Tiny Clanger

Welcome ! Excellent choice of 'scope (must be, it was mine too !) I was lucky in that I began researching a few weeks before it appeared, decided no telescope with my specific requirements in my price range was available, then suddenly the 150 heritage arrived , all new and perfect for me. Yes, the focus is a bit ... agricultural , a couple of turns of PTFE tape improves it enormously ( make sure the end of the tape is really well smoothed down,, because you rotate the thread both ways, so the end of the tape can be lifted, start to unwind and get chewed up. ) The shroud can be a simple external wrap around thing , made of any opaque material which can be curved but has sufficient rigidity to stay cylindrical . Initially I just used a bit of a closed cell foam camping mat, held on with string. You didn't say how old your son is, but maybe if he's primary school age that would be a good project for him using some cardboard to make a first shroud ? Something you might want to think about in advance ( in the hope that the sky will be clear on the day the 'scope arrives) is a low table or something to stand it on , the feet on the base are arranged in an equilateral triangle with sides of 33cm ( to the outside of each foot) The table or whatever needs to be very stable, the slightest wobble will be hugely magnified . If your son is small, he may not need it at all , but you certainly will unless you are going to use it from a seated position. Even if it's going on the ground, if that ground is grass or may be a all damp , I'd put a plastic sheet down (an opened out binbag would do ) the base is not going to last long if it gets damp, it appears to be MDF type stuff. Set up the red dot finder in the daylight to avoid wasting clear night skies faffing with it (and it's much easier to be confident you are looking at a distant church spire with both 'scope and RDF than to be sure you are looking at the same star with both ... there will be a magnificently bewildering number of stars on offer through the telescope, believe me !) and do look at the thread on here about what are reasonable expectations for views through a small telescope. Heather

Upside down, no fault there, it's as it should be . 😀 Good luck with a clear sky to use it soon. Heather

Is this the model of telescope and the actual eyepieces, barlow etc you got ? https://www.amazon.co.uk/National-Geographic-700-Reflector-Telescope/dp/B007WRYAVE The more you tell us, the more we can help. If so, the 'small zoom' lens you refer to is the eyepiece with the greatest magnification, i.e. the one with SR3 written on the side. Best start off with the larger eyepiece , the 20mm, which is counter intuitively the lower magnification get the object you want in the centre of your view, make sure the mount is tightened so the tube itself will not move, and swap in the medium eyepiece, centre the target again, and only then try the highest power. Have you aligned the viewfinder with the telescope yet ? Best done in daylight . Stars are never going to be more than points of light, but you should be able to see the planets Mars Jupiter and Saturn as tiny discs. Don't give up ! Patience will be rewarded eventually. Heather

A list of standard questions would , in theory be great. However, many ( if not most!) people asking what to buy on here have simply not bothered to do any research at all for themselves. .I can say this with absolute confidence, because before buying anything myself (back in early summer) I did a lot of research, and came to the sad conclusion that nothing existed in my price bracket which could be stored in my small house and carried outside easily by me, and would be a substantial step up from the 114 EQ Celestron I inherited . But suddenly the first 150 heritage dob's appeared , so I was saved ! I spent a lot of time and effort on due diligence to avoid wasting my money, all my questions were asked via a search engine and much of the clear, well thought out advice I read was on here , so (as I said in my first ever post) months later I joined up here in October to say a retrospective thank you, and in the hope that I could help the occasional, even newer than me newbie from the perspective of a recent beginner with shallow pockets. That so many folk do not spend the time and effort to find things out for themselves , and just repeat similar questions for buying advice here, is why I think something like a simple decision tree would be effective, but they probably would not engage with a list of questions, however well worded. The former looks like a fun quiz, the latter like a school test or a tax return !

I'm trying to come up with helpful, practical suggestions for checking a £99 telescope which do not involve throwing more money at it, a course of action which may perhaps be out of the question . I'm guessing a suitably low aberration, shorter focal length eyepiece would cost around the same as the 'scope itself ? Would a simple, home made collimation cap show up a major problem, even if there is no centre spot on the primary ?

Welcome ! I read 'Barnsley' and immediately think of Kate Rusby .. excuse me, must go & put one of her CDs on ! Heather

Welcome Vasilis ! Greece / Derbyshire , hardly any difference at all there 😀 I think you are wise not jumping in to buy eyepieces etc before you have actually got used to your telescope, a great choice to go for a dob as big as possible, , hope the sky clears for you ! Heather

