Tiny Clanger

That's science !

Hi Tony, I may be a beginner and a relatively underfunded one at that, but if I can save those even more beginner-y a bit of research, frustration and annoyance with the specifics of the little dob , that's my good deed for the decade sorted. I've found the dob holds collimation really well, I've even had the whole primary mirror assembly off twice (first time to line the solid tube with black flocking material , which cuts down any internal reflections, and the second time to drill some holes for an extra finder shoe - nerve wracking ! ) and it's only needed a tiny tweak once back together. Mind you, I'm just carrying it outdoors and putting it down , not driving it around and having country roads shake it ... What wasn't mentioned when I bought mine, was that the cap that blanks off the eyepiece holder has a hole in the centre and a reflective inner surface , making it a collimation cap , which is very handy. If yours doesn't come with one, there are plenty of guides to making your own online. Collimation seems to be a great fear for some, and there are plenty of confusing, poorly explained online guides , I like this guy's clear simple approach : https://garyseronik.com/a-beginners-guide-to-collimation/ The one thing to avoid is going in all gung-ho and turning screws of knobs too much, caution and tiny steps is the way to go. You are right to be excited, just think what is out there for you to see ! Clouds might keep you waiting a while (if the weather here is anything to go by ) but even at this time of year, with short, bright nights , there will be things to see . Jupiter and Saturn are rising in the east in the early morning ( 2.30 am ish) and are quite low at the moment, but Saturn with its rings was my first sight with the heritage dob, That was on the evening of the day I got it, almost exactly a year ago, and I'd carried the box (which is pretty big) upstairs to dump in the spare room after unpacking and putting the 'scope together. As I did so, I happened to catch sight of Saturn through the window, I was too tired to take the 'scope outside , so took it up, balanced it precariously on its own box, and with the stock eyepieces , (no collimation check, no shroud or any other tweaks or accessories ) through a grubby double glazed window, saw the rings for the first time ever, Saturn looking like a tiny, perfect, Christmas tree ornament. I was enchanted. Still am ! Heather

You can see my dob with shroud and supporting table in the background in some photos on the thread I made to show off the observing chair I made (from the same left over Ikea sofa frame bits as the dob table ) here https://stargazerslounge.com/topic/376543-£355-scope-chair/ The foam I bought was black 3mm sheet from here (yes I did the extra m for £3.71, who wouldn't ?!) https://www.efoam.co.uk/closed-cell-polyethylene-foam.php I bought online during lockdown, but I've read since that folk have sourced A3 foam sheet from craft shops, which may be handier for you. There are a few other things I'd suggest you must have handy. Either a traditional planisphere (star wheel) or a book with star maps, or device with an electronic version of those, stellarium is the one I use, but many are available, either as downloadable programs (stellarium is one, open source and free for windows) or apps, or (possibly no use while camping ...) online . If you don't already have a huge amount of knowledge and experience of stargazing , and like a dead-tree type book to refer to 'Turn Left at Orion' is a great, practical book . It's full of information and diagrams about how to find easy targets as well as what they are, and is large format, printed on heavy paper. Not cheap (£20 ish) but worth a look. https://www.firstlightoptics.com/books/turn-left-at-orion-book.html A red light torch is a good idea to preserve your dark adapted vision when you need more light for a task (or have dropped an eyepiece ...) , and while the red dot finder on my dob has lasted fine for the year since I bought the 'scope, including the odd 24 hour accidental leaving it switched on drain, it would be absolutely typical if you got out camping miles from the nearest pound shop , and the battery died, so check what it is (mine is a CR2032) and get a just-in-case spare. You'll probably not need it for years but .... Heather

