Tiny Clanger

Are answers addressing the OPs concerns limited in length here ? If so, I may be in the wrong place ...

Here's a very interesting (and long, hundreds of pages !) discussion on the 130 version of the heritage , which is sold under a different name (in support of a charity) in the USA. Skimming through you can see modifications and improvements people have made as well as some photos taken with the scope. https://www.cloudynights.com/topic/463109-onesky-newtonian-astronomers-without-borders/ You might need to take some time to manage junior's expectations about what they will see through the 'scope, compared with TV and images online/in books. This is an interesting read, and accurately reflects what I've managed to see with the 150: https://medium.com/@phpdevster/help-i-cant-see-detail-on-the-planets-ac27ee82800 With the included eyepieces, the day I got the scope home, I was able to see the rings of Saturn, some banding on Jupiter and the 4 Galilean moons. That's nothing special for the experienced telescope owners here, but for me, that was already worth the £200 I'd spent on the scope. Boggle your child's mind*, explain that the light your 'scope has just collected and focused for you set out from the object (or bounced off it after going there from the Sun ... ) traveled (however) far for (however) long (look it up in advance !) and just accidentally happened to zap through the Earth's blanket of air , hit your 'scope mirror, bounce off it, hit another mirror and finally your eye and brain made an image from it, no-one else has ever seen that particular little packet of light . * and your own if you are anything like me !

My last reply took a lot of (slow, 2 finger) typing, this time all I need to say is ... Yes. 🙂

As a newbie who bought a skywatcher heritage 150p as my first proper 'scope back in the summer when it came out , I'd say it is a pretty good instrument if you are at the budget end of the market. It's not really the right tool for anything beyond basic snaps as far as photo use goes (you can buy a fairly cheap adapter to attach your DSLR and use the 'scope like a big lens) . Unfortunately spectacular astro photography comes with a spectacularly hefty price tag and a steep learning curve . What the heritage 150 ( and it's smaller brother , the numbers in the name denote the diameter of the mirror in mm ) does give is a simple robust mount , a lot of light gathering potential, and a basis for further improvement and adaptation over the original package if your interest continues. I can't help but think the skywatcher advertising dept. missed a trick with the heritage scopes : they should have used the line ' The truly telescoping telescopes !' , because that's what they do : the length of the tube when not in use is roughly half that of the operating size. So, on my 150p,the tube part closed is 44cm, but opening it up for use you slide the front part forward on a pair of rails, and tighten two locking screws . Now the tube part is 77cm long. While I had the scope and tape measure in hand, I just put the whole thing on the floor, swung the tube up to the vertical position and measured the highest point the eye piece holder goes to , which was 80cm . So if your child's eye line is 80cm or more above ground, they will be able to see any part of the sky with the scope base on the ground. Mind you, to look through it an adult would have to do some 'Twister' style contortions to use it like that ! I have a hefty little table which is 30cm tall, that makes it OK for me to study objects which are fairly high in the sky, but I've also bodged together a table top for an old cheap workmate type vice which allows me to place the scope higher, and swing the tube closer to horizontal without me having to stand on anything to look in the eyepiece. As an ex primary school teacher I reckon one of the heritage dobsonian scopes would be a great starter , the main delicate bit (the primary mirror) is away from sticky finger accidents, and it wouldn't be hard to use an eyepiece with a fairly wide view ( the 25mm one that comes with the package is OK ) , find a target like the Pleiades, and tighten the big knob on the side to lock the vertical movement, then get junior to look through the eyepiece without touching anything (which would either move the view entirely, or cause the setup to wobble and blur the stars for a few seconds). Two more adavtages to the 150 or 130 : first they don't take up too much space to store, and second, they both have enough of a good reputation as a 'grab and go' or holiday 'scope that should you ever want to get rid of it, there's plenty of interest in a second hand one.

