PeterStudz

@Louis D is correct. I/we started out at the end of 2020 when my then 9yr old daughter started getting into astronomy and wanted a telescope for Christmas. I thought that this would be a great thing to do together, which it turned out to be. But it is was far from easy sailing. Someone on this forum said that “astronomy is a hobby that rewards patience” and this is very true.

At the time there was a chronic shortage of telescopes. I wanted a small table top Dob but just could not get anything new or second hand. So I ended up getting her a Skywatcher Skyhawk 1145p. Now, this is a step-up from the Skyhawk 114/1000 that you mention but it’s still totally inappropriate for a young kid. I did know that, but thought if it didn’t work out we could sell it and get something more appropriate later on. Interestingly we still have it. Although it’s been significantly upgraded as a grab-and-go plus travel scope. We’ve even taken it on an aircraft.

The picture in my profile is of my daughter plus telescope on Christmas Day. I can’t remember much about that Christmas, but looking at the moon with Alice on Christmas night sticks in my mind as if it were yesterday. Just the enthusiasm was fantastic.

Several months later we got hold of a Skywatcher 200p Dob for free via a member from this site. It needed some work but it’s been more than excellent. And just shows that with patience you don’t need to spend a lot of cash. To cut a long story short some things we’ve learnt…

Getting a small cheap telescope can be frustrating and if not careful might put you both off for life. Be patient and choose targets wisely. Alice is definitely a night owl and likes being outdoors which helps. But it’s certainly not something where you can stick her in the garden and assume she’ll be happy to get on with it. It’s something that we both do together. But personally I like that. 

A lot of astronomy in the UK is done in the winter months. Getting a young kid to sit out in the cold plus staying out long enough to get eyes use to the dark isn’t easy. One way I’ve got over this is to make the whole thing an event. Eg we’ve camped out in the garden (no tent), looked up at the constellations and looked for shooting stars. Watched for the International Space Station, toasted marshmallows, drunk hot chocolate, listened to the dawn chorus, watched for foxes and hedgehogs… the looking through the telescope just the icing on the cake. Camping also has the advantage that your eyes are always use to the dark. She’s also had astronomy based sleep-overs with friends. 

Don’t forget solar and viewing the sun in white light. You’ll need a decent solar filter (I made one) and MUST take precautions especially with kids around. But for us it’s been great. And a small telescope will work well. Also has the great advantage that it can be done in daylight and when it’s warm.

We’re in town with far too much light pollution (Bortle 7) so for us the moon and planets have been best. But for that you will need a more substantial telescope. Planets also have the advantage that they are relatively bright and on the whole you don’t need to get your eyes use to the dark.

We’ve also had a lot of fun taking pictures with a smartphone using a £10 adapter to hold it onto the eyepiece. The moon is an easy target to start with. 

Hope that helps!

53 minutes ago, Kon said:

 

The idea of the platform is good and I have started looking into a DIY from the excellent SGL topic on it. I should do it over the winter for next season.

That’s what I have. And it fits and handles the 200p really well. I didn’t need to change/modify anything. 

The nice thing about this platform is that you can make it with very basic tools - eg electric drill, hacksaw, panel saw, file, screwdrivers and pliers. The instructions are excellent too. Although initially I found it hard to visualise. So what I did was cut everything out first so that I had a “kit of parts”. Having all the bits in my hands helped here. After that it all went together surprisingly fast.

If you do decided to make it and have any questions just ask! 

Once again these are fab. Although I don’t know where you have the energy for all the late nights/early mornings. I was observing in the early hours of today. Great seeing but rubbish transparency… well mist and fog… so I went back to bed. 

I don’t image but as you know I have a 200p. I also have a EQ platform. To me that sounds like a good compromise - very little setup time, just plonk your Dob ontop and push it about in the time honoured way. 

17 minutes ago, IB20 said:

I thought I was going mad when I saw 4 moons then only 3. It didn’t even occur to me about the planetary shadow as it was quite far away from the limb.

We missed that bit. But seeing only three moons I assumed that one must be behind Jupiter. It was only when Europa pooped out of seemingly nowhere that I looked it up. It’s really nice when you get a surprise like this!

