PeterStudz

I’ve been observing Mars too. But the best I’ve got so far was on the night of November 11th-12th. Then the seeing was decent and Mare Acidalium was obvious and made the planet more interesting. Being right up against the north polar hood the contrast of white + dark area really helped it stand out. 

I agree that you don’t need a moon filter. And if what you are looking at (like the moon) appears too bright, just look at a bright object, we often use a smartphone screen, before looking through the eyepiece.

As for a phone adapter. My point was to get use to what you have. There’s a shed load to learn without the faff of a phone holder. Using Orion as an example again. Just hovering the phone camera over the eyepiece and looking at the live view on screen (no taking pictures) showed colours in the nebula. With the eye at the eyepiece it was just a faint grey smudge. It was that, not the actual picture, that got my daughter exciting and jumping up and down. 

I started on a similar journey coming up for 3 yrs ago when I bought my then 9 yr old daughter a telescope for Christmas, as she was showing an great interest in astronomy and I thought it would be something we could do together. This turned out to be true and we now have another, much larger telescope too.

I originally got something slightly bigger than the Heritage 100p, but only with a mirror that is 114mm rather than 100mm. So not much difference. A few words of advice …

For a youngster they will need help, assistance and encouragement however keen they are. It’s not something where you can stick them out in the garden and leave them.

The moon and later on the planets, are great for young kids as they don’t need to sit out in the cold in order to get eyes adapted to the dark. Moon/Planets being bright don’t require this and they can hop in and out the house. Deep sky objects & star clusters are another matter.

Initially don’t worry too much about accessories. Eg we got a cheap phone adapter for £9.50 and still have it. The expensive £50 phone holder that was recommended was next to useless as it was far too heavy for a small telescope.

If you have a steady hand it’s fun to try and take pictures just by holding the phone to the eyepiece. It’ll work for the moon and a very few other bright objects. This old picture here is our very first attempt at taking a simple handheld phone camera image of anything. It’s of the Orion Nebula. We’d had the telescope for about 2 weeks. Sure, it’s crude but this simple image literally had my daughter jumping up and down. No apps or anything. I remember it as if it was yesterday  

One thing that surprised us and is worth considering in the near future (after you have a little experience). Viewing the sun using a white light solar filter has turned out to be amazing. Now, you obviously need to be careful and take suitable precautions but my daughter prefers this to most deep sky objects. With the sun you can view when it’s warm, no faffing about getting eyes use to the dark, you can see what you are doing without messing around with torches. When we had friends & kids around for a BBQ in the summer getting the telescope out and viewing the sun has been a great hit. For adults too. And the recent partial solar eclipse was brilliant. Not only that but we are now in a period where sunspots are on the up, so potentially things could get interesting.

@PeteC65 I just come in because in Southampton it got cloudy (that wasn’t in the forecast!). 

With my 200p Dob I could make out the polar hood and some albedo features on Mars, but not as clear as last week. Surprisingly it steadily got worse as Mars got higher. Maybe there was some high cloud before the “heavy” clouds came in. But I do find that a variable polarising filter really helps bring out the features on Mars. And that avoiding getting my eyes dark adapted can make a difference. 

12 hours ago, neil phillips said:

yes, i think your right. wonder what causes the thinning ? is it a temperature thing ?

From what I can gather it is related to temperature…

https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1029/2010je003693

”We conclude that polar hood clouds are primarily controlled by the temperature structure and form at the water condensation level”

When I first looked at Mars why back in mid-June and even if obviously very small, the southern polar region was very obvious. It seemed to glow. I think I made a comment that it looked just like sunlight reflecting off the top of a distant Alpine mountain in the spring. It looked quite different to the white that I have recently seen around the North Pole of Mars. It didn’t last long and soon seemed to melt or at least disappear from view. Of course Mars was a very different beast then and it could have just been something to do with the conditions.

However, if/when the north polar hood disappears it will be interesting to see if it then reveals any real ice cap. 

