Tiny Clanger

I will not buy any more toys, I will not buy any more toys ...

The back of the mirror doesn't need a cap , it's the open end that needs protection, nothing is missing , it is perfectly normal, my dob is the same. The shop probably didn't open the box to collimate it, but there are simple instructions in the included booklet on how to check it, and there might be a cap with a hole in it to check for yourself, but unless you actually don't get a sharp image when looking at the sky, I'd leave well alone at the moment : you see too may desperate pleas on here from folk who tried it without reading up thoroughly on the process and had a dreadful faff getting the 'scope back in order. Enjoy the telescope first, think about collimating when it really becomes an issue . This is a simple, clear explanation https://garyseronik.com/a-beginners-guide-to-collimation/ Heather

As well as dispersing moisture, WD40 is extremely useful for removing sticky label glue residue from impermeable surfaces. Apart from that ... nah.

Yes. When I was looking for a 'scope, I saw the solid tube 150 dob version as my only viable option ( as far as cost for me as a beginner was concerned) but sadly had to discount it, as I wouldn't have room to store it, and suspected I would probably find it unwieldy to carry far , even tho' the tube and base can be carried separately. Then the brand new 150 heritage flexitube came out. I'd read a lot of good things about the heritage 130 , so ordered the 150 straight away. Yo use it, ideally you need a solid , non wobbly low garden table or something similar to sit it on, but for me that's a small price to pay for the easy storage and transportation. Heather

Hello in Nuneaton ! You are between my true home (Brum) and my current one (just outside Leicester) To the surprise of absolutely no-one who reads these threads, I'd suggest you pre order a SkyWatcher heritage 150p dob. for around £200. It is easy to store (it closes down to half length), not too heavy to easily carry, simple to use , and is well thought of as a 'grab and go' device even by folk with more expensive instruments. It was my first serious telescope 6 months ago . and I love it. I previously used a jones-bird celestron 114 eq which I inherited , and the difference is like going from a plastic disposable camera to a Nikon DSLR. Don't waste your money on a j-b , it will be a disappointment. Heather

Excellent, hope the collection journey goes well and the clouds miraculously part to show you the heavens through it asap. Heather

Is that the special "masonic edition" 'scope ? 😀😀

Wasn't me giving that advice,, I wasn't signed up here back then, but happy to bask in the reflected glory 😀 And a 150 dob is a great 'scope . Welcome

Thanks for the info. that's a shame, but only to be expected at the price I guess. . The soup was very good though ! 😀

The 150mm /6" Bresser would be what I'd go for , it's a good telescope and has the biggest aperture of those you listed. My first proper scope was a 150 dobsonian and it is not only a great , simple to use beginner's tool, but also a serious telescope . If you are close enough for collecting it to be viable, I'd go for it. Bear in mind also that you are buying off someone who knows their stuff, and has a good reputation on here, things which may not apply to some other sellers elsewhere.

Now you've been and went and gone and done it .... 😀 Just a guess, but I think maybe in the phrase 'gone and done it' for example , the 'gone' emphasizes the intent , whoever it was made the effort, went out of their way deliberately to do whatever it was. A sort of repetition for emphasis. I could of course be very, very wrong ...

Ah, two countries, separated by the same language ! Nope, we prune with secateurs . The noun covers some different types , bypass secateurs being the type with two short blades arranged like scissors and anvil secateurs having one flat jaw with a lateral groove, which matches a single blade on the other jaw. Garden shears over here are things with much longer blades and handles , typically needing two handed use, the sort of thing you would use for light work such as clipping a hedge . In which case one might call them hedge clippers ... but that could be an electrical device .... look, it's complicated , OK ? 😀 And one look at my back garden would show, I'm no expert ! An interesting snippet of the history of our language(s) : I've noticed 'gotten' being used recently by Brits., which is unusual because we stopped using it centuries ago, just defaulting to 'got' as the past participle of 'get' , and 'gotten' was relegated to 'ye olde cod historical' speech (and possibly some local dialects ). However, 'gotten' survived with you guys over the pond, and it seems just now to be creeping back in here. Various daft folk will no doubt be railing about Americanisms messing up English English soon though. If you are interested in the subject, Bill Bryson's books 'Mother Tongue' and 'Made in America' are good reads.