Southampton back garden 09/09/23 - 10/09/23. Skywatcher 200p Dob on DIY EQ platform.

Had a nice little 2.5 hour session with my daughter on Saturday night - Sunday morning observing Saturn, Neptune, Jupiter and Uranus.

Seeing was good although not quite as good as the night before. Transparency was average. Might have been due to hazy cloud or dust. Colours weren’t as clear as they could be with a slight yellow/brown tint.

Saturn - Could make out subtle cloud banding, three moons and the Cassini Divison at the tips. At times it could take x240 before things started to get fuzzy.

Neptune - First time Alice has seen Neptune (I’ve only seen it a few times) and of course whatever you do it’s still a very little blue dot even at x240. Although when you know what you are looking at… And even if tiny it’s obviously not a star.

Uranus - a light pastel blue slightly bigger dot. I enjoy observing this and we both tried to spot a moon(s) but no joy here.

Jupiter - a favourite of my daughters. The GRS was in view and there was considerable detail in the banding and around the GRS. Although a little washed out and not quite as good as the previous night. There was a “missing” moon and a quick look at a simple phone app appropriately called “Gas Giants” showed that Europa was being eclipsed by Jupiter’s shadow. We observed Jupiter for some time and the views improved as it got higher. Again, x240 possible and it was still sharp. Then, a surprise - In a split second Europa became visible again just before it traveled behind the disc! I’ve never seen this before and had assumed that Europa would not be visible again until it got to the other side of Jupiter.

To illustrated what I mean I’ve created a little GIF from the Gas Giant app. I guess it’s all down to angles, where the sun is and relative positions. At this point Europa was very bright and “kissing” Jupiters limb. It only lasted around 4 mins before the moon disappeared behind the planet. I also just had time to take a short smartphone video and create this image using the smartphone app “VideoStack”. A sketch would have been ideal by I’m useless at sketching. And although it doesn’t do it justice it does give a reasonable idea of what we could see at the eyepiece. Europa, the tiny dot bottom left against the limb. GRS near the limb. It’s even starting to pick out some ovals in the Southern Hemisphere.

A good end to an excellent night.

Morning of Saturday 9th Sept. in Southampton. 
 

I decided to get up early at silly o’clock in order to try and spot Comet Nishimura. Although in my Bortle 7 location plus trees in the way it was a tall order. Not too much of a surprise but I failed here.

I had the 200p Dob out and took a look a Jupiter before trying for the comet. The seeing was excellent! and I could easily push it to 240x with banding nice and sharp. I also played around with a BST StarGuider 3.2mm for 375x and on occasions that actually worked. Watched the GRS swing into view at about 3:20pm - loads of detail too. Some of the best views of Jupiter that I’ve had. 

Saturn was too low for me which was a shame - should have got out of bed earlier. Had a quick look at the Pleiades but not dark enough to show it at its best. The moon looked great too and it was nice to see Orion back! Well worth getting up for.

9 hours ago, Stu said:

They may be niche, but they do exist. I belong to a FB group dedicated to observing and people post observing reports, with and without images, sometimes with sketches on here. Quite refreshing it is too.

I have a FB account but stopped using it about 3 years ago - I found it too annoying, decided to give it a rest/break and haven’t been back! But it does sound refreshing.

I do use Twitter - now X  and Instagram. Of course X is just short text plus maybe an image. Instagram is imaged based but quite easy to write a full report. Whatever, both X and Instagram encourage images over text which doesn’t help!

2 hours ago, paulastro said:

To suggest that there may be a time when visual observing will become a rare activity and astro imaging  will somehow take over is nonsense in my view.  There have always been more visual observers than imagers and there always will be.

It just seems there are more imagers than there are because they like to share their images with others and get have them onto websites, forums, magazines and other publications. Read AN and S@N mag and you will find many images of celestial subjects, but you won't won't see many pics of anyone actually observing the night sky.  You will also read many articles about how to take better images, or just pics to admire, but comparatively little about visual observing - and even then usually at a very basic level.

