M40

I am going to echo Zermelo in that although I am not brand new here, I have also just found this thread. I joined the site because after asking google many questions, most were answered here so I was a long term lurker. This site is huge and a fantastic resource for any questions I have, so thanks to all who support and provide the platform and to all that contribute to the various topics. Most visited place? FLO FOV calculator, without a doubt. What a fantastic tool. I look through a topic on the site, think wow how did they achieve that, look at what they used, then work it through the calculator. Superb. Have I learnt stuff? oh yeah, I now know what eeva and nv stand for, no idea how you do it but at least I can look good in front of the grandchildren 🤣

Hello Sluke321 and welcome to the forum. I can't offer any help on the scopes you are looking at but reading this topic about the star sense, it does seem to be more than interesting and a definite help, but.... can I suggest that you download an app to your phone now and when the skies finally give us all a break, go outside and look at the sky with your chosen app just to give you a clue as to what else can help. Stellarium is very good on the pc and I recommend downloading that, in saying that though, I have never tried it on the phone as I use sky guide simply because I find it easy, but there are lots of others to choose from. My point is, try not to get too hooked up on the star sense app and limit yourself to a particular type of telescope simply because of the app..... albeit it does sound very interesting 😎. Just to add, I am amazed that Holyhead has a high light pollution level, I would have put money on that being a dark area. 🤦‍♂️ Enjoy

I am going to echo a little of what Tiny Clanger said, it's got to be easy to use, something that shows the moon clearly is your target at the moment. When I let my 8 year old grandson loose on my dobsonian telescope he was unscrewing eyepieces rather than the eyepiece holder so literally, the simpler the better at the moment, something that's quick to set up and quick to put away. Enjoy

First off, your wife needs congratulating for being able to find any sort of telescope at this time, unless you have a bottomless budget hen's teeth are probably easier to find 🤣 +1 for stellarium and the sky at night magazine 👍 Have a look for a planispere too. I must admit that I find the "turn left at orion" book a good reference tool, however it did take me some time to understand what I was looking at, so don't get discouraged. An app for your phone is pretty useful as you can look at the stars on your phone to identify them. I use sky guide as I find it quite user friendly but there are lots out there. Once you get into it, you can get a "T" ring adapter for your camera to bolt your camera to the telescope so you can share what you can see. Enjoy

Kids and time are the challenge, been there...done that. Personally I wouldn't sell anything yet, just put it the corner somewhere for another day. What's causing me some concerns though is that I have looked at your telescope on the FLO FOV calculator and using a similar canon camera with a 0.5x focal reducer your setup seems to be everything I want. Not anywhere near stacking yet, I was simply going to try single shot stuff plus I have recently bought a thing called an intervalometer (oh yes, I have studied 🤣) its still unused an in the box but hey ..... So anyway, my point is that have you tried simply taking a single shot with the camera bolted onto the telescope?

Excellent picture 👍 I managed to achieve a very similar picture which put a massive grin on the face. Did you use a colour filter?

I have been going down exactly the same route as you in trying to get the whole moon and M31 in one picture, so I have also been looking at the FLO calculator plus doing a few of my own. The focal reducers needed to achieve what we want start becoming prohibitively expensive for me, so I looked at it from a different viewpoint. Have you considered a different telescope? I looked at the SW 102T and 120T OTA. Both of these together with the eyepieces I have seem a more cost effective solution🤔. Nothing is available at the moment including clear skies so plenty of time to think 👍

That's not good from so many points, hopefully your kit will only accumulate a few cobwebs before it comes out again. One of our options is to move down your neck of the woods in the near future.....retirement, daughter and family, Exmoor and Dartmoor dark areas etc etc and we have been looking at the weather and it does seem to be a trifle moist compared to where we currently are; so part of my plans are to build a pier in an enclosure with removable roof so the telescope is always ready and no lugging it all about. Is this maybe something that you could look at? p.s. the lady wife thinks we should all take up crocheting p.p.s. thanks for the Joni Mitchell ear worm 🤦‍♂️

Hello postie109, I am a few years behind you at a mere 65 years of age so one thing to consider is the weight of the telescope and how to move it about, where to keep it etc. I have recently changed from a Skywatcher 200P dobsonian telescope which was tremendous however it got too bulky to keep moving it around so I changed to something similar to the Maksutov - Cassegrain that Alan64 mentioned above. That size and type of telescope will be quite portable and will be a great telescope to use. At a later date you can upgrade the mount to a motorized type if you wish, plus you can add eyepieces, camera mounts etc. Not sure how the world is in Canada, but there is very limited stock around over here, so take your time, look at the site and see what others are using. Enjoy. Les

Hello, welcome and you have found an excellent site for answers to your questions 👍 I am going to echo what popeye85 said, planisphere, red light head torch and a massive shed for all the stuff you are going to buy 🤣👍 I would also look at an app for your phone, I got sky guide which I find extremely user friendly plus I have also recently downloaded stellarium on the laptop which seems to be endless in what it's able to do.

