was hoping the lower power would brighten up the veil ect, and not just the sky around it.