Tiny Clanger

Thanks for the heads - up, I seldom look forward further than the next week , so hadn't noticed that . I just made some A4 ish Baader film my first ever panic buy of lockdown , it was already on my FLO wishlist , may as well beat the rush ! 🙂 Heather

You are Fr. Dougal and I claim my £5 🐮 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 🐄 Heather

And, bonus ! You can do water divining with the plumbbob at the same time ... 🤪 (No,of course I don't think it actually works , see the smiley . )

Wise decision to wait and see with the eyepieces, you may well find you want something wider field than the zoom, but it may be that the 40mm eyepiece which comes with the telescope will be fine. It might surprise you how many times you actually want low magnification to see all of a large feature ! It may also be that you find the Moon dazzlingly bright in the 'scope , some folk do , some don't, so as with the eyepiece I'd say give it a try, and only if you need it, buy either a Moon filter or one of the variable filters which are made up of two polarizing filters you rotate to change how much light gets through. A dew shield is a good idea , I made one from 3mm closed cell foam and some velcro , they are not complex items. The only other accessory you absolutely need is a red light torch , which affects your eyes light adaptation less than a white light one. Heather

Like this !

I've not been observing seriously for very long, less than a year in fact, but after a week or so of getting the hang of using my first proper 'scope, I started writing up a log immediately after each session. It's nothing special, just an A5 spiral bound book full of bad handwriting and the odd even worse sketch. Apart from recording the date & start and finish times, nothing else is mandatory : I generally mention which 'scope I used (now I have more than one ) , and record any first use of new bits of kit like eyepieces, but apart from that it's more a diary entry recording what seemed to me to be the important or interesting points from the session. I usually mention most objects or features I have seen, particularly if they are new to me. I also record any failures to find . If a particular combination of kit seemed to work well (or badly) I'll record that. The weather crept in to my log when I spent a few nights stood out in the snow 🙂 I'm not much of a list keeper , but to keep track of what I have and have not seen, I have printouts of the Moore Winter Marathon, the object index and some pages from the Loughton list , and the whole of a rather good Messier recording PDF https://www.physics.hmc.edu/faculty/esin/a101/messier.pdf all of which are in a ring binder , and get scribbled on with a brief note, usually not much more than the date when I saw it so I can go to my logbook for more detail if needed. Heather

Who knows 😉 ,here was, according to the author of one book of the list , a 'Cauldwell controversy' which he outlines here: http://www.deep-sky.co.uk/observing/caldwell/caldwell.htm If there's someone out there with a grievance and a lawyer, I can understand why the Cauldwell list doesn't get as much online documentation as it might . Heather

Do it ! There are more elegant designs available on the internet , but Jerry Oltion's one has to be the easiest , apart from maybe this one. which I rejected on the grounds that my available to recycle wood did not include wide enough planks, I reckoned I would very probably fall over backwards off it, and it seemed ... lacking in ambition https://www.stark-labs.com/craig/lybar/lybar.html Heather

I've seen that one before, found it here :https://www.ukcloudmagnets.co.uk/learning-section/ along with many other links. Here https://www.messier.seds.org/xtra/similar/caldwell.html it says 'The Caldwell Catalog is copyrighted © 1995 by Patrick Moore and Sky Publishing Corporation. This list just gives the objects for all 109 catalog entries in the catalog, linked to our object pages when applicable. ' Which is probably what I'd recalled reading that led me to think there was some copyright reason why the list is less well represented online than you might expect.

Oh lord no ! In my make it up as you go along mode, it took me a week , with brief bursts of sawdust production interspersed with a lot of sit downs with coffee to try and work out how to do the next bit , I'm not a natural thinker-in-3D , plus have the attention span of a goldfish, therefore a tendency to blunder on and do stupid things that paint me into a corner. So probably not the ideal profile for an astro chair entrepreneur 😉 . Don't get me wrong, I'm proud of having turned my pile of bits of sofa frame into a viable seat, and I enjoyed the process and the learning curve, but my message here isn't 'look how wonderful I am at this carpentry lark', because I'm really not , what you should read in this is : Practically anyone with a handsaw, drill , bits of wood, and some screws and bolts can make a seat like this using Jerry's web page as a basis for their plan. Come on people , it's a wet Bank Holiday Monday, with a wet windy week in prospect, give it a go ! Heather

The Caldwell catalogue is apparently tied in to a book Moore wrote , and there seems to be less freely available info on it, perhaps there is some copyright issue with it ? I did find this a while back https://www.go-astronomy.com/caldwell-objects.htm , but it is an online set up, not a nice downloadable / printable PDF, and you have to wonder a little about a site whose initial blurb confuses north and south ... I'd highly recommend The Loughton list as a realistic set of targets for those of us who have as a limiting factor any permutation of kit , experience , and light pollution . It divides targets into three levels, starting with the easiest, bronze . https://las-astro.org.uk/docs/Loughton_List_v2_0.pdf Heather

