Tiny Clanger

Just a thought about those steep hills you mention , it is possible with a bit of faff and photoshop, to add your own ground image to the downloaded version of Stellarium ( it was easy on the old version I've had for years, but a bit of a struggle for a non- computery fool like me on a new version on a windows10 machine. ) My suburban garden faces south, and there's one whacking great evergreen tree obstructing the exact middle of my view, so the personalized foreground (once adjusted to be as accurately lined up as possible) lets me check on the computer what will be visible (clouds willing) at any time I choose.

Hi and welcome, Phil. Sad to have the cash to spend through unfortunate circumstances, I hope whatever decision you come to about what to buy with it will produce good, memorable experiences for you and your family. As you will have read on here, opinions vary widely . I'm a relative beginner myself, I inherited a Celestron 114 newtonian on a cheap eq a few years ago , and never got on with it , too much faff to set up, so I'd agree with your choice of an az mount. During lockdown mark 1 I had some spare cash and looked to see what might be available to improve on the 114, and happily that coincided with the release of the Heritage 150mm which ticked all the boxes for me: it closes down so is easy to store, is easy for me to carry out into the garden, and left me enough cash to buy a few better eyepieces and a different type of viewfinder to supplement the supplied red dot one. The setup is simple , moving the tube to, for e.g. track Mars takes a bit of practice and care, but is entirely possible. I can vouch for the 'scopes ability to show Jupiter Saturn and Mars, and with persistence some details on each, but it has a focal length of 750mm , half that of the skywatcher 127 mak, at 1500mm . So the mak would magnify more to observe the Moon & planets, but the trade off is a smaller field of view and less light gathered, which is not ideal for deep sky objects ... I've decided the path I want to take is to add a 127 mak to my little dob, not as an improvement, but as a different tool for a different kind of observing. If I was starting all over again, I'd still begin with the 150 Heritage though, as Gfamily says , it's a good, low tech way in. As for accessories you will probably want, after a torch with red beam , eyepieces will be top of the list . I've bought a few cheap plossls ( around £25 each , a 17mm and 32mm, both distinct upgrades on the included ones ) and for Mars etc a rather more expensive 8mm BST starguider, which (at around £45 ) is generally seen as good for an inexpensive eyepiece . I also bought a 2x barlow for around £30 and with that doubling the 8mm eyepiece mag, Mars scuds across the field of view pretty fast, even with the scopes relatively short 750mm focal length. I'll be interested to hear what people say about the az goto mount , as I see one of those (or something similar) as my next purchase, once finances allow! Heather

I really liked a lock screen image that was rotated away from a little while ago, and last week with some idle googleage found this explanation of where win10 hides the images in your 'puter , and how to extract them to keep and set as a permanent background or whatever : it worked for me, so if you want to retain this or any other lock screen image here's how: https://www.techjunkie.com/find-windows-spotlight-lock-screen-images-windows-10/

I recently bought some thin (3mm) closed cell foam for a dob shroud from this company, who also sell various thicknesses and types of packaging foam in standard sizes or cut to your requirements https://www.efoam.co.uk/packaging-foam.php my order came quickly and was as described on their site. I liked the fact that their prices include P&P, it's annoying when you get to a checkout screen and find the delivery charge doubles the cost of the item !

Presumably too wide a distance between the eyepieces ? Cheap easy answer : leave one side's lens caps on, child treats the other side of your binoculars as a telescope. Slightly more expensive answer : research and choose some binoculars from a reputable brand which publishes information about that eye spacing measurement, for instance : https://www.bresser.de/en/Sport-Optics/Binoculars/BRESSER-Hunter-10x25-Pocket-Binoculars.html shows that model has this range: "Interpupilar distance min. 32mm , max 73mm" That sort of binocular (roof type) is less recommended for astronomy than the porro prism type , being harder to manufacture good quality at a low price point, but for a child they have the advantages of lightness. That particular set don't have a tripod adapter socket, but they are very light