4 hours ago, neil phillips said:

It does doesn't it. Spring melting maybe? Cheers Stuart.

Now, I’m new to this but isn’t that the polar hood thinning (possibly) rather than the actual ice cap?

Just come in after a session on Mars with the Skywatcher 200p Dob. I would stay out longer but I have work in the morning

Now, first year I’ve looked at Mars but this is the best I’ve seen it. Seeing not ideal (there’s still a screaming jetstream) but Mars is almost a disc, the north polar hood was clearly visible and I could just get to 300x over which things got fuzzy. Various albedo features visible - looking at a Mars map the Mare Acidalium area just south of the North Pole stood out well. And a band of several dark patches running east west below the South Pole. My daughter was impressed too and it immediately got a “wow”. 

With Mars you’ve really got to spend time at the eyepiece to get the most out of what you’re looking at. I have a DIY EQ platform which keeps everything in the centre of the eyepiece - really makes a difference. 

21 hours ago, Louis D said:

Toric lenses work for some folks, but not others, for astronomy observing.  They are weighted at the bottom by making them thicker so they will rotate to the correct position for astigmatism correction when looking horizontally.  The problem arises when looking mostly downward into an eyepiece.  The contact lens will then start to rotate out of best correction position for some people because gravity is acting on the lens as a whole to pull it off of the eye.

I haven't tried contacts at all, myself.  I get pinkeye infections far too easily without them whenever I get a head cold.

I have a toric lens for my left eye which is dominant and so it’s my observing eye. Out of interest I’m right handed. Most right handed people will have a dominant right eye. And dominant left if left handed.

Generally I only wear contacts for sport and only occasionally for astronomy. And my daughter prefers to observe with her glasses on, so I’ll wear mine so I can see in the same way she can. But to be honest I don’t notice any astigmatism when observing with or without contacts or when wearing glasses. 

Most of my eyepieces are BST StarGuiders. For glasses I personally wish that the eyecups weren’t quite so deep. Often I’ll remove them for easier viewing. 

Not sure why but one thing I have noticed. I’ll see more floaters when observing with or without contacts. Less with glasses. 

4 minutes ago, MG01 said:

What were the wooden discs for on your EQ5's?

The discs/block is just a riser so that:-

1. I don’t need to cut/remove the north pin on the tripod which this mount doesn’t accommodate.

2. It lifts the OTA just enough to prevent it colliding with the tripod legs when observing at certain positions near zenith. The aluminium tripod doesn’t have that issue as the legs don’t spread out as far - another reason why it’s less stable. 

I might but something in the DIY section that explains it in a bit more detail. 

4 hours ago, bosun21 said:

They don’t come with that tripod though. They have a light aluminum tripod which is pretty shaky 

I got the EQ5 type tripod second hand from a member on here for £70. It was just to show that it’s possible to upgrade without breaking the bank.

The shaky aluminium tripod can be improved with some basic DIY. Eg anti-vibration pads might help. Having had one I know the issues. The legs are hollow and when moved tend to vibrate a bit like the stings on a musical instrument. Some sturdy jubilee clips around the legs help damped things out. And I remember that a member in here filled the legs with sand and said that it made a significant difference. 

On 02/11/2022 at 14:40, Elp said:

I image from bortle 7, and visually I've tried a 130pds and a Celestron C6 SCT. I struggled to even see a bright cluster like the Hercules Globular Cluster (just about making out a faint dark grey fuzziness with averted vision), if I didn't have goto I would have struggled to find it. Viewing nebulae? Impossible, other than maybe Orion. Yet with a camera each object appears reasonably quickly (Hercules for example quite defined in a 10-30 second exposure, many DSOs you have to take a lot of images and stack but they begin to faintly appear in 60-120s images typically).

Others can comment on their experiences about whether using a 8 inch or above from similar bortle as to whether they have seen DSO objects clearly visually.

