Tiny Clanger

£80 for a 102mm ? Have his hand off if he's offering, , that's half what they have been going for recently ! 🙂

I'd agree with the 72 ED as a possible useful later step into photography, but note that it is not only £300 for the 'scope only (no mount or tripod) but doesn't come with a diagonal , or finder, or eyepieces ... probably another £100 ( at least) to add those ...

Wise decision, Heritage 130 then, and (staying within budget) a copy of 'Turn Left at Orion' for about £20 and the universe awaits* 🙂 https://www.firstlightoptics.com/heritage/skywatcher-heritage-130p-flextube.html If you want to read loads of info about what folk have seen with this 'scope, or what modifications and tweaks can be done to it, there's a vast thread about it under the name of one of the US editions of it as the 'OneSky' here https://www.cloudynights.com/topic/463109-onesky-newtonian-astronomers-without-borders/ Quite a lot of information on the slightly bigger 150 heritage (which I own and love ) you can find on here applies just as much to the 130. Heather *clouds permitting

Good info, but (because I have one on my FLO wishlist) I note the BCO's are at the moment a rather less barginaceous £59 ! At £10 more than a BST (which is a far more substantial eyepiece, with more FOV and eye relief and a sensible twist up eyecup) the BCOs seem rather less of a great buy than they used to ! Heather

I agree with David's simultaneous posting and penn'orth 🙂 And I absolutely agree about the last paragraph, use a proper retailer, ask them questions before buying, they know their stuff .And surprisingly perhaps, they are often cheaper than , e .g . , Amazon

Hi Stephen, welcome , and do make a post in the 'welcome' section to make a general hello. As an ex pro photographer myself I understand the way you are thinking, but would you expect to get any sort of decent, fixed focus lens for £100 - £200 ? Let alone a good lens plus the vital decent tripod and head needed to support and smoothly pan something you want to give you a view of maybe 200 x magnification . I'm not trying to put you off, honest, but any telescope and tripod you can get for £200 is just not going to do what you want . I think the closest you could come to an acceptable 'scope at that price would be a heritage 130, https://www.firstlightoptics.com/heritage/skywatcher-heritage-130p-flextube.html which would show you plenty of astronomical wonders but not be rucsac portable or particularly useful for photography (as in you could, but it won't be easy ) If you already own decent tripods , you could mount one of these https://www.firstlightoptics.com/startravel/skywatcher-startravel-80-ota.html to any standard 1/4" tripod head screw using one of these adaptors https://www.firstlightoptics.com/dovetails-saddles-clamps/baader-vixen-style-dovetail-clamp.html which would be relatively portable, and give OK wide field views , but comes with a delightful violet rind of chromatic aberration around bright targets , because it is an achromatic refractor . So, again, not ideal for photography. For further information do a search on here for the term 'st80' (short tube 80mm) in the search box top right. The ST80 is a fun wide field, cheap 'scope , loads of similar ones by various manufacturers, all 80mm aperture , and 400mm focal length (f5 in photographic terms) You can buy them on mounts for around £200, but those mounts are cheap, wobbly, and will not pack down as small as a photo tripod. Maksutovs ( usually abbreviated to maks) are similar to the catadioptric lenses which had a brief popularity in the . what, 1980s? so might seem a viable proposition, but the only one in your budget would be the 102mm (just the 'scope, no mount etc https://www.firstlightoptics.com/maksutov/skywatcher-skymax-102-ota.html ) and while it is a dinky little thing, and could fit (with an adaptor) on a DSLR , it has a focal length of 1300mm , and aperture of 102mm, so is f12 . Imagine a camera lens at 1300mm, how hard it would be to keep it still , aim it accurately , find a tiny target in the sky ? For something genuinely portable , with decent quality instruments available well within your price range, I'd suggest some 10/50 binoculars and a monopod / ball or trigger head are the logical choices. Heather

Now you're just adding to their confusion 🙂 ... our American readers spell metre 'meter'

Totally coincidentally, I noticed these on the FLO new arrivals page a week or so ago https://www.firstlightoptics.com/misc/asterion-nt-active-cooler-for-sky-watcher-newtonian-telescopes.html while described as a cooling fan , they might be better thought of as an equalising fan ! Dew point can be a very local thing, just a few paces away can make a difference because of airflow , changes in elevation , vegetation etc , if the setup is not fixed, it might be worth while OP experimenting with different locations. Heather

Yes, at long last we can now buy beer in pints and have road signs in miles .... oh, hang on ...

