Markyttt

I'm back! And I've learnt some more lessons! Lesson no 9 - When revisiting collimation, *DO NOT* wind out all of the secondary mirror screws to see what happens. This is a bad thing and will take much time and many terrible swear words to correct. Lesson no 10 - There's a decent chance that the assortment of collimation tools now owned due to lesson 9 will all for some reason give slightly different results. Lesson no 11 - Whilst joining a a local astronomy club would be the solution to the above issues, these apparently don't run in the midst of a global pandemic. We're allowed to go to the pub, to go shopping, we must go back to work, and I'm told group grouse shooting is just fine. But no standing in fields in the night looking at the stars. This is forbidden. Lesson no 12 - After a lifetime of asking professionals for advice, and then gently ignoring it, I'm still surprised at how much better the BST eye pieces that were recommended are than the cheap things I initially chose from eBay. Lesson no 13 - Lesson 12 will without doubt be unlearnt by the end of the day. Lesson no 14 - Collimation is annoying.

Astro's article suggests this is less than ideal using turbulent UK skies 😬 Saying that, whilst I didn't get neat concentric rings, the fuzzy mess was perfectly circular!

I pretty much followed Astro Baby's guide as it seemed to be where those asking got sent, she just has a cap on the end of the eye piece? 🤔

Lesson no 4 - There are still places on the internet filled with helpful and kind people. Lesson no 5 - Not all Skyliner telescopes come correctly collimated Lesson no 6 - Collimation is a minefield of differing opinions, methods and equipment Lesson no 7 - Above can actually be done with a milk bottle top with a hole in + patience Lesson no 8 - Manage expectations, I won't be following the progress of Mars Curiosity Rover from my back garden. So thanks for all your replies so far, they've all been useful. For now, I'm going to wait for my cheapo eye pieces to arrive and start learning the basics before worrying about more additions. Waving the scope out of my back door last night before bed gave me a view of the moon that's already made the purchase price worthwhile 🙂

Could anyone tell me if the eye piece kits are any good for a starter? The Celestron one seems to include a lot of options (5 eye pieces + barlow + filters) for the price. I've also seen that I can import the Zhumell kit from the US which seems well reviewed.

@vlaiv- that's a really good answer, and the videos are great (if a little depressing 😂). Don't get me wrong, I'm in awe of the night sky, I've been lucky enough to travel to places where even with the naked eye, the views are amazing. I think the expectation vs reality part of the video really sums things up. There's plenty of posts here including nice images of the planets and galaxies so , like an idiot, I thought that simply buying a decent telescope would provide me with the same views. All hobbies needs some time and love to bear fruit, this will be no different. I suppose where things are different is that I can get my standard crop dSLR, point it at the sky, open the shutter and take great photos of the moon/milky way without any special kit, the telescope will clearly take a little more patience. @sputniksteve - Stock 10mm eye piece, suspect the issue is probably more to do with current position of Saturn (just above my horizon) & light pollution than stock optics. @Philip R - It was the jokes about whether one needed a collimater to collimate a collimater that made me join the forum 😊

Thanks so much for warm welcome and taking the time to reply! I've picked up an unbranded barlow 2x, a 6mm eye piece labelled 'Astro Basics' and a laser collimator. The SkiView app has been on my phone for ages (one of those rare apps that just works) but my mini spending spree included SkySafari Pro (which doesn't 'just work') To be honest, I'd be more inclined to spend £50 on the BST StarGuider than half the scope price on the Baader whilst I learn the ropes. As for preferences, I'm on day two so have no idea! I know that if I can find a way to make good views accessible then I'll have a hobby for life, if I struggle then the scope may end up getting ignored. I'm based in the UK so our version of a dark night is a long long way away from a majestic Sub-Saharan night sky. So I guess I'm looking for the hook, the view that will make this a life long passion, something like 'Get the stargazer 15mm, use your app to find M81 (or something) and prepare to be amazed'. I'd hoped Saturn would be my hook but little the white dot with possibly a ring around it didn't have the desired effect.

Hello everyone, another new starter with a load of daft newbie questions 🙂 I've had a telescope before but it was a cheap thing my brother gave me that was only truly good at taking up space in my house.... Move forward a decade, take a Saturday night, add in a documentary about Voyager, a nice bottle of red, and a laptop and I woke up to discover I'd purchased a Skyliner 250px! Setup was straight forward and got a bit of clear sky on the first night so pointed it at the things I really wanted to see, the planets. Unfortunately, it turned Mars from a microscopic red dot into a miniscule red dot. I had better luck with Saturn which went from a star sized dot into a wee white spot with rings! First lesson learnt, buying a big-ish telescope doesn't mean I can actually see distant planets. Whilst setting up the finder scope I learnt lesson number two. Aimed the finder at the only star I could see, moved to the eyepiece to find that my empty sky was in fact FULL of stars. So lesson two was that the big mirror at the bottom was actually to collect light, not to allow me to see Jupiter's great red spot. The third lesson hasn't been completed but I know from my SLR that buying cheap accessories almost always leads to disappointment. Knowing this hasn't stopped me from buying a cheap barlow and cheap 6mm & 8mm eyepieces. Yet to be delivered but I suspect they'll be used only once. I spent some time trawling through threads on the forums today but really got lost in all the jargon. I tried asking Google translate what a 14mm DSO 70 deg TS BST ED AFOV plossi was but it mumbled something about Mandarin Chinese then crashed my web browser... So, rather than continue to order cheap tat from the interweb I'd like to ask the experts here. Seems like nice big planets are out (although there are threads here that great views of Jupiter can be had) and that I should focus on stars? Presume I'd need : - a single decent mid zoom eye piece and stick to the basics for now. - some sort of filter so the moon looks like the moon, not the sun. - maybe a telrad as I'm not loving the stock finder Anything else for an absolute beginner? And what would you recommend I point the scope at to begin with? Something that is easy to find but provides a view that will make me say 'wow'! Stupid questions I'm sure, sorry....