I’m in a Bortle 7 location. I have an 8 inch Dob and a small 4.5 inch Newtonian. Even in the 4.5 I can make out the brighter globular clusters without averted vision, although they are just fuzzies. The 8 inch can easily resolve many stars.

In the 4.5 I can easily see the ring nebula & dumbbell nebula, although a filter helps. Of course the Orion Nebula is the brightest and on a very good night I can just make it out naked eye.

In the 8 inch everything is brighter with more detail and contrast. With that the galaxies M81 & M82 are great. M31 isn’t bad too. The planets are far better in the 8 inch. 

I have zero experience of Morocco but I have been abroad to a dark part of the world. We were in a small village. But a short 15min walk was all it took to get totally away from the village lights. Of course it does mean you need to be able to carry your kit.

As far as being dark goes the real issue is the moon. I made sure we went during the new moon, when the moon was well out of the way. 

Even though this was in Europe on one night there was someone or some people firing rifles in the middle of the night - a little concerning to say the least! So security, especially on your own, might be an issue with these remote locations. But it sounds like you’ll be going somewhere with people plus telescope so this won’t be a problem. 

21 hours ago, MG01 said:

Thanks Peter, that looks like a solid choice.  Love the profile pic btw...awesome enthusiasm!

Thank you! It’s been enormous fun doing something together. Although of course there have been frustrations and disappointments. This hobby and when learning something totally new that’s to be expected. The photo was taken on Christmas Day 2020. I did want a small Dob but at that time, during the pandemic, I couldn’t find anything. The 1145p, purchased in a bit of a panic, could have been a disaster but in the end it wasn’t and I don’t regret it. 

Totally unsuitable for a then 9 yr old I/we got to like an EQ mount. Sure, dad has to set it up each time but she can understand what I’m doing. And for visual setting up now just means using a compass to point it north. As our garden faces SE most targets are in that area, so as long as the eyepiece is set good for that part of the sky there isn’t any need to rotate the tube. Being able to track gives more time to look at objects, change eyepieces etc and relax a little more. A bonus when things are so new. 

We do now have a 200p Dob (given free by a member here with issues that are now fixed). But the little 1145p still gets used and complements the Dob. Eg we have a solar filter for it and we even took it on holiday on an aircraft using the old aluminium tripod packed in the hold. The OTA, mount and accessories in a small carry on case. 

Anyway, I’ve waffled on enough. Good luck with whatever you purchase for him!

Have you considered the Skywatcher StarQuest-130p? 

https://www.firstlightoptics.com/sky-watcher-starquest/sky-watcher-starquest-130p-f5-parabolic-newtonian-reflector-telescope.html

It’s in budget, sits on an EQ mount that is far better than an EQ2. There’s a nice honest review of it here by a member of this site…

https://youtu.be/GHdDs2PLIrk

The weakness is in the tripod but it’s not that bad. And upgrading that in the future is possible with some simple DIY - basically a block of wood with a hole in it - as I did. I got the mount only second hand in order to replace the wobbly EQ1 that came with the telescope I got for my daughter - a Skywatcher Skyhawk 1145p. Now, on an EQ5 tripod, the thing is rock solid, a pleasure to use and can be used in both EQ and Alt-Azimuth mode as shown in the video review. As in my pics there is even a nifty little motor drive that can be used for basic tracking. 

As guides go this one is quite good too…

https://spacemath.gsfc.nasa.gov/SMBooks/AstrophotographyV1.pdf

On 26/10/2022 at 11:52, Hawksmoor said:

My daughter Alice is keen to take some night scape photos  from rural Oxfordshire. She wondered if there is a good app she could download for capturing starry skies with her phone? Many thanks in anticipation.

George

Hi George,

I use an iPhone 12 and I must admit I haven’t found an app that does a great deal better than the native camera app. Mind, there is one but it’s (I think) iPhone only.

Maybe someone with a similar phone to your daughters could answer. 