I think I read that the simple RDF was invented as a gun sight ? Therefore presumably best for daytime use ...

A great start, and how fortunate that you managed to get some kit before the xmas stampede and didn't need to join the chorus of plaintive pleas about where to find an elusive telescope ! If you are as confused as I am about the orientation of 'scope view vs that of reality , you could give stellarium a go : it is another skymap prog, you can download to a computer, and has a neat plugin called 'ocular view' . You can set it to the focal length of your 'scope, and specify the left/right and /or up/down flip to match its view. You can also specify the parameters of your eyepiece(s) and other kit like barlows or cameras. Then you can select an object , click 'ocular view' and be shown what it looks like in the eyepiece . Saves lots of mental gymnastics ! Heather

Thanks for that: all I've done with the quickfinder so far is, just after the postie delivered it, stand in the kitchen like a loon with a towel over my head to check the thing lights up ! I've discovered it is possible to change the 'telrad' circle size in stellarium, which should come in useful for planning star hopping. When eventually the star light manages to fight its way through the clouds ...

It was a dry afternoon here, clear sky patches even (forecast to vanish with the Sun, naturally ) but rather than playing with the astro kit i was fighting with a Nordmann fir xmas tree rather taller than I am . I bought it nearly 2 weeks ago, and it's been stood outside in a bucket of water ever since getting a good rinse from the rain. Today was the first chance I've had to deal with it without it being sodden , so sawed a slice off the base, trimmed the lumps from the trunk where it goes in the stand, set up the stand, staggered into the house with the fir, and plonked it in the base. Coffee break now, then secateurs to the odd sticky-out branch , then the decorating fun begins . Well, it's something to do while the clouds roll in ...

The quickfinder stands upright though , and its footprint on the 'scope is small, the included bases are about 50mm x 55mm. The Telrad is horizontal. lying along the 'scope, and it is 215mm long, which would take most of the length of the solid tube of the heritage, and nearly all of the mak ... I got a tape measure out when I was fantasy shopping for my wishlist (don't tell me the rest of you don't do fantasy shopping , I won't believe you. 😀 Granted it may be dignified as careful consumer research in advance of planned purchases 😀 ) and measured the tubes upto get an idea of where the telrad might fit. The quickfinder does seem as if it would stick up/out like the proverbial sore thumb, but it's pretty much the same height as the RACI on its little stalk . Somewhere I saw a site where a chap had cut slots in the quickfinder base, added a bit of rubber to stop any slipping/scratches, and strapped the thing on his scope with some nylon webbing and a buckle . I don't think I'll try that, it would be a pain to realign every time you put it back on .Unless you marked the tube in some way, in which case, you might as well just stick the base on ! Heather

That mini mak is cute, is it useful as a tiny travel telescope ? Think I'll have soup for lunch ... the power of advertising ...

It's one of those things you read about, but think , nah, I can get by with just the provided RDF ... then experience tells you different ! I definitely think it is an advantage to have both : on the dob where I have RACI and the original RDF it didn't take long to get an idea of which finder to best use for types of objects. Because the RACI view is right way up and right way round, I could seamlessly switch between it and the RDF , which is obviously the same . That it differs from the actual 'scope view doesn't matter in the slightest, any more that the RDF differing from the 'scope does. And my neck is not feeling stiff after an hour of observing! I have seen a 'Y' shaped bracket which goes in a finder shoe and has another shoe at the top of each 'Y' , and versions with 3 shoes, but they seem ridiculously big and heavy for a small 'scope and like so many astro accessories , the things are expensive ...