As an ex primary school teacher ( I once had an entire school's worth of 5-10 year olds troop past some binoculars on a tripod to see a partial solar eclipse which was being projected onto a sheet of white card held by a teaching assistant ) I know that attention spans can be short. You want to encourage the child , not frustrate them, and whilst spending more money will get a better instrument, it will be an adult's astronomy tool, not a gift a child will feel they own . (No, I'm not still bitter about the Meccano set and toy , sorry model railway my dad rushed out to buy when my existence was announced, but never let me touch even when I was old enough. No, honestly .... ) Had you considered binoculars instead ? OK, they won't show the rings of Saturn, or any surface markings on Mars, but a lightweight pair at a similar price point to the small heritage 'scope will be smaller, easier to carry and deal with, will give good views of the Moon and some impressive easy to find stuff like the Pleiades and Orion Nebula, and can be used for bird watching, close ups of the squirrels in the park, looking through the wrong end to see tiny views, spying on neighbours,, and other fun activities . Ideally mount them on a tripod so you can line them up on an object for the child to start off with, and so their arms don't tire, cheap photo tripods tend to be quite short , but so do the under 7's , so that will just inconvenience you 😀 . Another advantage bin.s have over telescopes is that binoculars and tripods are more common purchases and their manufacture in higher numbers keeps the prices down. I just looked on amazon, specifying 4* and above binoculars in the £15 to £50 price range by Celestron, Nikon or Olympus ( I'm leery of trusting unknown name brands on this kind of thing) and have 117 results. The general suggestion for adults is that you need at least 10x50 binoculars (10 is the magnification, 50 is the diameter of the front lens in mm) but those would (again) probably be OTT for a 5 year old. I used a pair of 8x30 bin.s before getting a scope, and the extra light collecting ability over what your eyes can manage unaided is impressive for, say, the Moon if you've not looked through a telescope . To back up my suggestion, I'll mention that in many of his books, Sir Patrick Moore strongly recommended binoculars for beginners in astronomy. A nice cheap pair of binoculars and an age appropriate space book (usborne have done some good ones) might be your answer. Whatever you go for, don't forget to really emphasize the rule that you never point the telescope/binoculars at the Sun . Heather

I'd say they are all good suggestions, but given the age of the child , best to stick to one of the smaller 'heritage' scopes, I own the 150, and it would be a big heavy lump for a small child to deal with . If the little 'un is going to feel it is 'their' scope, not something that needs to be carried around, set up and cared for by a parent which the child only gets to look through for a moment, then an adult has to adjust it again, best go for the 75, it appears small (and cheap) enough to not be precious about. Ah, your post has appeared just as I'm (slowly) typing ! Yes, I think that whilst the 130/150 are indisputably better scopes , for such a small child they are probably overdoing it.

The way I remember it is 'spring forward, fall back' , as in the American version of fall. As the saying implies, winter is GMT, which is the proper time, summer time is an hour forward (or added).

Greetings ! There's more free information about astronomy on the internet than anyone could study in a lifetime, you could always start here : https://stargazerslounge.com/forum/43-primers-and-tutorials/ for you tube vid.s, search out an entertaining chap called astrobiscuit who will surprise you with what can be seen from London ... Heather

Can the mount be used manually ? If so, its still a viable telescope . If the AA cell leakage is limited to the holder area, some careful work with a weak acid like white vinegar might wipe much of the gunk off, and the contacts can be cleaned up with fine file or sandpaper ... I resurrected a rather nice 3 D cell maglite to full working condition that way after it had suffered a totally jammed in leaky duracell .

And it's made this relative beginner very happy, as it is hugely superior to the Celestron114 on wobbly imprecise EQ I inherited and found awkward and unsatisfactory to cart outside and line up. However, I can't compare it (yet) to any other 'scope , so all I can say is it ticked all the boxes for easy storage, good portability. straightforward use, and value (in terms of diameter to ££s) for me.

Apologies for the sideways images, they were the right way round in photoshop ...

