M40

If you are just transfering files, use onedrive. You can stick it on your phone, tablet and pc and then just upload a file to whatever and it's then available everywhere. Hope it helps.

So it's here, I suggest you watch the Cuiv youtube video so you know it's initially going to speak Chinese and where to look for the reset button etc but it is very straight forward. Obviously you have to play, so straight out in the sun to use the solar film.... and it initially failed to find the sun after going through a calibration routine which was simply manually picking it up and turning it until ready. I then used the Cuiv method of using a shadow to get it roughly lined up, tried again, it wanted me to go through a leveling routine, then it auto found the Sun. Quick auto focus, a single screenshot, no knowledge or ability and bingo, I have my very first picture of a sunspot. Big grin time 😁 On charge now, sorry about the clouds

Well, it landed, and as Cuiv said, it was a box inside a box inside a box inside some great wrapping.....

Great results, I would be very pleased if I managed to get your images 👌

My thoughts as well and looking at the solar video, I thought it looked pretty good in the first few moments. Certainly something I will be trying. Another interesting point I noted was that Cuiv had to align the ss50 with sun by using shadows but in the video it self aligned, hopefully we shall soon find out 👌

You missed maksutov (i.e. skywatcher skymax) off your list. Easier to carry than a dob or newt and great for solar system stuff, gets my vote. Whichever you go for, ensure the mount can cope with the weight. I would also recommend a goto mount as that sounds like a fair exchange with sorting the kitchen and garden 😉

Hello Jean and welcome to the site. Whereabouts are you as someone may be able to point you in the direction of a club near you, other than that, have a look around the site and ask away with any questions. All the best.

Delivery update from flo, first shipment is landing at flo next week with April orders fulfilled soon after; with the next shipment expected late September.

Hello DilH and welcome to the site. It might be worth posting the same question in the getting started equipment help and advice forum, it will likely get a few more responses. At the same time, your astromaster seems to be a reflector, bit more info on that plus what your budget is would be a great discussion starting point. I can't offer any comments on the nexstar 4se but it looks like a very good planetary telescope. All the best.

Hello Redterry and welcome to the site. One of the challenges with an entry level telescope is that it can very much be a disincentive to continue into the hobby and one of the main reasons for this is the mount. Frustration sets in, you put it away, it collects dust, game over. Can I point you in the direction of first light optics beginner telescopes. Have a look at the skwatcher heritage 130p tabletop dobsonian, it has a lot of good reviews for a reason. All the best

I think the first thing I would do is buy the goto kit for your eq5. According to the info on flo website, the eq5 goto can handle 6.5kgs, so knowing what I can see using an 85mm refractor, how about an evostar 80ed pro outfit which will sit nicely on your mount. Strangely they have an open box ed80 that will fit right in your budget. All the best

Great video, there were the rumours of an included solar filter and it looks confirmed which is excellent. Looking forward to it landing 👌

Hello Lorenzo and welcome to the site 👌

You are right on the lip of that rabbit hole 🤣 the first question to answer is what do you want to see or image. I suggest that you look around the site at what has been achieved and how, do you enjoy visual, eaa or astrophotography or maybe some of each. All the best

Hello moonzerotwoand welcome to the site. As has been said, heq5 minimum. People do use the 200p on an heq5 but see if you can position it out of the wind. I use a slightly lighter telescope at 7kgs ish plus all the bits and bobs at another 2kgs ish and the heq5, imo, just makes it. All the best

I know where you are coming from and I moved away from the finderscope some while ago and now use an rdf which gets it more or less there, then I move to a 32mm in a flip mirror which gets it in the field of view of either the camera or the zoom. I did use a cross hairs eyepiece, but the batteries run out 🤪

Hello Lodun and welcome to the site 👍

Hello astro spark and welcome to the site 👍

Now thats a nice telescope. Keep youe eye on the weight though as a quick google tells me it's 6.5kgs plus another 1-2 for bits and bobs and you need a good mount for it. If your budget goes for that and an heq5 then I don't think you will be disappointed 👌

Strangely that's what my wife says 🤣

My thoughts are that the future will be technology driven visual. I use an asiair to drive the mount to a target I could never find, plate solve, set it to guide then flip the mirror and look at the target. Flip the mirror back and do a touch of eaa. That little lot will all be in one package soon 👌 and probably before the seestars lands so it will be old news before get to play with it 🤣

M51 using eea. It's bright, quick and very impressive. Then jump to M101 as it's classic galaxy. Definitely crowd pleasers 👌

Have a look at these videos created by curtisca17 on this site, they give very good idea of what is required and what to use Sorry I thought that took you through to his films, follow the links on the website to his youtube channel at the same time have a look through his gallery as he has taken pictures of the same target using different telescopes. all the best

For eea you can start with three things and add as time goes by, to start you need a goto/tracking mount, a telescope and a camera. I've listed my stuff earlier in the topic to give you an idea. The most important choice is the mount as this will determine the weight of the stuff you put on it. I use an 85mm refractor whereas others use large reflectors. The large reflectors are light buckets and will capture small galaxies that will be beyond my telescope, but think about weight on the mount, storage and physically moving them. The larger the telescope, the mount goes up in both weight and cost. Have you found the field of view calculator within resources, astronomy tools at the top of the page? When I first started with eea, I judged the field of view that I wanted on M51 and M101. Select imaging, a camera, a target and a telescope, add it to the view to see what the result could look like, please treat it as a guide only. On the camera side of things, I know a zwo camera will quite happily link to a windows laptop and zwo provide free reasonably user friendly software for eea that I used before I upgraded. I can’t comment on the other types of astro camera as I havent used any. I think you would be quite safe buying used from a dedicated site like this. Not sure what the requirements are but I think you have to have 25? posts to gain access to the for sale area on here. All the best.

I was just adding up how much I had spent on astro gear so far this year, getting very little use from it to date, when I realised that I spend more annually on the other hobby that is getting even less use. We have a rather nice Mini in the garage and living with us until recently we also had two very elderly, now sadly, just one very elderly dog. Whilst she goes out in the normal car, the mini is not for her and we will not leave her on her own so the mini sits there and has done no more than drive back and forward with a rare trip to the mot shop for the last few years. I know that we will be able to use the both the mini and the astro gear in the future so I will keep all for now. The parallels between the two hobbies are amazing, but when things change and one has to go, it will be the mini first.