Scary rocks at Barr Beacon ? That was probably on way past my bedtime. The only rocks I find worrying are either ones dislodged from slopes above me by idiots, or above my head in caves ... Heather

Strikes me as a perfectly reasonable evolutionary adaptation ... not percieving a rock in low light may lead to a stubbed toe, but not seeing some slavering predator silently stalking you would have meant not getting any further chances t pass your genes on ! Heather

Pretty much the same question asked, and answered in detail, here :

You're welcome. I'm sorry, I don't know f the starsense is available as an add on to put on any scope , but if you do a search on here about it I think you will find some members actually bought a cheap 'scope which included it, just to get the push to kit to remove and use on a better 'scope ! I've no clue about the Celstron 'scopes it is bundled with , I'm sure someone else will have an opinion on them though . Maintaining reflectors , there I do have a slightly informed opinion though as long as a reflector is capped when not in use, the mirror shouldn't need cleaning for many years, maybe even a decade or more. Collimation does have some scare stories , but my personal experience is that my skywatcher 150 holds collimation very well, it seldom needs any adjustment. On the rare occasions when it does need tweaking a careful cautious approach making just tiny adjustments soon has it sorted. There are very many collimation explanations of varying clarity on the internet, the one I like is the uncomplicated approach outlined here https://garyseronik.com/a-beginners-guide-to-collimation/ Heather

Brilliant , suddenly the size of dob I could contemplate shifting outside alone increases enormously .... 🙂 Heather

OK, so you reckon he will want a travel friendly 'scope, primarily for lunar & planetary viewing, but a bit of everything ... No-one with a little knowledge of astronomy needs a computerised mount to find Mars Saturn or Jupiter or obviously the Moon , so a decently mounted , reasonably good quality 'scope of any kind would fulfil his initial needs, as long as you avoid anything with an enormously long focal length . Long focal length = great magnification = small portion of the sky in view = harder to line up and find your target. Better to go with less focal length, middling mag, , more chance of finding what you seek. In practical terms, I have a 1500mm focal length mak , and am glad it was not my first 'scope, as I know I'd have struggled with aiming it as a beginner, while my first 'scope, a 750mm newtonian on a dobsonian mount , was far more forgiving . On the other hand, my 400mm refractor just does not have the magnification for planets ... but is really easy to find things in, it shows such a wide swathe of sky ... I'd argue that the simplest and most friendly user interface is a dobsonian mount and some knowledge of the night sky, but a dob may not be what you want in terms of portability, so how about an alt az mount on a steel tripod, practically , and on it practically any type of 'scope in the 127 to 150mm aperture range ( a newtonian, a maksutov, a refractor ) and a push to system ? Push to systems differ from go to in that you steer the tube of the 'scope yourself, the screen just shows you what you are pointing at, and gives (I believe ) an arrow or similar suggesting the direction to steer toward a target. There is a Celestron version where you buy a mount to attach a 'phone to the 'scope and app https://www.celestron.com/pages/starsense-explorer-technology and a free android app which apparently works in a similar way, but you need to work out how to mount the 'phone https://lavadip.com/skeye/book/virtualdsc Advantages over a go-to are less tech inbetween observer and space , much lighter weight , less toting batteries (just a backup power bank for the 'phone) , more flexibility in use : if he decides he doesn't need electronic assistance any more, just don't attach the 'phone , if he loves it and gets another 'scope, it will work with anything. Plus you've smuggled a smartphone into his affections, .... 🙂 I should say, I've not used either of these (I tried, but unfortunately my elderly smartphone does not have all of the sensors to run SkEye ) so am in no way an expert, but as a straightforward way to add some computer magic into observing they do seem very interesting options. Oh, and the eyepiece question :most telescope packages have one or two eyepieces included, they are never excellent, sometimes adequate, often rubbish. Once you have decided on a 'scope, come back and ask for suggestions on upgrades for what you get in the package. Heather

Yes . The oft quoted lower rating (5kg ?) is due to the limitations of the aluminium tripod it is sometimes bundled with. As you'd expect, t has no problems with my SW 127 mak at 3.5kg and probably another 500g of finders etc. I have my az5 on an old manfrotto 55 tripod. Heather

Yep, I've not chipped in here earlier, because altho' I have a 127 mak, I don't choose to use it when I'm looking for faint fuzzies, because the slight aperture increase afforded over the 127 mak by my 150 heritage dob makes a surprising improvement in what can see. Heather

My most exciting planetary sight so far was when Mars was at its closest to us a few months back. I was using a 17mm plossl (I only had a couple of plossls and the 8mm BST at the time) because the seeing did not make the 8mm useful, so was at a mere 44x magnification. But I spent a couple of hours patiently watching and nudging the dob. Mars was a very small disc, with barely discernable suspicions of dark grey patches amongst the red, but there was a brief patch of steady air , and I saw, between well defined dark ones, a light patch which Mars mapper said should not be there. Came indoors, read some posts on here , and discovered what I'd seen was a small dust storm in progress. Heather Update : I checked with my observing log, and it was the 12.5mm plossl, which shoed me the Marian storm, not the 17mm . I probably made the mistake because I really like my 17mm plossl ( a nothing out of the ordinary skywatcher 'super' one ), but really dislike the 12.5mm (same series) , which I'm relieved to have replaced with a 12mm BST !

