Tiny Clanger

I agree 100% with that. The 25mm 'super' eyepiece is fine, it comes as standard with most skywatcher 'scopes (as does the horrid 10mm one ) but the rest are probably little use. To calculate the magnification, divide the focal length (in your case 750mm) by the length given on the eyepiece , so 750 / 25= 30x. My heritage dob has the same focal length & mirror size, in the late summer/autumn when Mars was close to us and appeared larger than it does at the moment I was able to see various features on it's surface as dark markings with 8mm, 12mm and 17mm eyepieces, which I could use depended on the stability of the atmosphere rather than anything else. Using a different telescope with a longer focal length, I've managed up to 187x, , but not very often. There's a thread somewhere on here called something like ' what you can expect to see' , search it out if you've not already seen it. BST starguiders are in stock and available from Alan at 'the sky's the limit' https://skys-the-limit-108154.square.site/shop/1-25-bst-starguider-ed/8

I have a 150mm skywatcher heritage dob , and early on followed the usual advice to buy a 2x barlow . I've never liked using it. Even in combination with the 8mm or 12mm BST starguider eyepieces I now own it gives very poor views. Extra magnification is not necessarily the key to better viewing, I'd suggest a better , modest magnification eyepiece would be a more effective investment. The 8mm BST works well in my dob. By the way, your 'scope is not f/1 , 750mm focal length divided by a 150mm diameter mirror = f5

Great stuff , excellent that the upgrades have made such an easily seen improvement, I wonder what will come next ?! 🙂 I've never liked using my barlow (it's only a cheap skywatcher £25 one though) in the dob, but it seems fine in my little 'frac at modest mag.s. with plossls. Rather than using the barlow, I bought a 6mm TMB clone as the highest power workable in my mak before my eye floaters become intrusive, great for lunar detail viewing but I've not tried it in the dob yet, It gives 250x in the mak, with an exit pupil of 0.5mm , or 125x in the dob , exit pupil 0.83mm For helpful lunar feature identification (I've made myself utterly confused between the dob view N/S flipped and the mak view E/W flipped, and rdf view, all correct ... ) and also struggle to identify features when they look so different strongly side illuminated on the terminator vs flat map images I've found the downloadable virtual moon atlas very handy https://sourceforge.net/projects/virtualmoon/ http://www.astrosurf.com/avl/V35/UK_index.html You can set your 'scopes view orientation, and the program shows the terminator at your date too . Heather

I understand and appreciate the possible offence in the Eskimo Nebula name , but clowns were offended or found it derisory ? Blimey, I hope no clowns watch the Simpsons ...

I inherited a Celestron 114 eq, spherical mirror bird jones on a rickety eq tripod, a couple of decades old, but probably very similar to yours. I found it hugely frustrating to use, the red dot finder needed a bit of folded paper strategically placed under it in order to get it to line up with the 'scope, , and the whole thing juddered and wobbled. I dragged it outdoors last summer (lockdown boredom) and tried it again, and it was still annoying. Decent views of the Moon, but that was about it, and that was the point where I gave up on it and started looking for something better and found the heritage 150 tabletop dob. One of the reasons I abandoned any thought of trying to upgrade the 114 was the less than ideal spherical mirror , the second was the difficulty in collimating the thing due to the lens that makes it a jones-bird , some combination of those two factors was I suspect responsible for the slightly soft images I saw. A third drawback was that rather than a standard finder shoe, the RDF was held on by two bolts. I wasn't aware at the time that there are standard finder shoes with slots which might perhaps have been used with those spaced holes. Oh, and the 'scope had a wingnut/bolt arrangement to hold it on the mount too, not a standard dovetail rail, so I couldn't simply update , say, the mount head alone to see if that improved things. I'm a short way south of the city of Leicester, plenty of light pollution here, clear outside says bortle 6 , but I think that is a bit generous ... and I'm not a very good celestial navigator at all. I found the RDF limbo dance hugely annoying and star hopping practically impossible , and added a 6x30 RACI as soon as I could track one down (Harrison Photos sometimes have them when other sellers don't ) . Using the 6x30 gives a fairly similar view to that of binoculars , and a 6 degree (ish) field of view, so you see far more stars to help you 'hop' to a target. And if you can see an object in binoculars you should be able to see it in a telescope . Stars are never going to be anything but points of light, whatever telescope you use, but the more light gathering aperture your device has, the more of those points of light you can see, but unfortunately also the more light pollution it will collect in for you to see too ... As well as the book, I use stellarium, which has a plugin called 'ocular view' . You can set up your 'scope focal length, the stat.s of your eyepieces, and if the 'scope view is N/S or E/W rotated , then select a target, choose ocular view, and it will show you the view with that particular eyepiece . I'd check if your app has something similar. I've spent hours looking straight at various faint fuzzy objects, my aim confirmed by star patterns in ocular view, and seen .. nothing. Disappointing , but one day, under darker skies, I will see them ... meantime, I've found open clusters and globular clusters make do-able targets to try for while hampered by the light pollution. Planets and the Moon are obvious relatively easy targets too when they come around. Don't give up, do cheer yourself up with some easy wins , and seriously consider a Raci. Heather