Read the classified ads on astro forums and the vast majority are items primarily for imaging.  This is because imagers need to spend so much money on all sorts of gear  unrelated to visual observing.

Most observers don't leave their trails and signs everywhere as imagers do so don't tend to get noticed.  There are many solitary visual observers who pursue their interest quietly and without fuss and  never go near any societies or forums.

There may seem to be a lot of imagers and few visual observers - but that's just how it seems.  Imagers are the noisy neighbours of the astronomical community - they are not the majority and never will be.

 

I completely agree. Also the rise of social media where it’s easy to post a picture of, for example, Jupiter with not much more than a comment along the lines of “Jupiter, taken through I telescope from my back garden”.  I have yet to see a single observation report (with picture or without) on social media. And I don’t believe the majority of people on social media would be interested in that kind of thing. Social media is driven by image and pictures. But that doesn’t mean that there are more imagers than visual observers, or that visual observation is in decline without a future.

2 hours ago, John said:

This is worth a look:

Thierry Legault - The collimation (astrophoto.fr)

I think accurate collimation does matter but the differences are seen when pushing the optics towards their limits. Many folks don't push that far so maybe don't notice any improvements 🤔

Yes, that’s a good article - thanks for that!

5 minutes ago, John said:

That is quite possibly correct. I hope there will remain some distinction though, especially when things are reported. I've very recently read a report (not on SGL) which mentioned "seeing" and "observing" a number of the brighter Cephid Variables within the galaxy M 31. That caused a little confusion because it was my understanding that such targets were beyond most amateur telescopes in terms of visual observing, the brightest bring around magnitude 17 I think. It turned out that the reporter in this case had been referring to seeing these variables on long exposure images they had taken with their scopes. 

When I started out (well, I still find it very useful) I found the Observation Reports in this forum really useful for what I could try and see and do. And writing these reports is a skill - some are just excellent! Something I should do more of. I think It’s easier to stick up a picture with a load of figures and details about the capture than write a detailed report. 

Which reminds me of something that I’ve said before. Observational astronomy isn’t just about what you see at the eyepiece. For me It’s also being outdoors, drinking chocolate & toasting marshmallows (if my daughter is around), listening to foxes jump our fence, watching the sun rise and dawn chorus…

15 minutes ago, HollyHound said:

 

FWIW, I think visual astronomy will remain around for a good while, but might go the way of film camera and vinyl records... something that is done, partly for nostalgia. However, I absolutely love it and will hope to be doing this for however long I have left 🤞😃

 

Yes, you could be right there. Mind, I can remember loads of people saying that the cinema had its day and would be killed of by VHS tapes 😀

3 hours ago, PeterC65 said:

It's interesting that people are comparing visual astronomy and AP.

I think AP is a different hobby. One in which you set up kit to collect data and then later, sometimes much later, process that data. I get the impression that more of the skill, and the time, is spent doing the processing than dealing with the kit. I can understand why people enjoy AP, but it isn't for me.

EAA on the other hand is a lot like visual, much closer to visual than AP I think. You are looking at the objects close to live, and the hobby is carried out 'on the night' (I review snapshots I've taken the following day, but just to keep a record of the session).

It surprises me how few people on SGL do EAA (as opposed to AP). I find myself going to CN for discussions about EAA (when I much prefer SGL).

 

I have an interest in AP and EAA. Although in the strictest sense they aren’t for me. For a start I don’t even have a laptop but it’s not just that. But what is AP and EAA. If I take a smartphone snap of the night sky (which I’ve done) isn’t that AP? Modern smartphones will even do some basic stacking, although most don’t realise.

And what is EAA? Eg I’ve just started (used it a couple of times) an iPhone app called AstroShader. Stick it to your eyepiece and it’ll align, stack and give a live preview. A couple of screenshots (live is much better) of the live view of the interface on the phone screen of M13 and M57. Low powe as I was just playing around and in Bortle 7. The direct output from the app without editing of M57 shown below.  Is this EAA? If it is I didn’t know that I was doing it

I guess that what I’m trying to say is that in the future you might be able to do it all - visual, AP, EAA - without realising it’s one or the other.

