doublevodka

Do you have a budget in mind? Any problem with going for used equipment? For planetary and lunar, personally I'd recommend a skymax 127 on an az-gti mount, it's lightweight (I carry mine assembled with one hand from the shed to the lawn) easy to use plus if you decide you want a wider field of view you could pick up an st80 with tube rings later and use the same mount. They can regularly be found for around £300 used, sometimes less. A goto mount is very handy when observing with kids, once you've done the alignment it'll track nicely so you can share the views and spend longer at the eyepiece

https://www.skyatnightmagazine.com/advice/how-to-clean-a-reflector/ also worth a look if it was free, fairly simple to do as long as you are careful, I bought an old reflector a couple of years back and the mirror was covered in dust and spots, came up pretty well with this method, big fan of free and cheap stuff though, good to hear one has been saved from the tip 👍

Some good improvements there Karl 👍 I would also agree with @Franklin that prevention is better that cure so that may be worth a mention near the top? Great to see you taking suggestions on board 👍

If you set a static ip address for the mini-PC in the router it will always be the same which would be easiest, don't know the router however so can't advise how. Alternatively this is worth a try - https://remotedesktop.google.com/home I have a PC that I remote onto at home and that allows easy access from a PC or mobile

Love it when kids come out with this stuff, definitely should be included in your signature 😂

Karl I've had a look through your website and can appreciate what you are trying to accomplish, but like everyone else here I have some feedback that you can hopefully take on board. Firstly "how to clean a mirror like a pro" as someone else mentioned it's a bit clickbaity, maybe think a little more on your headlines "How I clean my mirror" may be a little more appropriate, as you say yourself you've only done this a couple of times. I've cleaned my own optics numerous times, but I wouldn't describe myself as a pro. Also personally I'd mention that there are companies that specialise in this that you can send your telescope to for cleaning etc. maybe a disclaimer to say this is my method, no responsibility if you cause damage etc. I really wouldn't recommend using non-optical cleaning fluids either, yes it may work for you, but do you know how the ingredients will affect the coatings on other people's mirrors? There are tried and tested methods, such as the ones you'll see on this forum, or articles like this - https://www.skyatnightmagazine.com/advice/how-to-clean-a-reflector/ which should give you some good ideas. Secondly, as a general thing, try and take a step back and rather than looking at astrophotography as the way you do it, look at it as a whole, there is a vast amount of different ways of doing it, from snapping a picture with your smartphone to the JWST. If you really want to become a hub for advice take it back to basics, there's no harm in talking about your own journey, but make it clear there are many different ways to start and continue this journey. Arguably the one big omission I noticed is mounts, I didn't see anything much about them on your site, yet as I'm sure others will say the mount is more key to the experience than any other component. Hopefully you find my feedback constructive, my intention is really not to put you off but to tweak your direction slightly so you can accomplish your goals. For some further inspiration, I'd recommend looking at Astrobiscuit, Astrobackyard and Astro La Vista on Youtube, going through their videos chronologically (and websites) you can see their journeys and developments over time

On the Vaonis front I've always liked the look of these - https://vaonis.com/hyperia/en/ sadly it's eye-wateringly expensive and way out of my budget but I'll have a Sidereal Grey one if I win big on the lottery one day 😂 And yes, I know you could put together a better rig for less money before someone says it lol

Hi Michael, if you can give us an idea of the sort of budget you have in mind I'm sure a few of us can give you some pointers on the equipment front, it can range wildly from free with your eyes, to cheap binoculars, to exotic glass and expensive mounts. If you start us off with a ballpark figure we can go from there 👍

As the others have pointed out, it's more to do with the magnification than anything else. Assuming you are in the UK I haven't had a night of decent seeing all this year, even when it's been clear there has been too much atmospheric distortion going on to ramp up the magnification, usually because of the jet stream / strong wind conditions higher in the atmosphere. Easiest way I find is to just look straight up with the naked eye, if the stars above seem to be twinkling then high magnification isn't going to work very well. I can usually just about get away with a 2x barlow on 25 / 20mm eyepieces, but moving to my 8mm makes things a bit fuzzy so that may be worth a try. Hang onto the others though, because on a good night I'm sure the views will be amazing 👍

Try some AA batteries in the mount before you panic too much, at least that'll rule out problems with the power tank and cable 👍

I believe so, although I only have the 8mm so have not tested with others.

You can strip the eyepiece down should you wish -

With the bolt thing it could be one of two things, as @StevieDvd said the dec axis needs to be aligned But I've also come across this with an old eq3-2, it was possible to screw in the counterweight shaft too far so it got in the way, have another look in the daylight, it might be that 🤷‍♂️ Full synscan app manual here if it helps - https://inter-static.skywatcher.com/downloads/synscan_app_manual_en_20201008.pdf

Worth a looks through the recommendations here https://binocularsky.com/binoc_choosing.php#5

Worth a look at these two videos

Thanks Dave, shame about the link Was more out of curiosity anyway, for a fiver I'm very happy with them, a load lighter than either of my Zeiss ones and threaded so I can mount them 👍Also a focus lock too

There are a few different options, here's a good start - https://binocularsky.com/binoc_mount.php

I think you did really well there, I've been keeping my eye out for a decent priced used one but so far no luck, nice bundle of accessories with it too 👍

Svbony also appears to have come up with their own version of this with the 585 sensor - https://www.svbony.com/svbony-sv705c-usb3-0-color-planetary-camera-imx585-eaa/

So I was having a rummage in the local charity shop and at £5 I couldn't turn them down, even without a case and caps. A little bit grubby and the screw under the IPD index mark was loose, but a couple of mins with a small screwdriver and a bit of a clean they seem all good 👍 I've had a bit of a google but can't find any info about them other than a listing on worthpoint. They are marked GKA Japan with a serial number on the tripod screw cover but that's the end of my info. Anyone know anything about them?

Not a bad place to start at all there, and both will have a decent resale value should you decide to move them on later down the line. With the EQ5 you also have the opportunity to use different optical tube assemblies such as a cassgrain or refractor which you wouldn't have been able to do with the fork mounted Meade

My gut says a parallelogram mount, this page, scroll down for pictures and info, it'll be the best combo I suspect https://binocularsky.com/binoc_mount.php the site is worth a browse around for more information on binoculars for astronomy

Ed Ting has just done a review on the 10 inch dob which will be worth a watch, it looks like a nice piece of kit

If you're not a fan of windows then I'd definitely suggest looking into something like the ASIair Plus - https://www.firstlightoptics.com/zwo-accessories/zwo-asiair-plus-wireless-astrophotography-controller.htm - but maybe speak to FLO first to check compatibility. There are other options out there, but as I understand it the ASIair is a bit of a swiss army knife when it comes to controlling compatible astro kit, no windows to deal with either https://astrobackyard.com/zwo-asiair-plus/

I'm another fan of the https://www.metoffice.gov.uk/ forecast, if you click show full forecast once you've chosen your location and change the visibility from description to km it gives a not bad idea of how the seeing is going to be, above 30 usually means decent seeing for me. That said the weather has been absolute rubbish for what seems like 18 months, even when "clear" the seeing has not been that great which is a bit frustrating to say the least