Nik271

At the current state this technique is useful for imaging of stars systems, even exoplanets, accretion discs and neighbourhoods of black holes. No good for visual observation. I think the development of the telescope left visual observing a long time ago, mid 20th century perhaps. That's fine with me, still plenty of fun to be had looking at the sky.

That's pretty good considering the conditions! I was observing visually at about 11pm last night and it was hard to even spot the easiest feature, the promontory of Syrtis Major even at low magnifications. Mars was dancing too much and the wind was not helping either. We need a high pressure weather front for next week at the closest approach!

I doubt it, for adaptive optics you will need a composite miror made of several parts and this puts you in the realm of big expensive professional research telescopes, and they have no time for visual. Live luckly imaging is more likey to be in development, I think this is perfectly possible nowadays and will be a big selling point for planetary observers.

Very nice detail, for me this is the classic aspect of Mars with Syrtis Major on the meridian.

Looks that the collimation is fine! In planetary imging aperture rules above all, so between an 8 inch relectror and 4 inch refractor there is no contest. You don't even need a heavy duty mount because each exposure is so short. Some form of basic tracking to keep the target on the sensor is enough.

The Orion Expanse clones by Svbony and others are a budget option and have decent eye relief, and they work very well with slower scopes. Fov is about 66-68 degrees, eye relief is about 16-17mm. I can use mine with glasses.

My suggestion is to get a decent budget 10x50 and just be prepared to lose them. The Olympus had a decent pair at 70 quid last time I checked. They are not very heavy and show a lot in dark locations.

I think you will get different anwers depending on the scopes people use. Big dobs and big refractors tend to come with long focal length so 2 inch EPs are really necessary for widefield. If on the other hand you use 500mm FL refractor then you can already fit M31 even in a 1.25in 32mm Plossl. Personally I prefer lightweight set-ups. A 2 inch diagonal plus a 2 inch EP are an extra kilo of weight, not ideal with my grab and go tripod, AZ5 and 100mm F7 refractor. So I use my 2 inch 32mm Panaview EP only when I have no other choice , like viewing M31 or Veil or the NAN. For all the rest I find the 24mm Hyperion is already wide enough.

Welcome to SGL! I'm afraid your budget is too low for tracking but you there are other options. Have a look here for a brief guide. https://www.firstlightoptics.com/beginner-telescopes.html If you are predominantly interested in the Moon and planets then a long focal length refractor or small 4 to 5-inch (Mak/Schmidt )-Cassegrain on a sturdy tripod will be very suitable. Actually you don't need tracking for photography of the moon and planets because they are bright and you can use fast shutter speeds where the movement of the sky does not matter.

It is good thing in terms of energy efficiency. But it will be even better if they switch them off or turn them down after midnight.

You are correct the orange circle is the bright core of Andromeda M31. It is considerably fainter than the Pleiades, you need Bortle 5 skies or better and a moonless night to see it naked eye. Best views will be in binoculars as the galaxy spans 3 degrees, wider area than what your telescopes of 900mm focal length can show. What is the light pollution where you live? This will have the greatest impact on the visibility of M31.

If you live in Bortle 7 then the planets the moon and the brightest DSO are the only option. Don't worrry, this is still plenty. Some form of Goto is essential, especially with kids. I recommend a small to medium size Mak on a Gti, something like this: https://www.firstlightoptics.com/maksutov/sky-watcher-skymax-127-az-gti.html It's an excellent panetary scope which is good for the brighter DSO as well. (A bigger telescope will not help you to see much more in Bortle 7). FLO quotes weight of 7.5 kg in total so very portable for a holiday travel too, and can be carried assembled easily directly from the house to the open sky. The disadvantages are: 1. Maks have slightly longer cooldown time compared to open tube telescopes. if you plan to use them at higher magnification (more than x100). Just give it 20-30 minutes outside for the 127mm model. Low power views are not affected. 2. Some kind of dew shield is needed to stop the corrector plate fogging up. Home made from foam mats work just as well as the branded ones, 3. Narrow field of view, basically up to 1 degree. But note that all solar system objects fit in this. And globular clusters and most open clusters except the Pleiades. Bonus: A Mak with a solar filter is a good solar scope, I use mine a lot this way to watch sunspots daytime. Another advantage of the Gti is that you can also buy a small refractor like the 80ED for widefield view and use the mount with it, if you need it. Anyway, there is no single right or wrong choice, ideally try to look through other people's scopes to make up your mind!

Wow these images make me feel I'm there, floating by the ISS!

Bear in mind that for colour cameras because of the bayer matrix you are sampling at lower resolution: 2 times less for red and blue and about 1.5 times less for green. So in case of colour camera it is better to use at least 1.5 times extra focal ratio than what the theory says about mono. In excellent seeing F20 with 2.9micron pizels in a colour camera should be OK.

Do you have a car? If so north Oxfordshire is the best in terms of LP. Try the Rollright stones. It's on a hill and there is a layby to park next to it. The stones are pretty cool too!

This is science fiction stuff. Theoretricallly it is possible if you have huge resources to put it into orbit and set it up. But then so is the trip to Mars. So is the return of human exploration of the Moon and look where this one is currently, in the slow lane if not on the hard shoulder. At some stage the real world starts to mess up the beautiful dream 😞

Both are nice but I like the second one better, it's closer to a natural look to my eyes.

Very nice! I've always wanted to see this volcano visually, never quite got the seeing conditions at the right time. Perhaps this opposition....

Great stuff! I think I can spot Olympus near the terminator. The promontories of Sinus Gomer are showing very well!

Thanks for the heads up! I managed to observe both this evening at about 7pm. Used my 120mm Mak and the Baader Hyperion 24mm ep. Saturn is tiny at low magnification but the star hops from it to the Saturn nebula were easy despite the mild haze. Some elongation was noticeable on the nebula which became more prominent at 124x with the BST 8mm. It is surprisingly bright, could still see it even when the evening mist obliterated most of the stars naked eye. Finally I ended the session looking at the only object still visible, Jupiter which showed some detail in the main belts. Transparency has been poor lately but we have to take what we can. Planetary nebulae, double stars and of course the planets are my main observing targets. Clear skies!

Some detail on Ganymede too! Fantastic!

I used to own a 150/750 Newtonian from Celestron and it worked well on a EQ3 mount. In my view it's the maximum size for comfortable viewing on a equatorial platform without using stools or ladders. You can rotate the tube in the rings so the eyepiece is at comfortable height. The Bresser seems a good deal, bear in mind the tripod seems a bit shaky. This kind of scope weighs about 5 kilograms and the mount with counterweights also about 5kg, so the legs have to support 10 kilos, doable but there will be some vibrations). But it is good enough to get you started and in the future you can upgrade the tripod and even the mount. I would recommend EQ5 class mount for more solid performance but this is beyond your budget for now, unless you find something on the second hand market.

About the Astromaster 130: I used to own that scope, it was my first 'proper' scope. It was a good deal when it was below 200 GBP with the mount, but at current prices I would not recommend. The main drawback of the Astromaster is that you wont be able to use high magnification, i.e. more than 70-80 times. Its mirror is spherical and it shoud be parabolic for its focal ratio. The scope suffers from spherical aberration which means that not all light gets focused in one point. The starts at high magnification will not be pin points and the detail on the planets will be poor. For DSO though it should be fine, as you don't need high magnification there.

Very nice! I was watching it this morning with a 120mm Mak and Syrtis Major was just about to rotate out of view. There is noticeable brightening near the north pole, also present in your drawing, perhaps a dust storm or haze.

The Tak Epsilon has a secondary with a spider, and no corrector plate.