Yes, the higher magnification magnifies the view, but (and there is always a but ...) it also magnifies the wobble as you try to hold the binos still. I'm a bit feeble and need to support my 10x50s on a monopod , but can hold my smaller lighter (and older) 8x30s steady for several minutes. As far as I know ( and I am no expert) binoculars do not magnify enough to show you planets as much more than tiny coloured dots , you certainly won't see any detail. For that you need a telescope, on a steady mount, and much higher magnification (and expense !) This excellent post shows you what sort of views to realistically expect in a good telescope , it is quite sobering ! Binoculars will not be as good as that for planets... Binoculars are really good for wide field viewing , star clusters and similar, and ideal for learning your way around the sky. They will show you a lot, I'd suggest sticking with some 10x50s to start with, and getting the hang of locating objects and learning what they are. Apart from Mars , the interesting -in -a -telescope planets are Jupiter and Saturn , neither of which are well placed for viewing at the moment . They will be visible in the summer sky though, which gives you a few months to see if you enjoy using binos, and you can defer until then any thought of buying a telescope ! By the way ... you may know , but it came to a shock to my next door neighbour and her adult son ... Mars, Venus, Jupiter, Saturn and Mercury can all be seen (when favourably placed) without even binoculars, just your eyes 🙂 Heather

I've found the BST 15mm, 12mm and 8mm all very nice in my 150mm f5 heritage dob, but the 25mm is less pleasing , I actually find myself using a skywatcher 32mm plossl more (it shows practically the same field of view as the 60 degree 25mm BST) . The 25mm BST is better in my mak, which is a more forgiving f11 'scope . I tend to use the mak rather than the dob for higher magnification on the Moon & planets , so have not yet tried the 6mm Baader ortho I recently acquired on here second hand in the dob, but it is a tiny thing , with miniscule glass, and in the mak looking at the bright near full Moon it did not compare favourably with a £30 ish 6mm TMB planetary I bought from Alan at Sky's the Limit . Things may be different using it in the dob, or on other targets, I've not had the chance to give it a lot of time yet. I went for 6mm as my highest power EP because beyond that (250x magnification) in the mak I get distracting eye 'floaters' ... apparently it's an age thing ... 😼 Heather

Oh, and the planets in order, from the Sun : My Very Easy Method Just Speeds Up Naming Planets Mercury Venus Earth Mars Jupiter Saturn Uranus Neptune Pluto (not really a planet now, but it was when I learned the mnemonic !) For a book with background information (not to do with observing, but what is up there and how it all works) I'd suggest if you can do it, a visit to a library or bookshop (second hand ones often have some good titles, but be aware that anything more than a few years old might have info which has been superseded, astronomy is a fast moving science ) ,, and do not be embarrassed to check out the children's section, there are some really good Dorling Kindersley and Usborne titles which would give you an easy overview to start off with. One book a friend said they enjoyed recently was 'The Astronomy Book: Big Ideas Simply Explained' from Dorling K , which takes the historical approach , leading you through progressive discoveries by Kepler etc Authors who I think are good at explaining to beginner adults I'd say Ian Ridpath, Heather Couper (no relation) and Nigel Henbest, but I've not really read any of their books recently, so cannot be specific about titles. Heather

Welcome ! Binoculars will show you more than the naked eye does , and are a good starting point ,especially as you can get a reasonable pair for far less cost than a decent starter telescope. I second the binocular sky site as an excellent source of information, especially for choosing binoculars to buy, there is a dizzying range of the things on offer, best let an expert narrow the choice down for you ! I followed the suggestions on there, and bought the Opticron 10x50 WPs for around £80. I need them on a monopod to keep them steady, but the binocular sky site has some ingenious ideas for easy ways to improvise supports for free from household items . A planisphere is essentially a small sky map (showing just the brightest stars, not the planets, they move differently ) which you can rotate behind an overlay . The overlay has the date and time marked on , along with north. You turn the map to match the current date and time, find north, hold the planisphere over your head (with its north arrow pointing north ) and the real sky view should match the visible part of the map . It's easier to use than explain, honest . If you want to try the idea out without spending any money, there are very simple printable ones online , here's one https://www.lawrencehallofscience.org/do_science_now/science_apps_and_activities/star_wheels There are different versions depending on how far north or south you are looking from.