I think the colloquial meaning of 'beard' that comes to my mind may be somewhat at odds with Jacobingonzo's too ... Let's assume that by beard they mean really smart, articulate and highly knowledgeable person , the term obviously being derived from Prof. Dame (or should that be 'Dame Prof. ?) Mary Beard , 😀 Anyway, back to the bonsai forest of decision trees ... I think this has merit as a major initial division in tree types, deciduous and evergreen. The majority of beginners have a casual interest in photography : yes, they'd say they'd quite like to take a snap or two, but the realities of the cost of serious astro photo kit come as a terrible shock . However there are some serious photographers who enter the hobby from that angle with an understanding of the kind of money required , and people wanting to move into astrophotography from observing. so maybe the forest needs dividing in two right at the start : Are you ONLY interested in taking photographs of astronomical objects, or are you mainly intending to look at them, at least to start with ? Remember the initial intent was to see if it is possible to give beginners an easily navigated set of commonly cited parameters to work through and gain an idea of what telescope they might think about buying. There's no reason why some of the trees can't be specialist ones too, and thinking about those will be interesting and no doubt provoke a lot of thought and debate, but beginners are the people I'm most interested in addressing . Heather

Thanks . I like the idea of a forest of bonsai decision trees rather than a single giant redwood. Perhaps each individual tree could deal with a specific price range ...

Could a star test not establish if the collimation is badly out regardless of the quality of the eyepieces ?

I had to visit my local B&Q a couple of days ago, noticed that they had already removed all the festive stuff and put a range of 'really useful' boxes (and cheaper derivatives) out in the prime seasonal display area instead . There were long transparent boxes with clip on lids and a square-ish cross section , intended for storage of artificial xmas trees I suppose, but my brain said ' telescope boxes' !

Not a sliver of a chance of a view here today, if I took the dob outside it would just be a somewhat expensive rain gauge ...

All good suggestions so far, I think it also needs : Q " Who are you buying for ?" A1 "Me, I'm an adult " A2 " A child" ➡️ "Tabletop dob or binoculars" A3 " Another adult who expressed an interest in astronomy but I know nothing about it" ➡️ "Get them a voucher"

I regularly did a similar exercise with my classes (anything between 7 to 11 year olds) and worked out the distances for solar system objects based on a 1 metre diameter Sun ( most classrooms have a metre stick or two handy ) imagined in the corner of the classroom . I found locations the pupils would be familiar with at roughly the correct distances for the inner objects (Mercury in the playground, Earth by a specific park, Mars at a shopping centre etc) , and once their minds were suitably boggled with the distances as far as the solar system goes, as an encore, I'd ask them to imagine we shrink the the scale to make the Sun down to the size of a football, and say we need someone to get on a 'plane to Mumbai with this nearest star ... I reckoned that was sufficiently distant a celestial object to end on, the pupils who were interested were wowed , we didn't need to push further out !

I think this needs a new thread of it's own! A recent suggestion by Zermelo here reminded me of this https://www.lucidchart.com/pages/flowcharts/stargazing-what-am-i-looking-at So, to construct a similar decision tree type chart for folk inquiring 'what telescope should I buy' , what questions and answers would you incorporate ? I think (rather sadly to be honest) that the first one on my list would have to be Q1: 'How much money do you have to spend ?' A1 "Under £100 "= "Have you considered binoculars ?" A2 " Over £100" = "OK, we may be able to help !"

Aha ! There's an idea .for a dull cloudy night .. I've found and used a few 'lucid charts' in the past , https://www.lucidchart.com/pages/flowcharts here's an e.g. https://www.lucidchart.com/pages/flowcharts/stargazing-what-am-i-looking-at

I found the comprehensive review of the 102 mak, which mentions using it on a tripod, it has plenty of photos showing how it neatly packs away, as well as shots taken through it http://www.waloszek.de/astro_sw_mak102_e.php Heather

I'd first check if there is some sort of problem with the primary or secondary mirrors , even if they are fixed and non- collimatable or adjustable in any way, if you can trace the fuzzyness to a manufacturing fault you can get redress from the seller (assuming you bought it from new in the UK) Presumably the primary does not have a centre spot to help the usual collimation methods ,but if there are visible clips on the primary you might get some idea if anything is out of whack by using a simple, home made collimation cap , plenty of info about making & using them is available online. If not, you could still try a star test : https://garyseronik.com/no-tools-telescope-collimation/ The nest thing I'd look at is the focusser, is it in some way loose ? Looking at images of the 'scope it's not the same plumbing-fitting- style lump as on my heritage 150, maybe there's a loose screw somewhere allowing the tube to slip? Only if the telescope itself is absolved of fault would I think about the eyepieces, although the general opinion is that whilst the included 25mm is acceptable, the 10mm is not very good. My first accessory purchase was a basic skywatcher 17mm plossl for about £22 , and despite being low on the desirability scale for enthusiasts, it was an appreciable step up in clarity. Heather

It's the astro equivalent of going to a car forum and asking what vehicle to buy . "I'd like it to be good off road, must be a 4X4, new not second hand, a nice metallic blue in colour, big enough to carry the family plus dogs, be extremely fuel efficient, very fast on the motorway, and it should be easily converted to electric power if I choose . Oh, and I'd like to race it in formula 1 eventually . I have £100 to spend .... " 😀