I'm on a similar budget , to me £50 for an eyepiece is an expensive investment which needs a lot of thought . What I didn't fully grasp when I bought my 'scope was that (a bit like the inkjet printer with 'demo' cartridges) the eyepieces and finders on these cheap end of the market devices are often the least expensive the manufacturer can get away with so they can sell a working package at an attractive price. Essentially you get a couple of decent mirrors in a tube on a simple base, on which (if you wish) you can build something better by buying more stuff. Wait and see what might be included with your purchase , if it is the standard skywatcher 10mm and 25mm (which came with my 'scope ) the 25mm is OK, the 10mm is less good. But they are usable, and certainly better than nothing. Happily for us strapped for cash types, probably the best things to add to a telescope are patience and time , so you can learn how to see , as well as what there is for you to see.

Sounds like M31 to me . I managed to see it with the naked eye purely by accident back on August 12th when I took a camping mattress into my suburban garden and settled down to watch for Perseid meteors in clear patches between the ragged clouds that were scudding overhead. After about an hour of staring at the sky (and seeing no meteors) a fuzzy patch attracted my averted-sight attention, and it was in the right place for M31 ( not as high overhead then as it is now) . I had the binoculars outside with me , and saw the fuzzy patch was real rather than some incipient eye disease , so carried the 150mm dob. outside. to try for a telescopic view. However, trying to point the thing at the correct spot using the stock red dot finder when I couldn't see M31 by looking straight at it, my attempts to line up the dot were doomed to failure (the widest ep I had at the time was the stock 25mm that comes with skywatcher scopes) I tried estimating distance from the right hand V of Cassiopeia, but failed with that too . The frustration of that was what put a RACI optical finder and a 32mm plossl on my shopping list. I didn't manage to see a single meteor that night, the clouds rolled in and I fell asleep in the garden !

Hello and welcome , I arrived here not long before you , and with a 150mm dob . I found this forum cropped up often when I searched for online help for my own stupid questions, and always provided patient cogent help, so I signed up to say thank you directly and cut out the search engine middle man ! Bet your questions won't be daft , but will get helpful responses. So, has the 'scope arrived yet ? Heather

Woo hoo ! Unexpected (according to forecasts) clear skies over Leicestershire tonight ! I'm unreasonably pleased to have looked at Mars for an hour, then eased my poor old back by switching to look for Uranus, and actually finding the blighter ( first time I've been sure I actually saw it) with a the help of ocular view on stellarium. And as I established the relevant star/planet pattern with a 32mm ep, a couple of parallel meteors zapped across my field of view at 0:44 am and winked out while still in my field of view. Wow !

I just went back and looked, and it seems to have evaporated. The site is not exactly slick ! I'd contact him by e-mail and query it if the 'cheaper than ebay' guarantee appears to not hold, this is the contact page I used https://www.skysthelimit.org.uk/#xl_xr_page_index Heather

I'm only a beginner , but I've studied what kit is on offer at the more affordable end of the market, and (just as with cameras & photographic lenses) have come to the conclusion that you always have to make compromises, and you can always buy something a bit better for rather more cash ... It might be useful to think about getting into this in stages, maybe buying a 'scope which will be a good visual astronomy tool and will be suitable to take you into astro photo later on, but (for the moment) having it on a relatively cheap mount like a simple alt az while you learn what's up there and where it is by looking . Then you can upgrade just the mount when you feel ready to move on .... and have saved some more money !

I recently bought the Opticron Adventurer T WP 10x50s following the advice on the binocularsky site, and am very happy with them. I also bought the bracket to attach them to any standard photo tripod screw, which makes it easy to hold the binoculars steady . I already had a monopod to use as a support, but If you don't have one already (or a tripod ) you may wish to factor the cost in.

