Orange Smartie

Not a silly question. Dobsonian refers to a particular type of simple mount. These will be free standing or for use on a table top. Many people observe from an adjustable chair.

Hello and welcome. This is a great site, full of helpful knowledgeable people.

Welcome! If is any consolation, the weather is miserable in the UK too.

Congrats! Does this mean you're going to buy us all a pint?

P.S. feel the need to add that I'm a beginner so I'm sure others may have different experience, but I haven't found the need to change my secondary collimation in normal use, but the primary of my 10 inch dob does seem to move a bit. The primary is very easy to align though.

This is how I find the Andromeda galaxy. Find the big square of Pegasus (almost square, with 4 bright stars). Count 1, 2 bright stars to the left. There should be a brightish star above the one you've reached - step to this and then the same distance again and there you are. It's very large and so you'll need your lowest magnification, but it should be easily visible assuming the sky is reasonably dark. The teal circles are the 4 stars making the square, the lilac circles are the two stars you count to the left. Arrow marks the star you step to first and the red ellipse is your target. Sorry it's a rubbish diagram made in haste, but you get the idea! If noone has already suggested it, I would get yourself a copy of Turn Left at Orion - an excellent beginner's guide.

Not the postman exactly, but this looks brilliant.

I don't think I've ever been so excited about someone else's telescope purchase! Good luck and well done for doing so much homework.

I've only looked through my own telescopes, so I don't have anything to compare against, but I would like to look through a decent refractor, if only to see what the views were like. Suspect that I'd prefer the light gathering power of my biggish dobsonian for anything faint and fuzzy. I also feel like I'd enjoy a mak for the ability to look at double stars, preferably on a tracking mount. Again, I've never looked through one, so it's pure conjecture. I've already got a 10 inch dob looming over the sitting room, so feel it might be pushing my luck to get anything else.

For ultimate dark adaptation, I go like this:

I always close my "scope eye" if I have to go indoors or switch my white torch on for any reason. The difference between what I can see with my dark-adapted eye and the one I've exposed to indoor lighting is incredible.

Evening all. I managed a little session last night with my StellaLyra 10 inch. Most enjoyable apart from some issues with stars looking quite "fat" (especially bright ones). Is this down to poor seeing? I felt that my telescope is pretty well collimated, so I'm hoping it's not that. Pete

To give you a bit of a feel for how it works for me, I have quite a bad back and have to be careful about how much I can lift. However, as yet I've not had an issue with mine. I remove the OTA and place it on the sofa. I take the base out and come back for the OTA. I find it helpful to slightly tighten the screws that adjust the OTA tension on the base or they spin round when I'm trying to drop it into place. Otherwise it's not difficult. For the 10 inch, I think OTA is about 16kg and the base slightly less. I do have an awkward carry (low ceilings, narrow doors, steps blah blah), but so far, no issues.

Are the collimation screws not protruding out the bottom, or is your OTA standing on something? I think if I did this with mine, it would knock the collimation out or damage the screws.

Hello. I have the 10 inch Stella Lyra to which I changed my order after originally ordering a Skywatcher. It's a great scope and I'm delighted with it. It's a big thing (the 8 inch will be a bit smaller).

I think most of the challenge with maintaining the attention of a young child (or in my case, a spouse!) is that the majority of targets that you or I might consider interesting, are simply not visually impressive enough without the additional consideration of what you're looking at/how far away it is etc, etc. Choosing the right targets (saturn, jupiter, moon) is far more likely to result in a pleasing experience for a child, in my opinion. Of course your experience may be different, as children are all different. Don't underestimate the fun of looking at the moon, especially if you start trying to identify visible features. It's very easy to find too! Edited to say that I realise this wasn't really what you were asking. Plus I'd say that if you spend a bit of time on your own, you'll get fairly used to finding things quickly (assuming reasonably dark skies), so the fear of "it's going to disappear out of view" won't last that long.

I've been asked to suggest Chrimbo presents that I might like..... is the double star atlas worth getting if I already have the other atlas?

I have a Heritage 150p - one size up from the 130 you are considering. In a dark place, on a good night, I've been able to see a lot of stuff so it's a pretty decent instrument for the money. Regarding bashing it around, it has exposed optical surfaces that won't perform so well if sticky fingers get on them..... or if anything is dropped into the scope. You can make a lightshield (plenty of threads on this), which will give you an element of protection. It's fairly stable in terms of the collimation, and depending on what you're looking at, I wouldn't get too fixated on whether the collimation is perfect. You can learn how to adjust the primary mirror in a few minutes and it won't be a major problem to set up if it does get a bit out of kilter. The small scope you mention in the post above, although more techy, will give you narrower fields of view and involve more setup (I would imagine). At least with the heritage dob or the short tube refractor, it's a point and look type affair.

Agree with Captain Magenta. I have an RDF on my Heritage 150p and find it perfectly adequate.

All other things being equal, the larger aperture (tube size) will give the better view - about 70-80% more light grasp and better resolution. I have not heard of Omegon, so I'm not sure about the build quality. Couple of other things to consider - the larger telescope will be heavier, and might require a little more storage space. You'll probably also want to budget a little more for a couple of better eyepieces - the ones supplied will most likely not be very good.

On the train to that London, I've just seen a con trail that appears to be going straight up. See photo below, taken near Beaconsfield. Rocket? Jet fighter? Edit: maybe planes from RAF Northolt?

I'm in a Bortle 4 area of semi-rural oxfordshire. The garden has a pretty good southerly view and my neighbours have indicated that they will turn off extraneous lights when and if I ask. It's about 30 or 40 minutes drive to my nearest club, so so far I've only observed at home.

Great report - thanks for sharing your session. There are a couple of free apps you can get for identifying moons of Jupiter/Saturn, called Moons of Jupiter and Moons of Saturn. I normally check out the orientation of these indoors and draw a quick sketch of then to take out with me. The Moons of Jupiter app is particularly nice, because it show the shadows of the moon passing over Jupiter's surface, which I like to try to spot if the timings and seeing are right.

That Bresser looks quite nice. The rack and pinion focuser would be a plus for me. Also its a solid tube, which is both good and bad; good because the secondary is better protected (from user contact and stray light), worse because it would require most storage space.

You'll probably find that you use the Rigel and the RACI together- at least I do. The Rigel to get you in the ballpark and the RACI to spot patterns of fainter stars guiding you to your target. Clear skies!