PeterStudz

Sounds good… brave to give that a go at this time of year. But what’s not to like! The advantage with camping tent/no tent is that eyes are adapted to the dark from the word go. Well, as long as someone doesn’t switch a torch on! Another thing my daughter has done when it’s a bit cold to camp outside is to “camp” downstairs. Sometimes with a friend for a sleepover. I’ve set the telescope outside and come down at some point during the night so that we can look at the sky. Again, eyes are use to the dark without trying.

I agree with @Jules Tohpipi that it sounds like something in the Celestron StarSense range would be a safe bet.

Yes, indeed. I also go through a lengthy safety briefing which kids often seem to enjoy. Usually I’ll get loads of questions before even getting near an eyepiece which surprises me.

I started out when my then 8yr old daughter (she’s now 12) expressed an interested in astronomy and wanted to get a telescope. There’s quite a difference between 8 & 5 yrs old but some of what we went through might help. At the time I thought this would be a great thing to do together, and so it has been, but it’s been a lot of effort, work, fun, rewards and the occasional disappointments. You need to have patience in this hobby and kids (some adults too) aren’t skilled at this! I’m almost tempted to write up our experience as I find I’m often repeating myself but it’s finding the time. So a few things we’ve learnt… Try and find out what they are into. This can be surprisingly difficult as both being beginners you have little idea what to expect. Eg the ZWO Seestar smart telescope has been mentioned, but my daughter has virtually no interested in seeing stuff on a screen. She wants to see things herself through an eyepiece. So much so that she calls astrophotography “those fake pictures”. Others are obviously different. It’s not something that a young child can easily do themselves - sticking them out in the garden and leaving them is unlikely to work until they are older. It’s something that you do together. For us this is ideal, but maybe not for everyone. Kids have very short attention spans. Getting them to sit still in the garden, get their eyes use to the dark etc, when it’s freezing cold (best time of year for astronomy tends to be winter, spring & late autumn) isn’t going to work. We got around this by making “astronomy” an event. Eg my daughter loves camping. So on clear nights during the warmer months we’d camp in the garden (no tent), look for shooting stars, scan the sky with binoculars, learn the constellations, toast marshmallows, drink hot chocolate, listen out for foxes, hedgehogs, the dawn chorus... The telescope being the icing on the cake. I can remember one such camping night when we were both very much beginners and in the end just looking/finding one target (the Ring Nebula). We tried to find the likes of the Dumbbell and failed but it didn’t matter as we had so much else going on. Alice has also had friends who are interested over for “astronomy sleepovers” and these have always gone well. We also do solar and after a night camping/astronomy, breakfast on the outdoor stove, we’ve observed the sun too. These type of things have proved great fun. Of course you could do much of this without a telescope but it just would not be the same. Oh… with obvious precautions solar has been great. Obviously you can do this in the day when it can actually be warm, have a BBQ etc which makes things a lot easier. After gaining experience here we were even able to view a couple of the planets during daylight too - Venus and Jupiter. Hope that helps and good luck!

Somewhere. And a still have a few down my shed. Will see what I can do!

These are great and it makes me wish I had such a setup. love the video too. In my opinion there should be more smartphone “at the eyepiece” videos. Well, any type of smartphone astrophotography/astroanimations!

If like the Omegon it’s also possible that they are too wide/thick for the weight of your Dob and are slipping. As @Orange Smartie my arcs are relatively grippy from all of the scratches from the filing. You could try and rough-up the surface with a fine file.

Good point which I’d forgotten. I had to do mine up very tight (and I needed to use two grub screws on each side of the flexible link) in order to ensure it didn’t slip.

@Jimmy81 - the gap between my top & bottom board is 58mm (about the same) and I don’t have any issues, so I doubt it’s that. I use mine with an 8” Dob, although my homemade base is “solid” and as such has some weight to it. I think that slipping is a possibility. Is your battery OK and have you tried a fresh one? The drives can go through these little 9v batteries quite fast. Mine would struggle as the battery drained. In the end I actually swapped mine and rigged a more substantial rechargeable unit.

I have a feeling that it’s not unusual for some of these types of reflectors to have a tube that isn’t perfectly cylindrical. Especially if made of metal that’s rolled into a tube and joined with a seam. If I look closely (it was more obvious when I took it apart for flocking) at my SkyWatcher 200p Dob it isn’t perfectly cylindrical too. But then as a Dob it doesn’t need to be. @wookie1965solution looks ideal as it means you can loosen the bolts far enough that it won’t matter if the tube is perfectly cylindrical or not.