Hi stu, and welcome. I think the reason telescope technology has not changed much is because telescopes are actually quite simple devices, (albeit some may be engineered in complex ways ) a few lenses in a tube, a few mirrors in a tube ... You want something transportable in a campervan, therefore it must be compact, and you mention wanting to see planets. While I'm a big fan of the Skywatcher heritage dob.s, I don't think they would be ideal for what you want. A better choice for planets would be a maksutov , which has a longer focal length than the heritage dobs ( so makes things appear larger, which is what you want for viewing planets and the Moon ) These are compact little scopes ( well, the smaller aperture ones are anyway !), This for instance is within your budget at £172, however you only get the telescope not the mount or tripod : https://www.firstlightoptics.com/maksutov/skywatcher-skymax-102-ota.html or there's the even dinkier 90mm model for £40 less https://www.firstlightoptics.com/all-telescopes/skywatcher-skymax-90-ota.html Where huge advances have been made in amateur astronomy kit is the guiding systems, but there you are going to hit the problem of cost : that same 102 maksutov on the sort of mount you'd like takes it up to £329 https://www.firstlightoptics.com/maksutov/skywatcher-skymax-102-synscan-az-goto.html I recently bought the larger, 127 mak from the same range, specifically for use viewing planets and the Moon, and it is great. I can't say how it would be for use with a 'phone for photos, as I don't use a 'phone for that purpose. Mine is on a simple but very sturdy photo tripod which I already owned. I'd hoped to get away with using the equally hefty pro. pan/tilt tripod head too, but the weight of the mak was too much for it, and I had to buy the proper alt/az head which has fine controls specifically for use with a telescope. I've seen reports of people successfully using the 102 mak and 90 mak on a photo tripod though, it will be smaller and lighter than mine. The upshot of all this is here's what I'd suggest : with a little bit of help from an app, or an online planetarium, or even a simple printed out map of the sky in the coming month (available on many websites) it is very easy to identify Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, and Venus . You can see them with your naked eye , so there's really no need for computer control , same with the Moon obviously. So, spend your money on a 102 mak and the sturdiest photo tripod you can get for the remainder. The package will pack away small , be easy to set up, and you can look at some of your primary targets. If you get enthused with the hobby, and want to be automatically steered to see more, you can buy a mount like this at a later date https://www.firstlightoptics.com/skywatcher-mounts/sky-watcher-az-gti-wifi-alt-az-mount-tripod.html Hope that helps, I'm sure there will be plenty of other suggestions too ! Heather

Do not fall into thinking that anyone has a more enthralling time with the night sky than you do, simply because they spent more on their kit ! Knowledge and understanding are free (what with the internet, public libraries and this forum ) and anyone willing to expend some time and effort on them will make the best of whatever tools they have , whether they cost £100 or twenty times that. Heather

I only ever buy the mag. once a year, the December issue, which comes out in November and has the free calendar 😀 Helpfully the calendar tells you what dates the magazine will be out on, so I make a note of the December issue release date and swoop on a copy , strangely in recent years rather than local paper shops I've found copies at Asda !

When making calculations based on info from the bible, bear in mind that good old Archbishop Ussher used that data to work out the age of the Earth, which he reckoned to have started in 4004 BC . Sometime in the autumn if I recall correctly ... Later practical geologists including Lyell, Sedgwick and ( a particular hero of mine) the slightly bonkers Dean Buckland found this was simply not enough time for the deposits they saw to have formed, and more scientific estimates were made, a tad closer to the 4.5 billion years ago (ish) we reckon today.

No, they set behind my shed actually, I've watched them do it. Then I think they lurk in the row of garages of the houses on the road behind mine. ...

Yep, me too ! Tomorrow looks like it will be a washout, so I arranged with a couple of friends to go for a nice rural walk this afternoon, then rendezvous with them again at the layby I'd sussed out on a couple of clear nights as having a good , slightly elevated viewpoint in the right direction. Took the 127 mak , and set it up more in hope than expectation, as there was plenty of patchy cloud around, so at around 4pm , while we waited for the sun to set I wowed 'em with a view of the crescent Moon ... building up from a 32mm eyepiece to the 8mm so they could appreciate the power of the 'scope . oon Saturn obligingly peeped out between the clouds before it was properly dark , and the view got better and better (with a few short periods when thin cloud obstructed it) so both of my friends got to see not only Saturn and Jupiter (both easily framed in the 8mm EP ) , but also the Galilean Moons, Saturn's rings, and a vague and fuzzy impression of the coloured banding on Jupiter. When we had those clouded out moments I steered the 'scope to show them whatever was easily visible in clear patches, so they also got to see Mars, the Pleiades, and Mizar/Alcor through the 'scope. It was really great to watch them enjoy seeing these things through a telescope for the first time. I did manage to get a few minutes viewing myself too 😀 , and we packed up when Jupiter and Saturn were just a few degrees above the horizon and the telescope view was too fuzzy to be worthwhile. We celebrated the highly unexpectedly successful viewing session with some excellent home made chocolate cake they'd bought along (two types, and I was given some to take home too 😀 ) Heather