GrumpiusMaximus

Or the destruction of Númenor...

Evidently it really was the dawning of the Age of Aquarius.

On the other hand, six months ago this would be seriously flooding out your shed. Submersible pumps are pretty cheap. We got one for our (seasonal) swimming pool. The only issue is that when you need to use it in anger, it's inevitable the drains will be overwhelmed too. Is there a neighbour you don't get along with?

Around about 5PM, I was out taking the dog for a walk and noticed that Jupiter was sitting pretty. Grabbed the 70ED and went to have a look. A good view, with four moons (and a co-incident dim star that looked like a fifth moon much further out in the FOV). Clear bands with some of the turbulence on the edges of the bands visible, I was quite pleased given the relatively widefield view. I finally cleaned the corrector plate of my C5 this afternoon so whilst I had the opportunity, grabbed it and put it on the mount. Got it up to 125X with my 20mm WO Swan and a 2X Barlow and thought it looked rather dim. Well it was. Not because there was anything wrong with the optics (turned out cleaning the corrector plate was the solution) but because - you guessed it - thick cloud had rapidly started rolling in. In the cloud breaks I did get a very nice view indeed and got more detail of the cloud bands, although nothing I could really describe. I decided to do a quick collimation test of the C5 on Jupiter and it was absolutely fine. A few months ago, I had an 'incident' whereby I tried to fit a new finder shoe and the screws were too long, interfering with the primary mirror. I thought there was a collimation issue, so I adjusted the collimation lot. During this, the secondary decided to rotate and shift in the corrector plate. So I had to change the screws out, pull the corrector plate out and re-align the secondary and tighten it up, then re-collimate. I did collimate it correctly (it took far longer than it should have) but obviously didn't clean the corrector thoroughly enough when I put it back in... Nice to know the C5 is actually fine. I've been enjoying my 70ED lately but it's good to have options.

Thank you all so much for your valuable contributions. It's great to see all of the methods discussed without anybody getting 'ideological' about it and this is definitely giving me food for thought. I hope others are getting as much value from your combined contributions, it's brilliant being able to draw from such a wealth of experiences.

I wouldn't take any risks with a solar filter. Buy from a proper astronomy supplier.

I've just noticed you're a SEKAS member, so you must be local to me. There's a point here that I'd like to get some opinion on. Essentially, do you personally think it's important to learn to manually star hop the 'old-fashioned' way in complement to using automation (like Starsense Explorer) or do you fully advocate for just using aids? Is manual star-hopping 'obsolete' in your view? I'm of the view that both are useful and whilst there are no absolutes, learning to manually star hop would be advantageous in my position. For the record, I'm in Aylesham which is increasingly light polluted and I have a restricted view, so 'learning the sky' by manually star-hopping would help me plan my sessions better as I'd have a realistic idea of what is visible. In an unrestricted sky, I don't see this being as important. I suppose it's mainly frustration on my part that I end up looking at a very limited number of objects due to my lack of practice. The solution is simple - practice more - but I think there's joy to be had in learning the sky manually if you're a beginner like myself. With that said, I'd never be snobbish about another using electronic aids because enjoyment of a hobby is enjoyment of a hobby, regardless of how that is fulfilled by the individual.

Star hopping thread here: I'd be really interested to see what everybody has to say, beginners like myself, more experienced observers, etc.

(On the starship Enterprise, under Captain Kirk). As discussed in the 'What did you see tonight' thread, I think it's worth a discussion as to the various 'Star Hopping' strategies that we use. As a beginner, mine seems to be just to hope for the best and point in the vague direction of the object in question - but I know that a lot of the more experienced observers here have a better handle on strategies that have been tried and tested. What works for you? What equipment do you use? Do you manually star hop exclusively or do you also use GOTO, or a combination of both? Why should be we learn to star hop? How does light pollution play a part in this and what challenges have you found?

250x magnification with a 0.6mm exit pupil is really pushing the seeing conditions and the mount's ability to remain stable. In my (limited) experience you may well find that going to a higher magnification does not equate to a better view, indeed the view may become dimmer and lose some sharpness. You're already at 150x with the 5mm and going much higher may be an exercise in frustration. Admittedly, if it's going to work, it'll work on planets or the moon and I'll happily subside to the advice of others that are more knowledgeable on this than I but a higher magnification comes with additional considerations.

