M40

No ideas from me on that one, hopefully someone else will jump in

When you align the secondary you are in effect shining a laser at the mirror and reflecting it straight back at the target area so as long as any additional adapters you put in dont go off line then it can only be the primary that needs collimating. When I set mine up using the ocal then out to the star test, down to a 10mm eyepiece it was good but using the 8mm I convinced myself it could be better. So I centered the star, tweaked it, centered it, tweaked it, saw the clouds, rushed it, wrecked it, did the ocal thing and am now waiting some while to check it against a star, this is where an artificial star wins if you can use one. Hope it helps.

NeilH and myself both collimated our mak's at the same time using different methods. Neil used an artificial star as he had 150ft clear line whereas I used an ocal. Both of us had carried out some work so we both knew they needed collimating. I followed up on mine with a star test, I couldn't put my finger on why I thought it needed additional tweaking, you just had that feeling it could be better. If you have 150ft clear line, I definately recommend getting an artificial star and just checking it out. All the best.

You could do a couple of tester holes that tie up with your pier base, this to see how deep the concrete is. If its deep enough, how about some long 12mm stud and chemical fixing, then stick something like a rubber mat down, put your pier on top, clamp it down and level it if needed at the pier top. If it's too wobbly on the concrete/rubber mat a few metal spacers should sort it. Food for thought. All the best.

Personally I would leave the cover off inside your garden building but if you prefer to cover it, you will need to create an airgap between cover and telescope. In the past when I needed to do that, I threw a large plastic builders bucket over the telescope then put the cover over the whole. You may still need to create an airgap between bucket and the top of the telescope so creating some sort of spacer between bucket and telescope may be the way forward. Is your cover a snug fit? Could you create some sort of hanger for it to create the airgap? All the best

My word, a pier and approval from management for further investment, we are most definitely not worthy 👌😁

You are now officially doomed like the rest of us 🤣 capturing a phase of Venus with the phone at the eyepiece did it for me and later it being followed with a first eaa image of M51 with son and grandson sealed it. All the best and keep us updated on your journey.

Hello Lee2508 and welcome to the site. Echo what has been said above about refocusing but just to add, I use a flip mirror with the camera in the straight through port and an eyepiece in the flipped port. By using a couple of adapters and spacers you can get the two focused at the same point. To switch between the two you then simply flip the mirror to the other position. If you switch eyepieces you would still need to refocus but you can get adapters that give adjustable spacings and we do like adapters 😁 All the best

For a bortle map, try lightpollutionmap . Info. You should be able to drop the pin right on target. Out of interest, I use a 125mm ed on an heq5, similar to your 120apo on an eq6 and it's an excellent combo. The telescope works well on the planets if you use a barlow with a good eyepiece and like bosun21, I have a go at eea with this telescope and I am unlikely to run out of targets any time soon. Food for thought and all the best.

Hello Phillip and welcome to the site. Bortle 4 is nice and dark so off to a good start so just a couple of questions for you; what would you like to observe and would you consider a telescope other than a refractor? Something like the skymax 127 az gti or the explorer 150p/pl for example. All the best.

It's a great telescope, have a search for a few more yt videos just to make sure it's for you. I moved mine in two pieces as I had a few steps to use. I also stored mine in the garden shed and just used a barbecue cover to keep the dust off. The video you found showed a couple of accessories, not sure about a laser finder but a red dot finder works very well. Likewise a cost effective moon filter would also be worth budgeting for as the moon can be very bright. All the best.

The dob 200p includes a base that enables you to manually point the telescope at the target and you manually nudge the telescope to stay on target. To find stuff, the best thing to use is an app on your phone, stellarium is the one I use, this will show you what is in the sky at that time and where your chosen target is in the sky. So by using the app to find the target, you then find the target in the low power finderscope on the telescope and when you have it centered you then move to the main telescope eyepiece. It sounds complicated but by starting on the moon or a bright star you will soon get the hang of it. You can literally plonk the telescope down, it doesn't require levelling or any sort of polar alignment so you can be up and running very quickly. Initially, once you've got it out of the box and set it up, you will need to align the finderscope with the main telescope. This is relatively simple and again ask away as plenty on here are only too willing to help. All the best.

Sounds like the dobsonian 200p or similar may work quite well for you. Like many others, my first proper telescope was the dob 200p. With this you can easily pick out craters on the moon and see detail on the larger planets. With the 200p I managed to see a phase of Venus and get a picture of it by putting my phone on the eyepiece. I quickly learnt that things move very fast through the eyepiece so I also switched to a baader zoom eyepiece. The zoom enabled me to quickly switch magnification and keep the target centered. I say this because whilst the zoom is not to everybody's taste and I definitely recommend not buying expensive additional stuff before using the supplied components, with your budget, you could look at the 200p or similar and have spare cash for a zoom at a later date should you want to. I thought I would add a comparison for you using the field of view calculator. I have compared the skymax180, the dob200p and the explorer 150pl eq3 goto, all with the same eyepiece except the skymax does not use the barlow. They each give the same fov. The 150pl is the wild card, slightly above your budget but the mount is a goto mount. I have not used this telescope or mount so can't say if it's a good combo but it's definitely food for thought. All the best

Hello oumpaa11 and welcome to the site. happy-kat has covered some great points and you are correct in that neither the seestar or the dwarf are particularly good on planets but are very good on deep sky stuff and could not be easier to use. Just to give us a few clues to help point you in the right direction, what sort of budget?, do you have to carry it far?, do you have any storage challenges as some telescopes are big. All the best

Hello Jeff and welcome to the site. Plus one for the seestar s50, you will not run out of targets. It's up and running in a couple of minutes, lightweight so very portable, but.... not so good on planets. It's a smart telescope, so not one you look through. If you prefer the idea of visual but you have challenges lifting stuff, please do not consider the dob 200p. It's big and bulky. An advantage of a dob though is that you can just plonk it down find your target and off you go so setup speed is great. I've added a picture below to give you idea of dob telescope sizes, maybe the ursa major 6" may work for you. Have you found the astronomy tools at the top of the page? Find the FOV page and input a few different telescopes just to see how they compare. To compare the seestar s50, it uses a zwo 462mc camera. All the best and let us know how you get on.