11 minutes ago, HollyHound said:

Without taking this off topic... you might find, this is now really close to happening... I've been working with various eVTOL companies (for their flight sims) and whilst I was initially sceptical, it's definitely "when" not "if" now... and we're not measuring in many years either anymore 🤞

Article about one company (Jobs), but there are many others 😮

https://techcrunch.com/2023/06/28/joby-aviation-receives-permit-to-fly-first-evtol-built-on-production-line/?guccounter=1&guce_referrer=aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cuZ29vZ2xlLmNvbS8&guce_referrer_sig=AQAAAKIiX37gQdqr7G8o4QPGoizEwM1KW4Bd3M5M_EmrUbDY0X0SEENf9rD45CCvrpJ_qfd2on44U9EGWPznL9UP3-YaL-6GBnAT_Ezg_PvhvnJCvOc_lRi0QqUH8eJFcz3zPhy-wA1BNyA6SmAKhxlcHz_O4UKrogCOd5oPWLHShJRt

 

Yes, I am an aviation fan (I use to be a glider pilot). It might well now be “just around the corner”, I always thought it would happen sometime. But my point was that I was reading stuff over 50 years ago that said it would be soon. The implication certainly wasn’t over half a century. And it’s not a simple subject. 

43 minutes ago, DirkSteele said:

 

 I certainly see a dominance of the question "can I take a photo of that with my phone?" at outreach events indicating holding the phone to the EP to capture the Moon or Saturn, comes mostly from the younger generation.  I tell them to just enjoy the view with their eyes as handheld that is very difficult but you can see they really want to get a photo so they can get some likes which seems more important than actually experiencing and enjoying what they are witnessing.

 

Sky and Telescope had an issue about 15 years ago with a cover photo of 10-year old girl hugging her dobsionian asking the question "where are all the young astronomers?"  Perhaps another cover story is coming in a few years..."where are all the astrophotographers?"

 

 

A few months ago my daughter had a friend over. We looked at the moon through our telescope and towards the end she wanted a smartphone snap. This picture is now the background on her phone. Of course there are a ton of wallpaper images of the moon freely available on the internet. I think it’s significant that she wanted to use her own. And a moon wallpaper would not have even been considered until she saw it through the telescope. I think that’s significant. 
 

Recently my daughter made some rough sketches of Jupiter, Saturn and Mars. Interestingly they were all “upside down”, like seen through our Dob. Eg Mars had the North Polar Hood at the bottom. Jupiter had the GRS towards the top. Saturn obviously a Dob view too. Of course she’s seen a ton of internet images of the planets which are largely the other-way up. Our own rather basic smartphone planet images are also rotated to look like what you see online. To me this suggests that the views at the eyepiece have far more of an impact. 

First off. Just about every past prediction that I’ve seen about the future has been wrong. Eg as a boy in the late 1970’s I can remember reading that “flying cars for everyone are just around the corner”. Over 50 yrs later I’m still waiting for my flying taxi to pick me up from my door and take me down the pub. 

The other issue is light pollution. I can only see this as getting worse. But I guess you never know. Last year I went on holiday with a friend (in his late 50’s) who had never seen the Milky Way. We were in a Bortle 1-2 site and it was his first time. I’m convinced that without so much light pollution there would be more visual. And in a real dark site you don’t even need a telescope. 

Smart Telescopes (or whatever the are called) are relatively new and a decent one seems to be expensive. Especially for a beginner who might not be sure that they’d enjoy the hobby. But surely they’ll get better and cheaper in the years to come. And then what? I suspect that most people, living under light pollution, will it’ll jump straight in a get one of these. This will then become astronomy to most people.

Having said that yesterday night/morning I was up virtually all night with my 11 yr old daughter doing visual on the planets - Saturn, Jupiter and Uranus. We also go nice views of the Pleiades and a peak at the white smudge that is Andromeda. If she wasn’t interested in visual astronomy she would do that! And sadly we are in Bortle 7. Alice, like all kids these days, is into smartphones and she does enjoy taking smartphone snaps of what we’ve seen. I’ve made an attempt to explain astrophotography as initially she was confused by all the wonderful bright and colourful DSO images. After my probably rather poor attempt at an explanation her reply was “so, they are fake then”, which literally made me laugh. Another question that she asked was “if you were in a spaceship and got closer to something like the Orion Nebula would it look like the pictures? I don’t know the answer, but I suspect not.