I find the slo mo controls on the az5 very handy , but I've no experience of any of the other mounts you mention. I did originally sort of hope I might get away with the 127 mak on the heavy duty pan/tilt photographic head I already had on my manfrotto tripod, but it just couldn't cope , so I ordered the az5 . I've since successfully used a small refractor and my 150 heritage dobsonian on a slightly lighter duty tripod and a pan/tilt head by having the telescope not on top of the head in the obvious way, but on the side, as if using a camera tilted over for an upright (portrait format) photo, This lowers the centre of gravity somewhat, and makes the 'scope less precariously balanced, but I doubt it would work as well with the heavy maksutov . Also you have to use the head sort of backwards, as photo heads are not set up to look as high as telescopes want to go ! Do put a post in the 'welcome' section too, and say hello 🙂 Heather

Rule1 of astro kit : there are always too many options 🙂 Welcome Heather

And, I should have said : welcome ! 🙂

It is £20 above your stated budget, but I have a skywatcher 127 mak on a skywatcher az5 attached to a manfrotto tripod which works pretty well . I'm not acquainted with the Cullman but it has a claimed capacity of 8kg, so ought to cope with the 3kg az5 plus your C5 which I'd assume is a similar weight (my 127 is 3.5kg) If the Culmann tripod has a 3/8" standard screw between the tripod legs and head it should fit. Heather

Oi ! Don't disrespect the dinosaur 🙂 I could take offence Dinosaurs were the dominant life form on Earth for over 130 million years, and became extinct due to no fault of their own . Homo sapiens have been around for less than 1 million years, and we do look rather likely to be the architects of our own extinction ...

Yep, I didn't read that as a joke ... this written communication thing is a minefield isn't it ?! 🙂🙂🙂 * * multiple smileys just to be sure the light hearted tone of my reply isn't misread .. and have you noticed the number of people who call it a 'mindfield' instead ? Weird.

Hi Max. welcome, lets hope we can all escape to darker skies safely soon ! Heather

I'm firmly (unshakeably too 🙂 ) in the 'use photo tripod legs' camp here : admittedly this is mostly because I already owned heavy duty tripods so thought I'd try the az5 on a well loved old manfrotto 55 first,and if it turned out to not be adequate, spend £100+ on a skywatcher steel one . Turns out the old 55 is great, the base of the az5 overhangs the top plate a bit (the az5 base is a pretty large diameter) but the tripod takes it , and holds az5 and 127 mak with ease. It will also carry my 150 heritage dob with no problems, and no doubt would be over-engineered (no bad thing !) for the ST80 too. The 55 series metal tripods have a max capacity of 9kg, and manfrotto (so I was told by a rep. at a photo trade exhibition 30 years ago) base that on the fully extended tripod, column and all. I've always liked manfrotto tripods , never felt happy with screw collars or pins as leg locks and (literally) never been let down by the manfrotto click locks over 30 plus years of using them ... I keep the az5/127 mak setup together in the corner of the room, and can pick it up, lean the top of the rig against my (weedy female) shoulder, support the tripod spider with one hand, open a leg lock with the other hand, let gravity extend the leg, lock it and repeat, , getting the 'scope up to height for use in seconds. I don't elevate the centre column at all, it obviously is more vibration prone, better to get the height with the stiff leg triangle and keep the column locked tight. Good things about photo tripods are that they typically close down smaller than telescope tripods, and are far cheaper and more plentiful to buy second hand, £50 for a manfrotto 190 or £70 for a 55 is typical when they are advertised without a photo head, because many photographers will prefer a package to include a head . The negative is they don't generally include a leg brace (apart from video tripods) or a eyepiece tray, but you can buy (or make) a cheap generic stone bag if such storage is a feature you want. I have my st80 on a Manfrotto 190, again an older model, and an 029 pan/tilt head . The max carrying capacity of the 190 is 5kg, but again that's based on fully extended, column up situation. I've tried the heritage dob on this tripod and it worked flawlessly. As mentioned before, I have the st80 tilted over to the side (as if a camera was on the tripod to take a photo in portrait mode) , and reversed in direction to allow the maximum alt . I don't find the pan/tilt controls any kind of problem : the head is smooth and heavy enough to leave the az handle loose, , so only the alt to adjust, and having the 'scope 'side saddle' lowers the centre of gravity and makes that easy . The st80 is light, wide, and undemanding as far as tripod and head go, but my 127 mak requires a strong solid mount, and slo mo controls, I've tried it with the photo head on the 190 and it did not seem safe, let alone aim-able ! Heather

Glad it all came together in the end 🙂 Heather

Alternative strategy : how about buying a scruffy second hand copy of the star atlas as an outdoor companion ? Several of edition 2 hardback via that big river going for around £7 including postage , probably cheaper than the cost in printer ink/paper/time ... Heather