On 03/11/2022 at 14:23, cajen2 said:

The Skywatcher 6x30 RACI is smaller and presumably lighter than the typical 8 or 9x mag ones.

I’m sure it is. Although depends on what you want to do. Eg by the time I have a StarGuider eyepiece, sometimes a Barlow plus a smartphone and a phone  holder things are rather top heavy and any weight saved makes a difference on a small telescope. 

Skywatcher 1145p and 200p Dob during this mornings partial solar eclipse. Got some good views between the clouds. Daughter enjoyed it too. First time seeing a solar eclipse through a telescope, Shadow of moons mountains along the edge of the “bite” looked stunning. We also used eclipse glasses. 

Managed to see it with my daughter in Southampton. Clouds coming and going. And it chucked it down just after we packed up. Pictures taken with an iPhone 12. 

7 minutes ago, IB20 said:

And just like that, the clouds roll in… 👋🏼

It’s chucking it down here now. Got the kit inside just in time!

I got it with my daughter in Southampton between clouds. Picture taken with an iPhone handheld at the eyepiece.

1 hour ago, wookie1965 said:

Where did you get the chair from please

I got it locally for £10 via Gumtree. For the 200p it’s easily adjustable to the full length of travel. It’s also handy inside the house. My daughter uses it as an art stool too.

I believe it’s an old IKEA screw stool that’s called “Ringo”. No longer sold. Have a look on the likes of eBay and Gumtree. There were a lot made so they do come up second hand quite a bit. And a quick search on Gumtree comes up with two for a total of £15, or £7.50 for one. Of course it’s near Birmingham but it shows that they are around. 
 

Pair of ikea ringo height adjustable stools 

On 18/10/2022 at 22:46, ankwste said:

You need to bring your scope to 🇬🇷😛

Having taken a small telescope to southern Crete I know what you mean. I should really write it up!

On 19/10/2022 at 10:03, Stu said:

@ClareMcMullan21! I agree with JOC above, one of the little Heritage scopes will do your daughter very nicely and show plenty of good views. Whilst they are entry level, the optics are actually very good, and if she gets the bug, some upgraded eyepieces will improve it further.

I’ve used both the Heritage 130p and 150p, the 130p would be cheaper and a little lighter but will still show you plenty.

They have gone up in price unfortunately so are over your budget.

https://www.firstlightoptics.com/dobsonians/skywatcher-heritage-130p-flextube.html

If that is out of reach, there is the 100p too. This will be more limited due to the smaller aperture but still quite useable.

https://www.firstlightoptics.com/dobsonians/skywatcher-heritage-100p-tabletop-dobsonian.html

From my personal experience with my daughter I’d go for one of these. I didn’t but that’s another story. 

My profile picture is from Christmas Day 2020. Hopefully you can see the “enthusiasm/excitement”. Eagle eye observers might notice that I put the finder on the wrong way around. As we were only looking at the moon it didn’t really matter. But so much has been learnt since then

Just a note on binoculars. I’ve been through a similar process, when, this time two years ago, my then 9 yr old daughter showed an interest in astronomy and getting a telescope for Christmas. 

The idea of binoculars sounded great but initially for us (we’d borrowed a pair) it did not work. Mind, we did actually buy some binoculars later but to complement the telescope. Practically binoculars didn’t work for two main reasons:

1. They don’t look like a telescope. This might sound silly but it’s a turn off for some kids. You want something that will fire their imagination.

2. They are fine for bright objects that you can make out with the naked eye and in our light polluted back garden (on a good night) that was about 3. But for a child plus adult learning to star hop it’s not easy. Eg “turn left at Orion, left at bit, down a bit” was frustrating and the binoculars would go back and forth between us. At that point we were back to square one. A tripod would help but that’s more expensive and (in total) up to the cost of a cheap telescope. For us the solution was a second pair of binoculars. I got something cheap and second just to star hop together and stop the “back and forth”. But again more expense.