Good choice ! I love my 150 heritage, it has shown me a lot , even from my light polluted suburban back garden. From Exmoor ... well, all I can say is, it's a good job you are camping, because you may well be so stunned you need a lie down ... 🙂 It is indeed 150mm aperture, 750mm focal length therefore f5, although this has no bearing until you start to think about new eyepieces (which you will, eventually), but don't worry about those yet, there are more important things to consider first. I've not found dew to be a problem, however I have always used my little dob with a 'shroud' around the open part . The small secondary mirror is exposed to the cold air if you don't have a shroud , and I'm told that is the part which dews up. To start off, I used a bit of a cheap closed cell camping mat (the sort no one in their right mind buys to actually sleep on ... ) and just tied it on around the outside of the bars with some elastic . When the 'scope was to be closed down, I'd just take it off and wrap it round the main body for storage. I've subsequently bought some 3mm closed cell foam and made a far neater shroud which is thin enough to slide inside the main body when the 'scope is collapsed, so stores neatly away with no faffing, open the 'scope up, and out comes the shroud (I have gaffer taped it to the light shield opposite the eyepiece). I'll find a link to the online vendor I bought the foam from, it was about £10 for a 1 x 1m piece. Second thing you will need is some plumbers PFTE tape to improve the focuser, both this and the light shroud are shown really well in this video https://stargazerslounge.com/topic/359669-semi-permanent-light-shroud-and-focuser-mod-for-heritage-150p/ A sturdy base for the tabletop dob is something you will perhaps be able to improvise while camping , I have made mine a small but very sturdy triangular 3 legged table from scrap wood to raise it about 25cm off the ground, maybe you have something like a 'really useful' plastic crate as part of your camping kit ? An 18L crate is big enough, altho' the plastic of the lid does flex a bit , so turn it over and use the crate base, or ideally have a bit of wood to use to stiffen it as a platform. The 3 feet on the dob base are 34cm apart (that is to the outside of the foot) to give you an idea of the sort of size of platform you need. If you can find a suitably placed fixed wooden picnic table, or even a handy lump of granite with a fairly level top, that would be good . Using the dob on the ground is not impossible , although you would be limited to quite high in the sky targets , and while a small child would be abble to use the 'scope that way, an adult would probably want to be sitting down , a low camping chair might work well, but maybe sit on the ground. As the dob base is MDF type board, I'd definitely want to keep it safe from any damp vegetation, so would always use a tarp or binbag or similar under it. Heather

I'm not sure if I think you are brave or crazy ! 🙂 Either way, I wish you good luck. Come back and let us know how your project goes, there is a DIY (do it yourself) section of the forum you could post your progress in. Heather

Not collimating it means the mirrors are not properly lined up, so you get a poor image, so your old telescope would probably. have been better if collimated. I can;t say what is best for you , along with everyone else here, I have no idea of the quality of the ready made telescopes available to you, or the mirrors. As for making your own telescope, well, if youtube is available to you there, there can be no better telescope maker to watch in action than John Dobson himself :

I thought that too, but saw this from the US Library of Congress https://www.loc.gov/law/help/firearms-control/egypt.php which states that in Egypt "Specified categories of firearms and related equipment, such as automatic assault rifles, rocket-propelled grenades (RPGs), gun silencers, and telescopic equipment used with weapons are prohibited." I would guess somewhat over enthusiastic application of the words 'telescopic equipment' are the problem , and OP is not going to risk the dire consequences of flouting, or even criticising , that law .

I don't know how skilled you are, or how available the materials would be : I'm sure even a poor wood worker with just hand tools like me could build some sort of tube and a dobsonian base, but the spider ? and the secondary mirror to go on it ? The focus arrangement too ... Those , I believe, require a degree of precision. If you could get those parts and the cell to hold and collimate the primary mirror ready made, perhaps salvaged from a broken telescope, then maybe you could get a working device, but it seems a pretty difficult project to me. I searched for similar requests, and came up with an almost identical thread from a few years ago, I wonder if that poster is still around and might be able to help you (unless of course it is you under a different name ! ) :

Good grief, at least we only have to deal with constant cloud cover ... I'd say reflector , no need for a diagonal, nice simple alt az , the biggest mirror you can afford. Make a collimation cap yourself, it's not difficult. Heather

