Tiny Clanger

A previous thread has some good explanations (and some confusing ones too)

Yep, +1 for a Manfrotto, specifically a Manfrotto 55 series if you can get a second hand one in your price range. That might be a problem if you need a head too, but if you can take the head from your current wobbly tripod and shift it to the Manfrotto legs, you should be able to find something. you sometimes see quite cheap ones which are battle scarred and no longer pretty, but who cares if the thing looks scruffy when you are going to use it in the dark ! Less sturdy than a 55, but still pretty good , a manfrotto 190 would work , I'd always avoid extending the thinnest leg section of a 190 if possible though (actually, I d try to avoid using the thinnest leg section on any portable tripod , and not extend the centre column either , keep the setup as strong as possible ) Heather

I noticed these had popped up ... what strikes me as strange is that the heritage 130 has (I believe) a 3/8" tripod bush but my heritage 150 doesn't. I'd always guessed this was possibly due to the greater weight and size of the 150 , but this new virtuoso 150 has a tripod bush, and it is quite a bit heavier than the plain 150 heritage .... Heather

Always nice to have someone reassure me that I don't need to spend any more money 🙂 The BSTs will do fine for me (well, except the 25mm in an f5, 'scope ... )

You know my ears prick up at the mention of 'BST starguider' or 'Heritage dob ' 🙂 Heather

No, I've never worried about doing anything with the mak other than higher mag. stuff, because I'm lucky enough to have a couple of cheap refractors and my little tabletop heritage dob for wide field. I've no experience of focal reducers, so can't comment on them , although I have seen it suggested a wider field can be had in a mak by using a setup with a different visual back, a 2" diagonal and 2" eyepieces, which would be an expensive way to go, and probably cost far more than my next suggestion If you can only have one 'scope because money is tight, you could keep your eyes open for a used ST80, a short tube 80mm achromat. There are many makes, all similar under the paint, they suffer chromatic aberration if the magnification is pushed , but are nice for widefield. I've seen them go second hand for between £50 and £90 There's a member on here @SuburbanMak who uses precisely that pair of complementary 'scopes (altho' he has pimped his st80 somewhat !) have a look at his posts, they may help with your decision about the 127 mak as well. Alternatively, could you go for the mak for high mag., and use binoculars for wide field ? If the rule is 'Thou shalt have only one 'scope' , it could be argued that binoculars are an entirely different species , so do not constitute a second 'scope If you absolutely have to decide on one 'scope or the other, decide on the targets you most want to see. and go for the one which will do that best. The ball is back in your court ! Heather

Excellent, well done, you've got to be quick round here when something popular and well priced appears ! With an 8mm and a 15mm BST, and the not awful 25mm long eye relief one that came with your 'scope, you've got a nice range of eyepieces 🙂 Heather

Fingers crossed 🙂

If you've decided an 8mm BST is what you want ....

I did something similar to what you suggest, simply because I'm sceptical about , well, pretty much everything ... My first ever eyepiece purchase (apart from the skywatcher bundled pair)happened this time last year , and was a 17mm skywatcher super plosll. Why 17mm ? Two reasons, first I thought if there was no improvement over the quality I could see in my cheap 'scope ,over the stock eyepieces, at least I'd have a different focal length,. Second, the 17mm was about £3 cheaper (from , I think, Bristol Cameras via Amazon) than the rest of the range , so cost me £20. It was lockdown #1, I was new to the hobby, I didn't have much spare cash and was not sure how much I'd use the telescope, so I was cautious. When I got the 17mm in my 'scope I was instantly impressed with it, much sharper , brighter and just altogether nicer to use than the supplied ones. I bought a 32mm and a 12.5mm in the series too. I don't like the 12,5mm plossl, it compares badly with the 8mm and 12 mm BSTs I've bought subsequently, and I find it uncomfortable to use, but the 17mm and 32mm are still in frequent use, the 32mm for widefield and finding stuff in the 150 dob (I prefer it to tmy 25mm BST in that telescope) and the 17mm is my absolute favourite eyepiece to use in my ST80 refractor . I've subsequently learned about exit pupils and DSO spotting from light polluted skies which explains why that focal length works for me, and eye relief which explains why the 12.5mm plossl doesn't ! So, it's a strategy that worked for me, but it did suck me into a world of eyepiece acquisition , so OP beware Heather

The poster did not say that it was Musk's 'personal idea' or his satellite, but that he 'wants to launch' that satellite . Which does not appear to be a lie as far as I can see.