Very similar thread started yesterday on the subject of planets in a 127 mak : https://stargazerslounge.com/topic/385829-baader-zoom-or-fixed-fl-ep-for-planets/#comment-4165422

Took me a while to track it down but this is an ST80 thread you may find it useful to read :

Some folk seem to quite like the Meade https://www.cloudynights.com/topic/694230-quick-review-of-the-meade-80mm-ota-adventure-scope/ I have an orion st80 and it's great for wide field grab & go, and for taking away from home. Mine is on a fairly lightweight manfrotto travel tripod, but pretty much any £30 plus photo tripod would do nicely,, While the actual telescopes are very similar , a quick search suggests to me that the sw comes on an az3 mount, while the Meade looks to be in an even more cheap and flimsy photo type tripod, which may account for the price difference. Even if you plan to put it on a sturdier mount, I'd go for the Meade , it's cheaper than just the sw OTA ! Heather

My heaviest eyepiece weighs 383g, and the heritage 150 has zero trouble coping with it, it doesn't show any ill effects from having a t mount and 500g ish DSLR on it either (for which to be in focus, the 'scope needs to be retracted maybe 5cm ) The Baader Classic Orthos have a great reputation for sharpness and clarity , but be aware that their field of view is small, which means that, at higher magnifications, you have to 'nudge' the dob as the planet or lunar feature you are studying crosses the field of view and vanishes off the side. FLO say the BCO's FOV is 'about 50 degrees'. Out of curiosity I bought a second hand 6mm to see what it was like, and have tried it several times, but can't say I'm hugely impressed with the view, those who like the BCO's say it's the 10mm which is exceptionally good though. The BCOs are tiny , light, have weird winged eye cups and probably won't be any good for anyone who observes wearing glasses. On the plus side, you can buy a set which includes 3 Baader orthos, a decent 32mm plossl, , and a barlow which has a good reputation, all for £230 https://www.firstlightoptics.com/baader-planetarium/baader-classic-eyepiece-set-with-turret.html which might be a good starting point to discover what focal lengths you use most. It breaks astro buying rule #2 (#1, never buy a 'scope from a catalogue , electrical store or supermarket special , rule #2, avoid eyepiece kits like the plague ) to buy a kit, but if you think the simplicity of the BCOs is for you, the set works out a far better deal than individual eyepieces . If I started over again from no eyepieces at all, and was thinking of just use in the heritage dob, I think I'd go for the 82 degree OVL Nirvanas ( 16mm, 7mm,4mm) for about £80 each , an Explore Scientific 68 deg, 24mm for £150, and maybe for a high mag 5mm, and filling the 7mm to 16mm gap, a few Explore scientific 62 deg, or CelestronX-cel LX's (also 60 deg,) for around £90 a pop. And I wouldn't be without a simple 32mm plossl for lowest reasonable magnification / finding stuff duty . All pretty academic at the moment, everything but the Celestrons and BCOs are out of stock , so there's plenty of time to think about it !

Interestingly, decimation manages to be both at the same time , decimal ( based on 10 ) and imperial (being I believe a way to 'encourage' the legionaries of Imperial Rome ) 🙂

The clothes peg mod.works for me 🙂 To be able to observe for a longer period, I find it far easier to sit down, not only less strain on the back, but also easier to keep my eye in the right place. Final thought ... you are allowing plenty of cool down time for the 127 aren't you ? Mine lives in a room that has no radiator , but even in the summer the mak still needs at least half an hour to cool down and avoid air dancing around in the tube and adding to any turbulence in the atmosphere. Heather

Who use the information given them by the manufacturer. Telescop-Express in Germany use the same , brand provided information: https://www.teleskop-express.de/shop/product_info.php/language/de/info/p7037_Celestron-NexStar-Evolution-6---portable-6--Schmidt-Cassegrain-GoTo-Telescope.html

Nah, average size 🙂

Double stars are a matter of complete indifference to me as far as observing goes 🙂 Interesting that actual binaries are estimated to constitute about half of our galaxy, but a far lower proportion beyond, but that's theory, not observing.