As for eyepieces , I'd say hold off buying anything straight away, you will get another pair of skywatcher 10 and 25mm 'super wide' eyepieces with most skywatcher 'scopes, see how the other EPs you already have do in the new 'scope before buying more. Everyone will suggest BST starguiders as cost effective purchases at a little under £50 each, and I really like mine, all the range from 8mm up, except for the 25mm in the Heritage 'scope, where I find some edge of field distortions annoying (it is good in the maksotov 'scope I own though) I actually prefer a 32mm plossl to the 25mm BST as the wide field eyepiece in the dob. something like this for £30 would work fine : https://www.firstlightoptics.com/astro-essentials-eyepieces/astro-essentials-super-plossl-eyepiece.html Note the same range has a 2x barlow very similar (OK, identical ... ) to the Skywatcher 2x barlow. Heather

This is a good guide to the shroud and focus mod.s, neither are difficult or expensive, I got some 3mm closed cell foam for about £10 and a roll of PFTE tape is very cheap, I got two for a couple of pounds.

Bortle 5 is what clear outside reckons I'm dealing with too, and I have a 150mm heritage dob. , so very similar circumstances. The key criteria for observing DSOs for me are : Is the Moon up ? If yes don't bother, look at the Moon instead. Is the target in a 'good' bit of sky from my back garden ( there's a patch to the south west where light pollution is far worse) , if not, wait until it is. Is the target above at least 30 degrees altitude ? If not wait ... Also, my neighbours stop lighting up their conservatories like flippin' lighthouses around 11:30 pm, and the local council turns off every other street light at midnight, so after that's when it is a bit darker and better. This time of year isn't great, it is never truly, properly dark , but at least it's relatively warm for faffing about outside , and you can still see some good stuff : on the last clear night I got my first ever sight of the Dumbell Nebula with the little dob and a UHC filter. A weird looking but quite effective trick is to drape a towel or similar (preferably dark coloured ) over your head and the eyepiece to cut out some ambient light, like a photographer in a historical drama ... also worth having a dew shield on the newtonian, not so much for dew as to reduce that ambient light a bit more , just like a lens hood on a camera. Worth finding out about exit pupil and eyepiece selection too. In my f5 dob, an 18mm eyepiece turned out from experience to be the ideal one for me to use to see faint fuzzies against my not very dark suburban sky . The discussion on here about choosing eyepieces by exit pupil showed me why ! 🙂 Heather

Interesting to see this set up, which has just been posted for sale , £800 second hand for the full (Nikon camera & lens based, no telescope) kit :

Here's a link to the Loughton List : it's a UK home counties based list, they grade objects bronze, silver & gold, with bronze the easiest to see, it is a really nice free resource https://las-astro.org.uk/docs/Loughton_List_v2_0.pdf Heather

You don't say where you are, what bortle rating or what telescope you are using, but assuming it is not wonderful dark skies or huge 'scope, there is a wealth of free info out there for us. There's the much recommended (but not free) book 'Turn left at Orion' which is aimed at use with small 'scopes in less than ideal (from a light pollution point of view) skies, also plenty of freely available lists , including one by Don Pensack who says they are ' the 500 best DSOs, as seen in a 4" refractor and 5" Maksutov in modestly dark skies over a couple of years.' , the Loughton list , the Moore Winter Marathon (not for now, obviously !) and the Caldwell list ... Jasonb and I attempted to provide a list based o Don Pensack's , excluding those not visible from the UK, and cross referencing the Loughton , Caldwell, and MWM numbers and the page references in Turn Left at Orion. All you need to do is check with stellarium (other programs are available, as are analogue planispheres) to see what constellations will be visible on a given night , look down the 'constellation 'column in our list (which is initially sorted first by alphabetical order of constellations, second by Messier number) and see what may be good targets, then look them up on the free lists.