On 29/07/2023 at 18:30, Mandy D said:

 

It is quite funny that you should comment on this image today, as we were talking about you with Ian at Rother Valley Optics this afternoon, or more precisely, about your wonderful Dobsonian mount as we had just bought a Skywatcher 300PDS OTA from them and needed a mount for it! Pictures will eventually follow, but I'm sure it won't be as pretty as yours. Eventually, it will ride on a big AZ.

Thanks! Somehow I missed this bit of your post until now.

7 minutes ago, Kon said:

Looks great and you are brave without a goto to find it so close to the sun.

I used a phone app - PS Align Pro which has a PushTo feature and from past experience always has Venus in my finder. First I go to the sun (filter on, finder covered of course), sync to the sun, then PushTo Venus, uncover the finder, center Venus, then remove the solar filter. When I’ve found Venus I also tighten up the altitude knobs on the 200p so it can’t accidentally move up/down. Once Venus is centred in the eyepiece I track with the EQ platform so I don’t  need to fiddle with too much nudging. It also has the advantage that focusing has been done as I’ve already focused on the sun. 

I’ve done a bit of this with my daughters friends. As others have said definitely the moon, Jupiter and Saturn. I’ve also had some success with kids and binoculars, looking at star clusters eg the Pleiades. Most kids like the fact they are holding the binoculars, finding it themselves and focusing. 

During daylight then the sun in white light. Some kids like it more that others but often enjoy the safety chat (I think they like the idea of doing something that has potential “danger” attached to it). I’ve also done Venus when showing a crescent relatively recently and that has impressed. It’s also the fact that if the look up at the sunlit sky they can’t seen anything, but in the telescope there’s the planet. One example of this that really impressed a few of my daughters friends was Jupiter in daylight back in January. Look up at the daylight sky and nothing. Look through the telescope and there was Jupiter plus the GRS (that was lucky). And even I was surprised how good the seeing was. Then, as it got dark, watching the moons pop into view, finally seeing the dot of Jupiter become visible naked eye.

I had hoped to observe Venus (daylight of course) just before or on inferior conjunction. But the weather had other ideas. Yesterday there were breaks in the seemingly endless cloud and it was a possibility to at least see the now thin crescent.  Which would be a first for me. Although it’s rather close to the sun and if it didn’t work out I wasn’t going to push it!

Started off doing some white light solar at about mid-day, which I hadn’t done in a while. The sun in and out of fair weather clouds. Then it almost completely clouded over and I had to take a break. Now I wasn’t sure it would happen at all. At around 14:40 the clouds started and I had a chance. Could just about make out Venus in my finder. It’s obviously larger than before but so thin that it’s tricky. The thin crescent looking stunning through a BST StarGuide 15mm and the capture doesn’t do it justice. Mind, conditions not ideal with some “boiling” - in the past I’d been lucky and it probably would have been better earlier on (higher in the sky) if there hadn’t been so much cloud.

Took some iPhone video. Quickly processed/stacked using the app VideoStack. That’s my last Venus for a while. I’ve got images since February and I might but some together in a composite. 

Skywatcher Skyliner 200p Dob on DIY EQ platform in back garden, Southampton. BST StarGuider 15mm. iPhone 14 Pro attached to a no-brand smartphone adapter. Video taken at about 14:50 - 4K at 60fps using stock camera app at x2 zoom. All processing on the phone using the stock camera app, stacked via VideoStack. Cropped and edited in SnapSeed plus Lightroom.

Looks excellent and wish I could go - Very jealous. Have fun!

And I agree with @IB20 . I was recently observing Uranus at & after sunrise with my 200p. I certainly haven’t seen any surface detail or moons, but it’s obviously a disc/planet and I can see shading towards the edges. It’s a lovely shade of blue and I was surprised how long after sunrise I could see it. And looking at the blue of the planet against the blue of the sky was quite special. Helped along by the dawn chorus - great stuff!