The size and weight of the bresser dobs is made clear on Bresser's site, and far easier to find than the equivalent info for some 'scopes (I know, 'cos I rather fancy the next size up, a 200mm dob, and research shows the Bresser is far lighter than the equivalents from other brands, an important factor for a weedy girlie like me , who would be carting the thing in and out of the house myself) So Bresser 150 (6") dob https://www.bresseruk.com/Astronomy/Telescopes/BRESSER-Messier-6-Planetary-Dobson-Telescope.html DIMENSIONS & WEIGHTS Net weight OTA (incl. accessories)8.3 kg Total length 45 cm Total width 45 cm Total height 128 cm Tube diameter 175 mm Tube length 800 mm Net Weight total (incl. accessories) 16.1 kg Net weight mount (incl. accessories) 7.8 kg I know the ads say the base can be dismantled/rebuilt easily , but as it is held together with furniture fasteners I'm not sure how it would cope with being taken apart regularly, maybe someone who owns one can give an opinion there . Remember you look in the side near the top of a dob, so that 128cm height (roughly where my light switches are) will be where an observer's eye needs to be for objects close to overhead, maybe not ideal for small folk ... Heather

Probably best I keep my conclusions to myself on that Heather

I came across it pre lockdown#1 , when I got home from a few days stay just down the coast , and though, gah ! I could have dropped in at one of their meetings ...

The answer is .... that depends ! What do you want from a finder that the stock RDF doesn't give you ? How do you use the RDF ? What sort of targets are you interested in ? Heather

Similar experience to Zermelo here , I have the 127 mak and BST 8mm & 12mm, and 6mm Baader ortho as my planetary use eyepieces in it. I've spent as much time looking at Jupiter and Saturn as possible, some nights the 12mm (125x) is OK but not the 8mm(187.5x) , best views have been on a very few nights of steady seeing, on one of which the 8mm's 187.5x showed me an absolutely stunning sharp black groove of a Cassini Division in Saturn's rings, and I could make out the swirling shapes within the coloured bands on Jupiter, and even pushed the mag. to 250x with the 6mm,( altho' that does also push the exit pupil to 0.5mm and therefore my eye floaters spoil the view as much as the atmosphere does, so not ideal ) It was a stunning few hours, my only gripe was that the GRS was round the back and out of sight at the time 😞 So, I'll agree, the seeing is probably most of the problem, I've no idea how long you are spending on each target, but persistence over an hour or more can give glimpses of better seeing , otherwise in the short term just hope for nights of great seeing this winter. Heather

I don't give 'scope aperture in inches, ever, and had to make an effort to check out what my 102 and 80mm refractors were in imperial when reading a US website to see if their info. applied to me. Celestron is US company so that explains their use of inches, which probably plays well to the locals, even if the kit is made in China .

Come on, people, OP was initially comparing two 'scopes of the same aperture, made a point of saying a major factor was their 'severe shortage of storage space' and has now actually ordered the Heritage 150 ... While you wait for the 'scope to arrive (and the clouds which will arrive in the box with it to disperse ...) if you've not already come across these links, have a look at this rather good free PDF which has a range of interesting targets possible to see in the UK, in less than dark skies, and with a small 'scope.The targets are rated gold/silver/bronze by a coloured bar , with bronze the easiest . https://las-astro.org.uk/docs/Loughton_List_v2_0.pdf a really good overview of the coming month http://www.whitby-astronomers.com/sky-notes and binocular sky's excellent monthly newsletter https://binocularsky.com/newsletter/BinoSkyNL.pdf is not just for binoculars 🙂 Heather