Nephilim nailed it in their reply . Briefly, in astro photo terms, you can have cheap or you can have good. I'm a photographer (now amateur, but was employed in the business for a decade) and I wondered about using the expensive cameras and lenses and tripods I already own to do a little astro photography back at the start of the covid lockdown last year, something to take pictures of from the back garden. I had an inherited celestron astromaster eq114 , and did my research to see what I would need to make it work to give me acceptably good pictures. The answer was ... give it away, and spend a lot of money on something that works. I couldn't afford a kit which would live up to what I wanted. So, I redirected my attention to visual observing, bought a heritage 150, and have loved what the simple 'scope has shown me, to the point where I've added other 'scopes to my kit. Your heritage 130 has the same focus set-up, which is just not adequate for photography, I've played around having been tempted into taking a few Moon photos and the focus is too coarse, plus to achieve focus with a DSLR body you have to not quite fully extend the 'scope, which is a pain to get just right. If you already own a reasonably decent laptop (for processing the photos) , a DSLR , a lens and a tripod, then a simple star tracker (plus an intervalometer if one's not built in to your camera) for around £250 will allow you to try your hand with some pictures, but if you don't already have the photo kit, or the laptop , the cost will obviously be much higher. Second hand kit will reduce costs, but good equipment holds its value well, so you would still be looking at something around £500 , probably more. And that is using a camera lens, not a telescope ... If you already own a DSLR and lenses and a good tripod, there are sites with information about using them without a tracking mount , here's an interesting one I found and bookmarked : https://project-nightflight.net/DSLR_astrophotography_untracked.pdf and a really long (nearly 2 hour) explanation vid https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iuMZG-SyDCU same guy again, star tracker vs none, he walks you through the method and the processing , just 90 minutes this time 🙂 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mYucAuUrdTs There is plenty of similar information around, aimed at photographers who want to take astro photos rather than people coming at it from an astronomy point of view, so f you have the gear have a search on photo sites and see what comes up. If you don't have a DSLR, but a 'phone with a decent camera , or even a compact camera , you may be able to take simple , untracked pictures of the Moon through your eyepieces in your existing 'scope. I've not tied this, but there's plenty of information available , look for 'eyepiece projection photography' So, don't give up entirely on the idea, but be aware that doing more than dabbling in astro photo costs plenty, with some investments in time and skill acquisition, as well as money ! Heather

I can promise you that the heritage 150 is not flimsy. The extending section locks securely and is stiff and strong. I've used mine in the course of 43 observing sessions during the year (and a few days) since I bought it, also had it apart to flock the interior, and later to drill holes for an extra finder shoe. It holds collimation really well, and I can't fault it on robustness. The focuser though, I don't much like that ! Heather

Not used them myself, but here's a few specialist vendors who might have something suitable: https://www.cases-and-enclosures.co.uk/aluminium-flight-cases https://flightcaseuk.com/ https://www.absolutecasing.co.uk/ and if you need cubed foam (or pretty much any other sort of foam ) I've bought from here https://www.efoam.co.uk/pick-n-pluck-foam.php

This guy has made several useful videos about using a small mak to image planets :https://www.youtube.com/c/JenhamsUk/videos