1 minute ago, RyanL said:

Thank you for such a detailed reply. Much appreciated. I'm tempted to just go with my heart and get a dob, I know if I don't at least try one it will always be on my mind, however other suggestions are also tempting. Times like this I wish I was rich!

Cheers

Ryan.

Thanks and no worries! 

My 8” Dob can fit in my car and I keep on meaning to take it somewhere darker. It’s actually not that far. But there’s something special about observing from your house.

I also got the Dob given to me for free by a nice guy on this forum. It had issues (like no base). But I stripped it down, fixed it up,  put it back together and made a base at minimal cost using plywood from Wicks. So look around, there are bargains out there! And some of the 8” DOBs being sold are really excellent value.

For what it’s worth here’s my experience with my 8” Dob and planets.

I flocked my whole OTA. The difference is minimal but I’m convinced it makes a slight improvement on contrast. And with planets you are looking for slight contrast differences, especially in colour contrast.

I’m in an urban environment and use a dew shield to try and keep out stray light.

Let your OTA cool down. I find that I need at least an hour before things are at their best.

Get a jet-stream forecast. It might not always tell the whole truth but some of the best views I’ve had are when the jet is well out of the way.

Do NOT get you eyes use to the dark. You see colours and colour contrast better if you aren’t use to the dark. I’ll look at a light (eg my phone screen) or pop back inside for a bit - eg make a cup of coffee.

I have a EQ platform - DIY - made from instructions on this forum. It’s great having a planet at high magnification stay within the FOV for minutes on end. It means you can relax more. When relaxed you can see more.

For some reason I’ve had my best observations when it’s not completely dark. Very often this has been in the early hours as the sun is coming up. I’ve also had good views during the summer months. I’m in an urban environment and one thing that might be going on is that there’s less rising heat as the night goes on. Also houses aren’t heated in the summer. Last year on Jupiter and Saturn was typical. By the autumn I struggled to get good seeing when I was observing in the evening. Often it was obviously at least partly due to rising heat.

I have a Skywatcher Skyhawk 1145p and a Skywatcher 8” Dob. I’m also in Bortle 7.

The real difference (and it’s massive) is on the planets and to a lesser extent the moon plus white light solar. Not really the extra magnification but the contrast.

Eg Mars through the 114 was just a featureless small dot. You could tell it was a planet but that was about it. Through the 8” Dob and on a good night, I could make out a polar ice cap, the polar hood, darker albedo features, even clouds.

With the 8” Dob on Saturn I could see cloud banding and the Cassini Division in the ring. Occasionally other, if rather subtle, ring divisions too. Through the 114 the ring itself was clear and obvious but not much else.

Jupiter through the 8” can easily resolve the GRS, and cloud banding with much greater detail. Plus things like shadow transits which just could not be detected through the 114. 

For DSO there isn’t a great deal of difference apart from some of the brighter objects. Like the globular M13, Orion nebula, ring nebula, dumbbell plus some open clusters. Eg M13 - through the 114 it’s just a fuzzy blob. But on a good night in the 8” I can make out literally dozens of stars in the globular - kind of twinkles in and out of view like a glitter ball. However, a good night is key. Some nights, even in Bortle 7 are “darker” than others. And I find that here, after about 1:30am, things are generally darker. So usually worth staying up late. Oh, the galaxies M81 & M82 are obviously better in the Dob too.

Of course nothing beats a dark site. Last year I took the 114 on holiday, and on an aircraft, to Bortle 1-2. Obviously not possible with an 8” Dob. And the views were stunning. Things like the lagoon, triffid and swan nebula were breath taking. Mind, it was so dark that I could even make out the swan naked eye. At home, even through the 8”, it simply isn’t there. 

I like this. The blue colour of the sky/background compliments the moon and gives it a realistic and atmospheric feeling. And you’ve got a nice tint to the moon without it being too dark or too bright. Personally I’m not a fan of the really dark lunar images.