You don't want to do any of the research yourself ? And you want the members here (the vast majority of who are in Europe) to tell you what to buy, and search for links for you in Australian websites ? Hmm. If you want to have that sort of service provided for you, best you contact some Australian astronomy kit dealers yourself, and ask their advice. I'm sure an online search for 'telescope retailers Australia' will give you plenty of places to contact .

Eyepieces (mostly) come in 1.25" diameter barrels (the bit that slides in the focuser ) or 2" diameter barrels. Some telescopes come with 2" focusers, but also an adapter which reduces the diameter of the focus tube to 1.25", so even 2" focuser 'scopes can use the BST starguiders, which are all 1.25" barrels. So yes, you can use those eyepieces , or any other 1.25" barrel ones for that matter in pretty much any modern 'scope . I suspect your 130p will have a 1.25" focuser. Different telescopes with different focal lengths will give different magnifications with a particular eyepiece , but as long as you don't try to push a telescope to the extreme of magnification it can cope with , it should be OK Heather

I should have elaborated , something like, hold the edge of the paper below your lower lip so that edge of the paper is horizontal , grip the paper either side of your mouth with thumbs and forefingers, letting the far end of the paper curve down naturally, then blow across the top ... It's much easier to demonstrate than explain ! Each time I showed it to a new batch of victims, I asked what would happen, and 100% of the time the answers were a mixture of 'nothing' , and 'the paper will bend down more' . Another demo I used was something like the one in this http://hawkquest.org/TA/XL/AirPress.pdf except my version went with some thread through the straw , and children running around like headless chickens holding the thread vertical and tight to get the wing to rise. Activities they could do for themselves were more effective and memorable (and fun) than a single demo by teach. I soon learned to set off the more riotous activities just a few minutes before playtime, lunchtime or home time so they had to stop without me having to get too officious and spoil sporty. Me 'Yes, of course you can take that fully functioning set of 'musical' pipes playing various notes which you've made from paper straws home !" Class " Yay!" Parents " .... unprintable "

Yep, I echo what has been said, FLO are fair (they queue orders strictly by date) and would not prioritise people who paid more. Their website comms with their stock control is accurate too, so if the page says '3 in stock' and you buy one, the moment you pay and the order is finalised, the stock available goes down to 2 . Supplies are looking dodgy for months, second hand is probably your best bet for picking up something this yyear, and now is the time to start looking, while folk who bought in lockdown but now want to turn the kit back into cash are keen to sell , but the nights are not long and dark, so there's less competition from the next round of seasonal buyers (and Christmas gift shoppers too ) . I've bought various things from the buy/sell section on here. if it's a popular item well priced you need to be quick, send the poster a private message as fast as possible expressing an interest, I always check their profile , and wouldn't buy from someone with zero post history unless I could collect the item in person, while I'm happy to receive stuff by post from established folk because I have the ability to see how long they have been a member, what content they have posted etc. is a reassurance that I'm sending my cash to an honest individual. Be careful about buying from abroad though, even from a private buyer you will probably be hit with import duty and charges and VAT for anything over a certain amount ... from memory £135, but don't quote me on that. I'd leave the order with FLO active, but look for second hand, you can cancel the FLO order easily if you manage to find what you want elsewhere. Heather PS, didn't I see the Ever Given container ship had recently actually limped here after it's sideways sojourn ? Might be some astro containers being unloaded from that ..