As someone on here said - “Astronomy is a hobby that rewards patience” - and from my experience this is very true and something I often repeat to others starting out. There’s so much more to astronomy than the gas giants and for me Jupiter and especially Saturn, are now way past their best anyway. Time to move on. And I’m looking forward to Saturns rings edge on - it’s a special event and happens roughly every 14/15 yrs I think. I’ve never seen it. I rushed and bought something that wasn’t really suitable. Then I waited. After a couple of months I found someone who was giving away an 8” Dob for free. Sure, it needed some work, but I enjoyed that. Now I have something that’s ideal for me. If only I had some patience at the start 😀

Even at low magnification, on the likes of nebulae, globulars & galaxies, you’ll be able to relax and let your eyes notice more details. At least that’s my experience.

@Orange Smartie Looks great! I chopped/rounded the ends off my arcs as during testing my daughter managed to catch her ankles even though I told her to watch out. And as you say they aren’t necessary and don’t do anything.

Well done! And welcome to the club😃. For mine it’s bang when the motor is running at approximately half speed. Could well be the diameter of the shafts. I’m sure it can be shorted.

If I don’t keep my eyepieces slightly above outside temperature they can (especially on some nights) dew up. This can just be from the heat around your eye as you look into the eyepiece. For me the solution has been to keep the ones I’m using for the night in the long straight-through pocket of my observing hoodie. It’s simple and it works. For me an “integrated solution” just wouldn’t work. Although you could argue that my big pocket is integrated.

Even if it needs some adjustment it looks like it’ll work to me. If you had a white light solar filter you could try it now. Well, it’s sunny here. This does remind me - if you haven’t got a white light solar filter it’s another great little DIY project. Very simple too and well worth having.

Looking excellent! I could not do without mine now. Eg just looking at Saturn at high magnification, going back inside to make a cup of coffee, and when I get back out still finding Saturn in the FOV is great. And that’s before I get to observing

They are fabulous images and a great achievement. Also shows that you don’t need that much “stuff” to get good results. Well, as long as you have the skills!

I’d like to know some tips on this too. I’m planning on an attempt to capture it on mobile phone with my 8” Dob. I’ve done a couple of practice runs and my method so far has been to make sure my finder (RACI 9x50) is spot on, then manually push/follow it in the finder. As long as the ISS isn’t too high in the sky (pushing a Dob at high angles is always a faff) then it hasn’t been too hard to keep in near the centre of the finder..

Looking good @GasGiant! And thanks for sharing. The only issue you MIGHT have is it slipping due to the thicker arcs. But then probably not. After all, there are other EQ platforms like that eg the Omegon at FLO.

What are they? What are they made of? I assume that they are new pads for the AZ bearing. And if so and when installed what do they run over? Is there any sort of textured surface? If not then there needs to be otherwise movement will be jerky and “sticky”. It’s often the case with these manufactured Dobs. Some get around this by using a lazy Susan for the bearing but I find that runs too freely. When I made my base I cut my pads out of a Teflon sheet. And I have it running over cheap textured aluminium like this… As for the right size for your bearings and setup the only way to find out is to try it and see.

“Maybe I missed it, Can someone explain how you polar align please ? Is it simply pointing the pointy end north as accurately as possible ?” For visual that’s accurate enough and all you need to do. There are ways of getting it more accurately aligned, but unless you are trying to do long-ish exposure astrophotography don’t worry about it now. ”Also, im at 51 degrees. Should I use the 50 or 52 degree wedge ?” It doesn’t matter… 50 or 52 will be more than good enough.

And if you haven’t got some already - a decent pair of binoculars, something like 10x50 which are easy to hand hold. Really useful for learning the sky, scouting out targets, planning a star hop... And I find that certain things, eg the Pleiades and Beehive Cluster, look their best in good binoculars. Better than any telescope.

An EQ platform has already been mentioned with the OP in another thread so I left that one out. I have a DIY EQ platform (they are so easy to make) and I now couldn’t do without it.

It’s all very personal with no right answer. Eg the only filters I’ve found useful are the Astronomik UHC and a variable polarising. IMHO the cheaper UHC filters are a bit pants and the variable polarising I’ve only used on Mars. But for me it’s been very useful on Mars. But for me I found a chair so useful. I don’t need to “stoop”, but in my job I stand/walk all day and the thought of having to stand for another 4 hours at my Dob (which I’ve done) doesn’t make me feel very relaxed!