I'm not surprised you are overwhelmed, there is such a huge range of telescope types , brands, sizes and mounts to choose between that it is easy to be swamped with information. You are unlikely to find a unanimous opinion on here either, but at least we can offer some practical experience. OK, so you want a reasonably portable kit, are mostly interested in bright , easily found targets and want something you can park a DSLR on to try some photos. Out of your suggestions, I have (very recently) bought the shorter 'S' , 600mm version of the Bresser refractor, and have had a slightly larger 127 skymax for a while. Apart from that, I inherited a Celestron astromaster 114 EQ bird jones refractor , which I would never recommend anyone buy, horrid wobbly mount, poor spherical mirror, fuzzy image. Alan64 is right about that 'scope. The Bresser 102 S is quite heavy , mine is (at the moment) on an AZ5 alt az mount, which copes with it easily, the longer, heavier 102 / 1000 you are thinking about will need a similarly serious heavy (and expensive) mount and tripod to keep it steady and move it smoothly. Mine came with a really flimsy diagonal, and I felt I needed to replace it and the finder shoe and finder immediately. The shoe is a Bresser/Explore Scientific one which is not compatible with the more common Skywatcher finder base , so that was an extra cost. The supplied finder looks good in the adverts, but is wobbly, imprecise, and hard to use. On the other hand, the Bresser focuser is pretty good, the screw in connection for a T mount makes a nice solid connection to a DSLR, the scope comes with a solar filter and the included plossl is decent quality. I bought my 102 as a quick set up, grab & go instrument , for brief cloud gaps and daytime solar observing, which it is fine for, but I don't think it will be ideal for you. Chromatic aberration is really obvious to me when using it to look at the Moon or Jupiter, but there would probably be less C.A. in the longer 102/1000. My suggestion would be to go for the skymax : the short tube of the maksutov makes it a compact package, therefore lighter and much easier to mount properly. The smaller aperture (taking the mak's central obstruction into account) is not hugely important if you are interested in bright targets. My mak is the 'scope I take out when the Moon is up, or Mars/Jupiter/Saturn are in the sky to see. The skywatcher diagonal is not wonderful (but slightly better than the one supplied with the Bresser ), and if the 102 comes with a red dot finder (as my 127 did) that is fine if you are simply lining the 'scope up with easily visible bright targets. The supplied 25mm eyepiece is OK, the 10mm you will want to replace. Which brings me to accessories. Plan to spend some money on them, because while the telescope manufacturers sell you what looks like a complete package , they skimp on the quality of the accessories, so you will very soon want to buy at least one better eyepiece, some solar filter film, a T or T2 mount for your camera, maybe a better diagonal, and a different kind of finder ... I'd suggest wait and see what works for you : I don't need a moon filter when using my 127 mak or 102 refractor , but I can't look at the Moon in my 150 reflector without one. I'm happy with using £20 plossl eyepieces in my 80mm refractor, but not in the other 'scopes. I'm not really in a position to give you advice on mounts, because you hope to take photos, which really needs an EQ mount , but I'm only interested in visual use , so use alt az mounts. If you were happy to start out only using your 'scope visually, I'd say buy a skymax 102 on a porta mount which would be a small, neat, high magnification, portable set up. Heather

Found it : https://www.firstlightoptics.com/finders/baader-universal-quick-release-finder-shoe-base.html Not cheap, but very well made . I liked it so much, I bought another (second hand) one to replace a relatively flimsy one I put on my dob. Heather

I've a Skywatcher 6x30 on my 127 mak, and an astro essentials 9x50 on my dob, the 6x30 seems better suited to the physical size of the mak, but (unless things have changed since last I looked) there isn't a small RACI to be seen for sale new anywhere in the UK at the mo. If your base is not the standard 'slide the foot in' base used by many manufacturers, Baader make a very neat shoe with slotted base which can be used with a range of hole spacings , I'll find the link in a moment , I recently bought one from FLO to use standard finders on a Bresser 'scope which has a proprietary shoe. Heather

I hesitated to mention the dob alternative, as you said you might want to think about photo use in the future , but if you are happy to shelve any thoughts of entering that particular money pit, a dob will get you a simple mount, with most of your money going into the optics .

Welcome, you can see plenty of DSOs using a 150mm reflector, if you go for the 130mm you will be forever wondering if the bigger mirror would be showing you more ... I've seen plenty over the past year with my first serious 'scope, a 150 Heritage dob, from my suburban light polluted back garden. However, my best advice would be, if possible, don't max out your spending on the telescope/mount package , keep a bit back for the upgraded accessories you will very quickly discover you need , like an eyepiece or two (the skywatcher bundled 10mm one is not good, altho' the 25mm is OK ) and a better finder than the one supplied ... Heather

£15 ? Pfft 🙂 Wickes Proplex sheet £3 https://www.wickes.co.uk/Proplex-Black-Surface-Protection-Sheet-1200-x-1000-x-2mm/p/151157 Not that I'd use corriflute type stuff myself, I don't like the not-a-proper-curve thing as it bends only along the channels , being a plastic version of corrugated card. Instead I went with 3mm closed cell foam https://www.efoam.co.uk/closed-cell-polyethylene-foam.php 1m x 1m for £11 (except, who could resist a second 1m x 1m for just another £3.71 ? Not me . Handy stuff to have .) Heather