OK, so I searched for barium EPs .and came up with only one hit : Barium eyepieces (product group) - Budapest Telescope Centre https://tavcso.hu/en/productgroup/okular_barium The Barium eyepieces can be used in 1.25\" focusers. They\'re reversed Kellner eyepieces where one of the lenses contain Barium. As a result the image quality is definitely better than the one of Kellner eyepieces and the eyepiece provides a wider field. Recommended for slow telescopes (F/8 and under) but perform well even in faster scopes. Ideal for outreach events. The eyepieces contain ... My security software didn't like the website's certification so all I have is the excerpt from my search engine (not google hate google) . It sounds as if it is that dealer's own EP ( no doubt they have a batch made to order in China) not a skywatcher item at all. I don't know much about glass chemistry, but I do know that borosilicate glass is neither rare or terribly expensive: laboratory glassware and old CRT TV screens use it , I have a friend who is doing a fine arts course and making glass sculptures, he is using melted down old TV screens ! I'd be sending off a query to skywatcher : if the retailer is selling their 'scope with different accessories from those advertised they may not be pleased.

Hello wibblefish, I see that is your first post on here There's plenty of very helpful and kind people on here who are happy to help relative beginners like me. Do make a new topic in the 'welcome' section and introduce yourself, you will be made to feel very welcome. As you've found, this hobby has a steep learning curve, to my surprise I can't just set up, look through a telescope and see everything easily, But that means that the most valuable accessory isn't some £200 eyepiece or £2000 telescope, but totally free : patience, persistence and a willingness to learn . Keep at it, the rewards are well worth the effort.

The acute angle yoga positions got to me after a couple of months, I was starting to think maybe I ought to do some warm up exercises and stretches to get myself prepared while the 'scope cooled down ... I also found it difficult to get lined up with something I knew was there, but couldn't see with the naked eye . I bought one of the smaller, cheaper RACIs ,(SW 6x30) and added it to my little dob using a £5 shoe from FLO. I wasn't confident of precisely where it would go for convenience , so used some sticky pads to fix it so I could change my mind. I've found the good spot (on the heritage , only having half a tube limits the choices, best place seems to be near the pivot) and just need to psych myself up to drill holes to mount it properly. Can't quite bring myself to do this yet, think I'll procrastinate until the sticky pads give way and force action ! My mak has the same shoe, and the RACI went straight on instead of the bundled RDF, but .... sometimes an RDF is easier and quicker , so I find after a few short sessions with the mak I want both there too ! The mak is not a simple. drillable tube like the dob, so I did some research and saw that the telrads and Rigel quickfinders both offer extra features and (being lightweight compared with the mostly metal RACI) come with bases you fix on with sticky pads . Telrads have many vocal fans, but crucially it is quite a long thing for a small 'scope, and is low to the tube. The quickfinder has some of the same features (principally one red circle of known size around the red dot) has a a smaller footprint, but is quite tall, and a bit cheaper. I think the height might make it easier to use, not needing to get my face quite so close to the scope. It comes with two bases as well, which means I can install them on both 'scopes to swap it back and forth if it is a huge improvement over the RDF. I'd put the quickfinder on my wishlist for after the festive madness period, but then one came up in the FLO black Friday sale for £30 and it seemed rude not to buy it ... I'd love to report how it compares with the stock RDF, but the weather since then has alternated between fog and heavy rain !

That's my experience too, both eyes open, maybe 20-30cm back from the RDF and once the dot is reliably lined up with the 'scope it stays lined up. This is the somewhat tacky skywatcher bundled RDF I'm using, which I assume is the same as yours.

https://www.lidl.co.uk/en/p/product-recommendation/bresser-spotting-scope-20-60-x-60/p38143 Don't do it ! Teeny toy tripod, 45 degree angle at the eyepiece end ( comfortable astro use needs 90 degrees ) , doesn't look as if you can use different eyepieces. It's a toy. The main difference is that it doesn't have a 'finder' to help line it up, which will make it quite a bit harder to aim with any accuracy. It would be a much better buy than the Lidl one though, and it is in stock ... but it's still less useful than the Olympus binoculars would be , and they would cost less ! I understand and appreciate the urge to get a telescope, but honestly, I doubt either of these would be very much use after the first 5 minutes, whereas the binoculars would continue to be useful if your brother pursues the hobby further.

From what I've read about him, Armstrong would have done the above, but voiced a polite 'excuse me', then 'That's one small scoop for (a) man ...'