I had a fascination for space right from when I was a small child, and was given a telescope of the 'serious looking, but really a toy' variety for Xmas . I recall which particular house window I was looking through with it , and we moved away from that home when I was seven, so I must have been that age or younger when I looked at the Moon magnified for the first time. Over half a century on, and that remains as a moment of awe burnt into my memory. Second major thing was the Apollo program. I still have the scrapbooks I enthusiastically kept from Apollo 11 to 17. Dad woke me up to come downstairs and see the vague blurry monochrome TV live broadcast of that 'One small step ... '

My theory* : the archaeologists failed to notice that the Ancient Egyptian glass vessels in question were actually egg timers, and therefore the objects have spent 2500 of the years since they were made one way up, and 2500 t'other way up, evening out the flow. 😀 Heather * no, just in case anyone thinks I'm that daft, it's a joke.

It might be a good idea to delay the telescope buying until (and if) you get further into the subject, it's a pretty steep learning curve. In the meantime some 10x50 binoculars or similar would let you get some good views of stars , get you started on navigating the night sky, and are easier to carry downstairs than a whacking great dob. There's a whole area on here relating to binoculars: https://stargazerslounge.com/forum/133-discussions-binoculars/ Heather

Thanks for the positive thoughts ! I know I'll get one eventually, but I'm currently somewhat hyper, like a six year old who knows Christmas is coming, but who has no concept of how far off it is ! I do already have a Heritage 150 dob though, so can continue to use that in the meantime, but having done my research understand that whilst the dob is lovely, and is better for viewing some things, the mak with its longer focal length will be a better tool for planets . Like Mars . Now . Right now . Waah ! 🙂 I bought a RACI finder for the 150, because I mostly observe from my back garden, and it's not easy to line a red dot up with something you can't actually see. I had an annoying 'can see M31 with the naked eye & binoculars, can't ruddy line it up in the scope because the fuzzy thing vanishes when I look straight at it and try to overlay the dot ' episode one evening ( managed it next night, more by luck than anything else ) Also the bizarre contortions to look along the RDF were a literal pain in the neck. Partly because not much was available in lockdown #1 (I ended up buying online from a camera shop which had just one in stock) and partly because I'm cheap, I went for the 6x30, which makes it far easier to find fuzzies. A bit like wanting a dob and a mak for different jobs, I use the RDF and RACI as tools for slightly different purposes. I've no idea what difference (if any) in field of view between the two sizes of finder are, but I've investigated the 6x30 and to my eye it pretty much matches that of my 10x50 binoculars, which is 6 degrees. A handy coincidence when I'm using the binoculars to help locate things ! Heather

Jealousy is a terrible thing, but I fell prey to it reading the OP ... I have a 127 mak on back order from FLO ... will it be in the recent delivery from the importer ? Won't it ? Will it get to me while Mars is still impressive ... the suspense is killing me ! 😟

Hi Kyle, In case you didn't get the original manual along with the scope, you can get it online here https://www.manualslib.com/manual/116323/Orion-Skyquest-Intelliscope-Xt10.html#manual

I'm surprised you can't see any features on Jupiter or Mars , I can make out bands and the GRS on Jupiter and the southern ice cap and various dark markings on Mars with a far smaller 150 mm diameter mirror skywatcher and an 8mm eyepiece. In addition to the two sets of excellent suggestions above, I'd try to improve things by making a simple shroud (if you don't have one already) to block stray light from sneaking in through the open section of your 'scope. The planet scudding across and out of field of view is inevitable with more magnification, the greater the magnification, the smaller the area of sky you see, therefore the quicker the planet crosses it. All you can do is either buy a mount which tracks the object for you, or spend some time patiently learning to gently nudge the Dobsonian mount by tiny increments . There's a lot to learn ! Heather

Hello neighbour down the A6 I'm on the edge of the (plague) borough of Oadby & Wigston, on the south side of (plague city) Leicester. At the moment I've not really ventured far from my own back garden apart from a trip to a rural layby with a path beyond it which I knew had a wide flat grassy margin and is arable (having curious cattle come to suss you out is bad enough in daylight ...) That was so I could get a good look at comet Neowise, which was lost in the glow of the city to the north from my home. I've visited plenty of rural places in S. Leic.s / N.Northants in the course of other interests, and need to think about their possibilities for safe night time parking and openness of aspect for 'scope views. I think the Pitsford reservoir car parks are shut at night , but need to check out the Brampton Valley way : as I recall most of the car parks along there are surrounded by trees ... I came across this group https://www.eastmidlandsstargazers.org.uk/discover/ who have a couple of locations you can pay £20 p.a. to access , but they are both north of Leicester. I've not joined them, I spend too much time on the computer as it is ... If I find any good spots, I'll let you know, honest !