Very clever, you have created something very similar to the vixen flat dovetail that Cornelius Varley mentioned above but with the advantage of rubber feet for anything you mount on it 👍 It has surprised me that there are very few adapter plates etc available on the market leaving it to us to carry out diy improvisation. Either that or I am trying to do something out of the usual that just won't work 🤣

Thanks Gents, exactly what I was after 👍 completely missed the flat dovetail plate. I also wondered how that SW dovetail plate worked, so all good. Now let's see what flo have got in stock 🤣 edit: update FLO have it all 👍

Hello all, looking for a few clues please. I have a HEQ5 pro mount and have been thinking about how I can bolt my DSLR and the finder scope to the mount without the telescope. I have a dovetail bar which came with the mount and am quite happy drilling and tapping holes etc but I wondered if there are any clamps that would fit to the dovetail bar or alternatively a different type of bar that would enable me to fix things too? There seems to be some quite expensive things out there, I hadn't planned on spending hundreds on it so if there are any "cost effective solutions", if you could point me in the right direction, that would be great. Many thanks and stay safe.

I used a garden umbrella cover, not quite as cheap as a duvet cover 🤔 on the plus side, it did have a really nice zip🤣

Another +1 for this, never seen this before, it looks a great telescope and very portable. Looking at the specs it seems to weigh about 14lbs, give or take, as long as your daughter is ok with this she will love it.

A few interesting points there hoss, not sure that I agree with all though. Had I, I would be sitting looking at the television instead of being out in the freezing cold getting frustrated by clouds and/or user error but also knowing that this is more than offset by being overjoyed when I get it right. I jumped in feet first years ago with a tiny budget and only in the last year have only just exceeded the £2000 starter budget. I am as good at navigating forums as I am at navigating the night sky, but there is a superb post on this site: "what can I expect to see" , hopefully someone will post the link as Dave, I thoroughly recommend reading this. As I mentioned earlier, don't rush Dave, but as your camera is a perfectly capable unit, as jonathan said have you considered a camera tracking mount? When telescopes become more available, move on from there having a better understanding of where you would like to be and if necessary move your camera mount on? The camera mount will require limited storage space, it will get you used to the time it takes to setup and do stuff, the movement and speed of the sky, alignment of a mount etc so it does have a few positives, plus with Mars where it is at the moment you have an ideal first candidate for a few snaps. Enjoy Les

I would be well pleased with the first and amazed at the most recent, very nice 👍

Wow...just wow 👍 You will need the usb points, its amazing how much it takes out of your phone if you are using things like the synscan wifi adapter. If its not one battery that dies, its another. Nice.

Hello and welcome, you will find a vast range of helpful advice here. If however you want clear, dark skies, we will all have to go to Scotland. One of my boy's is having a short break on the Isle of Skye at the moment, some of the pictures he has taken with his phone are amazing. Not jealous....... 😜

So if I have it right, the mount drives fine to align the scope and its only when you choose what to view it doesn't appear to be moving? and the handset is locked up at this point? Stoopid question number 1: Is the thing you want to look at far from your final alignment point? and number 2: have you checked the rate at which the mount is moving? it could be moving so slow that its not noticeable. That one I found out when I thought mine was not working correctly 🤦‍♂️ When the handset locks how do you get it to work again?

Top thread this, big thanks to all for the info 👍 only problem is I now have to buy a thing called an intervalometer.....

Hello Dave, when building up your shopping list, can I suggest you look at the weight of the various items on your list. The reason is that the mount has to be good enough to move the combined weight of everything you put on it. I have the HEQ5 pro goto mount and depending on what you read, this seems to have a carrying capacity of between 11 - 18Kgs. The combined weight of my telescope tube assembly, eyepiece and camera is about 8.5kgs and its certainly good for that. As others have said, there are very few telescopes and mounts available at the moment so don't rush. Once things become available, you can get adapters to mount your camera directly to a goto type mount. There are some posts on here that show what can be achieved just by using your camera, so have alook around. Plus I might add that I got the Hyperion zoom eyepiece plus adapters that enable you to fit the Canon to the eyepiece, I am loving this eyepiece.

Hello Kevenh, apart from dropping the thing, pretty close 🤣 I don't have your scope but the idea is similar. Understanding the goto is all important. I just could not get the thing to goto the same place twice, so at night I set a laser up in the shed, aligned it with the pole star, put a couple of marks down and was then able to play to my hearts content in the shed during the day. Once I vaguely understood polar alignment, 20 or 30 youtube videos later I then sorted the home position of the scope. The next thing I did was put a couple of pins in the shed roof to show where certain stars were at that moment in time and kept on aligning the thing until I had it worked out...... ish. As AstroTim says, date, time and location has to be correct. Get the info from your phone and make a note and check each time as my altitude always needs correcting. Enjoy. Les

Hello Gents, great pictures 👍 Another novice here with a similar camera, I have a Canon EOS100D. Never tried or downloaded either Gimp or DSS so I will stalk you two to see how you get on 😜 Another thread I posted on was talking about using DSS with a video shot from the camera, have you tried that at all?

Yep, it can do movies. I bought a used Canon EOS100D simply because its as light as the budget would stretch too, however looking at alex_stars picture, it has already put thoughts in the lady wifes head about future presents and camera's rather than telescope upgrades 😎