Practical demo (it always impressed the 9 year olds, I hope some of them recalled the name Bernoulli Principle after messing around with it .) Take a sheet of paper, half a4 (a5 !) or reporter's notebook size works well . Hold it horizontal with the short edge just below your lower lip, so the far end of the paper hangs down . Blow across the top of it. The effect is surprising if you've not tried it before. Heather

Welcome ! Do consider making a topic in the 'welcome' section to introduce yourself , folk here are very friendly . +1 for the BSTs , my little heritage dob is f5 too, and the 8mm, 12mm, 15mm are all pretty good in it. I don't notice any negatives with the 18mm, but I don't get on at all with the 25mm (it is perfectly good in less picky telescopes though) There's a dizzying range of eyepiece choices out there for a bit more money, but at the price ( just under £50 new) the BSTs have an excellent reputation. Second hand ones quite often come up on the buy/swap threads here at an asking price of around £35 as folk upgrade to more expensive eyepieces, but to get one you need to be pretty quick ! Heather

Well, I'm not sure ... I've seen John Dobson quoted as saying "If you can't sleep in it , it's not a telescope" , which suggests a whole different take on the travel idea 🙂

Here's a random thought , no idea if it is a good one or not ... When I'm working through a list of targets, I appreciate having a way to record the date I saw them in the specific resource I'm using. It allows me to easily find the relevant entry in my observing log. If I don't do that, it's easy to lose track of what I have , and haven't seen . Multiple lists with some shared targets confuse me even more , hence this attempt to cross reference several lists of DSOs Might the sort of list you are thinking of adding benefit from spaces to record date seen ? Personally I'd be reluctant to write in a physical book though, so perhaps such a list could be a separate PDF , enabling folk to print it themselves if they wish as a supplement to the printed book they are going to buy, and fund your dream travel scope . Heather

You are going to have to sell a lot of books to fund that ! 🙂 Heather

There's a whole thread dedicated to messing with st80s , you may find some of the cloudy time activity suggestions useful 🙂 Heather

Excellent job, I'd say that's very clearly and pleasingly set out, with a good balance in information between help in finding the target, and interesting information on what you are actually seeing. I've not been that enamoured of double star observing so far ... you might just have spurred me into giving it another try 🙂 Kudos for making this a free to access PDF too. Heather

4 get something like this https://www.teleskop-express.de/shop/product_info.php/info/p10777_TS-Optics-Adapter-Plate-for-alt-azimuth-Mounts-with-perfect-Weight-Compensation.html - even more expensive ! (about £75) Not sure if the geometry would work with an az5, but I'd rather like one to put the st80 or binos on my TS AZ6 . There may well be cheaper alternatives of this kind of thing available, that is just one I came across as a suggested extra by that retailer. There is a skywatcher L bracket for around £30, https://www.firstlightoptics.com/celestron-mounts/skywatcher-l-bracket-dovetail.html but that has a dovetail to the AZ5, and a standard camera screw to the instrument, so you'd need an adaptor for photo tripod screw to dovetail clamp (Baader do one for about £30 https://www.firstlightoptics.com/dovetails-saddles-clamps/baader-vixen-style-dovetail-clamp.html ) . Altho' maybe your ST80 has some tripod thread holes drilled in the dovetail ? Some do, but even if so, it might not be at a good balance point, and it feels a bit precarious when I tried it. I use my st80 on a photo tripod head, with one of the Baader dovetail clamps, with the tripod head tipped over to the side to lower the centre of gravity, so I understand what you mean about the sideways focus control ... I just put up with it ! Heather

I know ! Having decided it was probably the best balance of portability vs size , quality vs price for me , I was reconciled to waiting until December (or hoping for a second hand one to come up) and doing some random searching around the interwebs for further information , and accidentally tripped over a page alleging stock available from an online photographic retailer I'd never heard of before . Some rapid email exchanges , and an online search to check on the reputation of the dealer , and soon their sole remaining specimen was mine 🙂 I must do a vendor review on them , nice folk to deal with https://www.fotodeals.co.uk/

I had something similar a few weeks ago, set on Japan, my elderly android smartphone couldn't even get me back to the FLO default location, so the app was useless. I uninstalled it . Easier to just use the actual web page.