I seemed to recall the 'glass is a liquid' statement triggering the QI klaxon , so just checked , and it is an amorphous solid . No worries about it flowing over time either : "Whatever flow glass manages, however, does not explain why some antique windows are thicker at the bottom. Other, even older glasses do not share the same melted look. In fact, ancient Egyptian vessels have none of this sagging, says Robert Brill, an antique glass researcher at the Corning Museum of Glass in Corning, N.Y. Furthermore, cathedral glass should not flow because it is hundreds of degrees below its glass-transition temperature, Ediger adds. A mathematical model shows it would take longer than the universe has existed for room temperature cathedral glass to rearrange itself to appear melted." https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/fact-fiction-glass-liquid/ To be honest, I would have said liquid too , right up until Mr S. Fry told us otherwise !

Be sure you appreciate the size (both diameter of the base and length of tube ) and weight of the solid tube version. I was sad to realise back when I started looking for affordable 'scopes as a step up in quality from a cheap 114 newtonian on a wobbly eq , that there was no way I could safely store the skyliner in my small house. I was about to give up and spend my £200 on yet another second hand camera lens instead when the 150 heritage arrived in the shops. I'm very happy with it. Both scopes come with the same pair of eyepieces by the way, and the 10mm is poor, you will want to replace it whichever scope you buy. The difference in magnification is due to the focal length of the telescope. Whatever you buy, it needs to be used outside, there's really no point paying for a decent 'scope and then pointing it through window glass.

I recommend reading Kim Stanley Robinson's Martians trilogy ( starts with Red Mars, then Green Mars then Blue Mars) which may be sci fi, but has a good basis in fact .They were written around 30 years ago, and our information about the Martian surface may have moved on (it's at least a decade since I read the novels) but they portray an entirely believable political struggle between the 'terraform it as far as possible' faction and the ecology minded .

Welcome ! Yes the slope is slippery. Also steep and long ... Heather

Welcome, it's a fun 'scope, I bought mine a few months ago and have seen plenty from a suburban back garden. First thing to do if you haven't already , with the 'scope extended and an eyepiece in it, balance the tube so when the screw on the side is loose the tube stays level. Second thing to do, in the daylight line the 'scope up with a distant , non moving object (TV aerial , top of street lamp, whatever) the further away the better. Using the 25mm eyepiece, centre the object in your view. Then swap to the 10mm eyepiece , which increases the magnification and decreases the field of view. Shift the 'scope again until the object you picked is bang in the centre of view once more. Now tighten the knob on the side of the mount to lock the tube in that position ( look through it again to ensure you didn't accidentally shift it while tightening . If you did, sort it out ) Then, being very careful not to knock the tube, turn on the red dot finder (RDF) do whatever acrobatic contortions you need to get behind and in line to sight through it and spot the dot. Now fiddle with the two adjusting screws until the dot lies on the distant object you selected. Go back to the 10mm eyepiece, ensure the scope is still pointing accurately at the distant thing, double check the RDF. Once you've finished, don't forget to turn the RDF off (although the cell lasts for ages ) It sounds like a long process, and the first time it may well be a faff, but once done I've found mine stays pretty much accurately aligned unless it gets knocked. It's much easier to do the process in the daylight, and means you won't waste time when the clouds roll away one night soon and there's things up there to see . Stellarium is a good open source free windows program to show you what you may be able to see from a particular place and time, it has an online version too https://stellarium-web.org/ This thread on here is one of a vast number of freely available resources : https://stargazerslounge.com/topic/196278-what-can-i-expect-to-see/ Heather