That is one ugly set of insecurity lights ! So high up by the gutter that a vertical 'shade' at your fence would have to be as tall as their house . I think you are wise to avoid escalating the situation, but maybe consider some sort of angled tarp to block the light to part of the garden, and duct tape a cheap mylar 'space blanket' to the side towards the light, give 'em some of their photons back , maybe the dazzle would make them realise what an annoyance they have created. Heather

That's a shame. My (nice) neighbour was quick to do something about the hideous , colour changing, solar LED monstrosity which was washing my garden with a sickly blue/green/pink sequence of light ... it was due to her adult son coming home to shield during lockdown, spending his days browsing ebay and his cash on tat. It was as if a part of Blackpool's illuminations had broken away and landed, and I was very annoyed for a couple of days (and nights) until I managed a calm and friendly chat over the fence , after which they shifted the main offending thing so it pollutes the garden opposite instead of mine. I'd done some research before the happy resolution , and considered the moveable screens some people have built from plastic plumbing pipe ( you could do a 2 in one and make it a screen for outdoor movie watching too ) or a washing line & tarpaulin rig, or even a cheap gazebo frame with the cover removed and tarps tied on as walls ... or to really annoy the neighbours, there's always the leylandi option ... Here's some ideas I saw https://www.cloudynights.com/topic/432511-on-blocking-neighborhood-lights/

Are you assuming the OP is male ? I've no idea if they are or not.

I'd suggest waiting until the husband is out, and having a chat with the wife, who sounds far more reasonable and might be able to talk her spouse round. If he has gone all alpha-male-defend-my-territory, he may find it hard to (as he might see it) back down to you. His poor wife presumably has learnt how to deal with him .

As a beginner with a limited amount of cash and a nasty suspicious mind, I saw the 'Sky's the Limit' listing when I went looking for an 8mm eyepiece, but with it being a small setup , I 'phoned the number given on the site rather than type my credit card details in over the www. Had a lovely chat with Alan, who is a very nice chap, and had him take my order over the 'phone (which was a novelty for him !) The EP arrived around a week later, and I e-mailed him my thanks, but mentioned that his own site says it will always be cheaper than his ebay shop, but adding the postage to my direct order actually made it more than ebay. I said I wasn't complaining at all, just pointing it out, but he promptly refunded me a couple of pounds, and I see there was some sort of special coupon code added to his site soon after that to reduce the prices a bit. I'll not hesitate to buy from him again.

Thanks for the warm welcome, much appreciated. Heather

That last google link didn't work for me, but the wayback machine has the page archived , here 'tis https://web.archive.org/web/20190525224540/http://www.wwnorton.com/college/astronomy/astro21/sandt/startright.html

Hi all, I've created an account to say thank you for all the excellent information SGL has provided me with in the last few months, as I hunted specific queries SGL often cropped up in search results, and I've very much appreciated the helpful, clear (and often very forbearing of beginners asking questions which must have been asked and answered dozens of times before ...) responses. You've helped me spend my money (relatively) wisely , when lockdown had me hauling out the old Celestron 114 on a wobbly cheap eq that I inherited in the 1990s , getting annoyed with it, and hoping something less irritating might be available within my limited budget. Happily my search coincided precisely with the arrival of the new skywatcher heritage 150p dobs, and since then (clouds permitting ) I've certainly had my moneys worth from the 'scope already both from viewing planets & Messier objects from a light polluted suburban garden, and in the daylight from tinkering to PFTE tape the focusser, make a light shroud, dew shield etc etc.. I've used your collective advice to inform purchase of eyepieces (the budget stretched to a couple of cheap plossls and one rather nice BST starguider 8mm ) and a pair of Opticron Adventurer T WP 10x50 binoculars, which work really well on a monopod & ball head I already owned. As well as a lifelong interest in the subject , I studied astronomy as a subsidiary subject as an undergrad decades ago, so have some idea of the basics ( altho' much of the detail has moved on apace !) and have been both a pro. and now a hobby , photographer , which helps with understanding the optical aspects (especially if your experience goes back to the days of film when good lenses were primes and autofocus was sci-fi ). For the good of my modest savings I'm going to try and stop myself from doing more than minor incidental dabbling in astro photo using the Nikons I already own ! So, again, thanks for all the help freely given, Heather