I've printed out specific maps from https://www.deepskywatch.com/deepsky-atlas-release1.html and put them in plastic A$ pockets, or if I think I'll want them again, laminated them. The desktop version of stellarium can be used to make printouts, (see a very recent thread by Spile !) and I've recently downloaded and had a play with Cartes du Ciel https://www.ap-i.net/skychart/en/start which looks very handy indeed to build maps with your own preferences. For durable, waterproof but non laminated so less bulky, stiff and shiny printouts , you could consider waterproof paper like toughprint or rite in the rain (I think the latter may be photocopy/laser only) both are very good for outdoors walking maps ! Quite expensive per sheet though. Heather

A nice personal record, and a tangible reason why sometimes a paper map really is better than a 'phone app ! I'd add the date and equipment used .... I bet you wrote it on the back already ! Heather

I see a swift escalation from a humble st80 to a stealthily camouflaged illicit rooftop observatory cunningly disguised as part of a ventilation system, and housing 'multiple scopes ' 🙂

I wonder .. stellarium I think is of French origin ? Maybe there's some national pride in Guillaume being expressed by including his discoveries , even if they may have proven dubious ...

I've found very little else about that object, but some biographical data on M. Bigourdan , who seems to have been a busy observer : over three thousand published pages of observations according to his obituary : http://articles.adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-iarticle_query?1933MNRAS..93..233. and then there's a wiki page , not in English though ! https://sh.wikipedia.org/wiki/IC_110 which turns out to be Bosnian .. google translate gives "IC 110 is a double star and is located in the constellation Pisces. The first discovery was made by Guillaume Bigourdan on November 5, 1885. " Not much I'm afraid ! If he had been observing in England that evening, I'd have flippantly wondered if he mistakenly recorded seeing a firework ... Heather

First interesting results of a bit of delving gives this : https://cseligman.com/text/atlas/ic1.htm#ic110 Recorded Nov. 5th 1885 by Guillaume Bigourdan, apparently

That 2x barlow , is it one of the very cheap efforts with just a single lens at the bottom ? Someone 'kind' but with no idea gave me one of those a while back, shiny plastic tube , single element glass lens, no coating on the lens, truly horrible overall effect 😞 I bought a 'de luxe' SW version like this https://www.rothervalleyoptics.co.uk/skywatcher-x2-deluxe-achromatic-barlow-lens-125.html (but not from RVO, their delivery for such a small thing pushed the price way up ) Which worked OK, but I just didn't like in the dob or the mak with my BST starguider EPs. However, that barlow works really well in my st80 with the couple of SW super plossls which were my first EP upgrades, making a neat little portable lightweight set to stay with the ST80, a 12.5mm plossl, a 17mm plossl , and the barlow to give 6.25mm and 8.5mm options. Using a barlow to get the magnification rather than buying a 6mm plossl has the effect of producing more eye relief than the 6mm alone would give, and eye relief on sush plossls can be a problem . I've a 25mm LER stock EP to use too, all fitting in a 'really useful' pencil type box with a bit of foam to stop them bashing each other, making a neat little package of lightweight EPs to use in the st80. My barlow appears identical to this one https://www.firstlightoptics.com/barlows/astro-essentials-125-2x-barlow-with-t-thread.html which is miraculously in stock ... and only £25 .... actually the astro essentials plossls https://www.firstlightoptics.com/astro-essentials-eyepieces/astro-essentials-super-plossl-eyepiece.html look remarkably similar to my SW 'super plossls ', I might perhaps buy the ST80 its very own 32mm plossl, the SW one is so good I still use it alongside the BSTs in the other 'scpes ...

Nice report ! 🙂 I'm glad all the anguish over what 'scope to buy & how much to spend eventually resulted in a good decision , and that you see the practicalities and limitations of the setup (or should I say, your first setup ... ) as part of a learning curve, rather than a disappointment. Given the number of people on here who have one of these little 'scopes as a quick set up option, I suspect it will stay with you even if you buy something else . On a bright star or the Moon, do try the option of putting the cap on the 'scope and removing the smaller cap in the centre, it really does provide a reduction in CA, and as it costs nothing to try and is immediately reversible, its a no risk option . Obviously it cuts some light out, but that's no bad thing for the Moon. I've had a look around, and found some discussion about the az3 mount alt problem : http://www.spacegazer.com/index.asp?pageid=97490 https://www.cloudynights.com/topic/56190-az3-mount-altitude-adjustments/ Heather

I'd be unhappy at the thought of an expensive telescope going in the hold of a n aeroplane, and would want to find out exactly how much it would cost to insure it fully for the trip, or even if such insurance would be available at all. With the main activity of your holiday being hiking, I'd be inclined to think the binocular option would be better, do you use walking (trekkiing / alpine ) poles ? Many have a tripod screw at the top which could be used with a binocular adapter to steady either your existing kit or some bigger binoculars . Walking poles are not as tall as some photographic monopods, but could probably be used from a seated position. One more thought : are there any astronomy societies near the area you are visiting ? Maybe you could make contact with some locals who, if the sky is clear, might be willing to let you look through their 'scopes ?

How are you getting there ? Will your luggage be limited by weight or size ? Heather