Starwatcher2001

Welcome to SGL. Weird, I'm back into astronomy after a 20 year absence, too. I bought the 9.25 Evo and also had trouble finding how to get the to collimation screws... there's a lot of it about. Once you get it fettled it's a cracking scope. If yours has got the little black rubber buffers on the accessory tray to protect the legs, I suggest you glue them in place. They fall off at the drop of a hat and I've already lost two of mine. Cheers, Mark

Welcome aboard SGL Dave. Good to have you with us.

Welcome aboard Cammy. The electric stuff is there to help you find things in the sky to look at, and also keep them in the eyepiece as the Earth's turning whips them out of view. It's does take a bit of understanding and getting used to though. We can't do anything about the size, but if you wanted to give your dad's scope a try, we can always talk you through any questions you may have about it. On the other hand, the best telescope is one that's used regularly, so if lugging it outside would prove too much of a disincentive to using it, you will indeed be better with something simpler and more portable. Perhaps the bigger scope will be more attractive if you find you enjoy the hobby.

Nice scope Paul. I'm sure you'll enjoy the views from it. Is that a bottle of San Miguel I spy there? I've been known to enjoy a beer or two under the stars, but it's a bit detrimental to the optics apparently.

Welcome aboard SGL Paul. Love the level of enthusiasm. Looking at the Universe's jewels with your own eyes is quite an engaging hobby.

Welcome aboard SGL, Donnie. Which scope did you bag for yourself?

As far a neighbours go, talking to them is a good first step. What worked for me was just letting them know I'd be outside in the garden doing astronomy, so not to be alarmed if they see me lurking or red lights or torches waking about. That opened up a chat about astronomy and me asking if they'd mind switching off the lights when I'm outside. Point out that having a tame astronomer outside at night helps with security if they are concerned. I've managed to get a couple of mine to play nicely and invited their kids to look though the scope at the moon and planets, which they always appreciate. I've got a LP filter but it doesn't work especially well in Teesside with all the industial ights. A good advantage with your 5se is the portability, so if practical taking it to a dark sight will give much better results. It might be worth checking the battery springs in the finder are okay and gently stretching them if they are loose. I use a Telrad, which projects the degree circles and is really good for star hopping. But to be honest, I rarely use it now with the goto. As you're buying the WiFi add on, I guess you know about planetarium programs such as SkySafari, which connect to the scope. They work really well with the NexStar and take observing into a new level. I tend to use SkySafari to drive the StarSense alignment too, as it takes the location and date from the tablet and is one less thing to enter or screw up.

Hi Daniel, welcome aboard SGL. Looking forward to seeing you on the forums.

Welcome board SGL. Good to have you with us. The NexStar are lovely scopes and I'm sure you'll really enjoy using it. StarSense is also a nice option to have and makes for a quicker setup. You'll still be learning about the night sky using it, but it can take some of the frustration away, especially if your skies are light polluted and difficult to navigate by star-hopping. I wouldn't go for the Celestron Eyepiece Set as I gather it has a number of items with it that you're unlikely to use and doesn't represent good value for money. Most people seem to build their eyepiece collections over time, choosing eps as their experience grows. What size ep came with it? 2 inch eyepieces are quite a leap in expense, but if you did go for a 2" diagonal, with a converter you can still use 1.25" eyepieces of course. Personally, I'd get a couple more 1.25" eyepieces and get some experience under my belt and see what kind of objects I prefer viewing. I can't suggest a 45 degree erecting eyepiece as I don't use my scope for daytime viewing. All the best. Mark

I stand corrected, thanks John. I took the time to look it up on FLO, but god knows where I must have been looking.

I've built newts, and I'm still not sure I fully understand collimation 🤣 I was going on this section, but I guess it depends what Stu is actually seeing through the focuser.

At f/5.1, the scope is pretty fast, so the the secondary looking oval is quite normal and nothing to worry about. If your views are good and the star test is giving concentric circles, everything is good. This is a good resource that explains more: http://www.astro-baby.com/astrobaby/help/collimation-guide-newtonian-reflector/

Welcome aboard SGL Tiny. Good to have you with us.

I took these (poor) shots of the "Bridge on the moon" on 19/12/2007 by holding my camera to the eyepiece of my dob, then went inside and told my wife that the Moon's developed a handle. It is a beautiful and surprising view when you see it for the first time.

Would sitting down to observe help? That's altogether more relaxing and easier on the system.

Welcome aboard Pedro. What a great hobby to share with your daughter. Wishing you clear skies.

On the odd occasion my scope needs collimating, I leave it outside for a good hour with the cover on the front, then remove the cover and collimate it, then put the dew shield on, then use as normal. However, I'm around 9 miles inland and it sounds like you have a much more extreme problem with dew. Is it practical to put the heater on without the dew shield, and would that help? Maybe set up the scope underneath a tree, car-port or other overhang. That might stave off dew formation for a while longer.

I like the idea of marking the collimation knobs with a white blob so you can see how far you've turned them. 🙂

Welcome aboard SGL. Good to have you with us.

Welcome aboard Pete, and welcome back to astronomy.

Hi Mark, Here's a good list of how objects respond to different filters. I think I might have originally found the link on here, so apologies to the original poster. https://www.prairieastronomyclub.org/filter-performance-comparisons-for-some-common-nebulae/

I can't answer your question directly Alex, but I can offer my own thoughts about glasses. I am quite long sighted (glasses like jam jar bottoms) and have astigmatism. I thought I would be constrained to always wearing glasses and using long eye-relief eyepieces. But it turns out that my astigmatism is only a problem with higher focal length eyepieces, where stars look like lines unless I wear glasses. At lower focal lengths (higher magnifications), my astigmatism doesn't affect me, and I can simply change the focus to deal with the long-sighted problem. So for me it's glasses for 25mm (94x) and lower powers, and no glasses at higher powers. I went out and bought a Celestron x-cel LX 9mm with 16mm eye-relief, but find I actually prefer it without. As you move to higher powers, glasses can give another problem and that's smaller exit pupils. The exit pupil is the width of the beam of light coming through the eyepiece. A small exit pupil is like looking down a straw, especially in glasses. Exit pupil is directly related to the magnification you'll get from the eyepiece in your scope, so (as I understand it), shopping around amongst different manufacturers doesn't help. In your scope, a 25mm (26x) eyepiece from one manufacturer would have the same exit pupil as one from any other. Eye relief on the other hand is related to the design of the eyepiece, so eyepieces with the same focal length from different manufactures does make a difference. You may be equiped with a different model of eyeball of course, but it's worth checking if you do actually need long eye-relief eyepieces. The only downside is putting the perishing glasses back on to read the charts and find my coffee mug! Cheers!

If you could create a goto and tracking scope for wildlife, you'll make a fortune.

Consider sitting. It's a lot more relaxing and a better way to observe.

Hi Henrique, welcome to the forum and glad you're enjoying the discussions on here. I would say that an alt-az mount would be better than an EQ mount in this case. An EQ mount needs to be polar aligned, and whilst not difficult is one more step that needs to be taken every time the scope is taken outside. A Newtonion scope, but on a DOB mount is probably the simplest to take out and use. With very few exceptions, eyepieces bought for one telescope will fit any other telescope. I'm 60 myself and weight and portability is a big factor to consider. By the way, the gift of letting him see the universe with his own eyes like this, is a tremendous one!