I'll see if there's a thread already but please feel free to start one! I've bought a copy of 'Turn Left at Orion' that I pulled out tonight, which is quite helpful. The main problem is that I absolutely hate having to get behind the red dot finder and constantly taking my glasses on and off. I bought a new RDF that helps matters and mounted it the other day, so it's better but long term I'd rather have an RDF with a 90-degree diagonal mirror when funds allow. I hate getting behind the red dot finder because I am a rather plentiful 21 Stone and 6'2". Fully appreciate that's a 'me' issue...

Saw an opportunity early this evening to take a look. Was being rather stupid with my AZ-GTi though and it took me about ten minutes to realise I'd mounted the telescope on the wrong way around. I need a bit more practice in getting a really good two-star alignment and I take too many shortcuts out of impatience and I'm usually able to work with a rough alignment but if I'm going to be looking for fainter objects in my 70ED, I need to do it properly. My main goal is to improve my actual observing skill. To this end, I'm going to have to learn to be more patient and take more time over each object but given the recent conditions I tend to rush everything to get out and look up quickly - which has its merits but doesn't really help me get any better at this hobby. Learning to properly star-hop would be good too... Anyhow. Had a few minutes on Jupiter. Was reasonably good to start with and saw Io very close to Jupiter. Fiddled with my mount for a bit and by the time I'd got it sorted, it had disappeared from view - looking it up, it looks like there is a transit this evening but I couldn't pick up the moon in my small scope. I really need to get my C5 cleaned and check the collimation before Jupiter goes out of my garden view, otherwise I'll end up at the front of my house worrying the neighbours... Moved onto the Pleiades. Decent view, very nice contrast. Lots of detail really and some faint stars. Had about fifteen minutes on that and then thought I'd have a go on M35. Got a very clear look at it, just over some houses. Open clusters really aren't something I usually bother with but I'm making a conscious effort to try and widen my observing as I really am stuck on the same four or five objects as i) I'm a beginner and ii) they're easy to see from my garden. Had a go at M81. I think due to a combination of poor seeing (it was starting to cloud to the North - in fact, it was starting to cloud all over), the small aperture of my scope (bad workman blaming tools) and total ineptitude (more like it), I completely failed to locate it. I found the triangle of stars that points away easily enough but couldn't get it in view. It's an easy view in my C5 and I've seen it through 80mm binoculars before so I suspect it's stupidity on my part. Still having a lot of fun and learning a lot each night. This is the most I've observed in a long time and I need to crack the telescope out at every opportunity.

Is it Windows 11 or ChromeOS? If it's a ChromeBook then it will be running ChromeOS, not Windows 11 and thus will be very, very limited in the available software. In all honesty, whlist Chromebooks definitely have their place, they are just running a very basic version of Linux and are frustratingly locked down to prevent casual users from installing Windows. EDIT: If I'm being honest, you're probably better off returning the Chromebook and buying a standard Windows laptop from the likes of Backmarket or Laptops Direct. Second-hand business laptops are the way to go in most instances, unless you need graphical power in which case something with a dedicated graphics card would be better. For basic imaging and stacking, you don't need a hugely powerful device. Your budget will determine what you can get but in these circumstances I'd suggest that a Chromebook is almost useless.

So the way the Astroberry works is that it fires up its own INDI server and hotspot. You can then VNC onto it in two different ways: i) Connect your computer directly to the Astroberry's own hotspot. This won't pull the time through as nothing is then connected to the Internet. ii) Connect the Astroberry to your WiFi network. It then just becomes another network device and gets assigned an IP via DHCP as usual. You can connect to it using VNC from your other computer and the Astroberry can then connect to the Internet directly and find an NTP server. You can, of course, just connect an Ethernet cable and plug it into your network directly or plug it into another computer with the Ethernet cable too. I don't have an issue with KStars running on the Astroberry, after all it's just a dedicated OS for a Raspberry Pi and there's more than enough performance for it to run KStars/Ekos adequately but I entirely see your point about storing image files independently. I might look into a NAS for that should I get more use out of it. Ideally what I want to do is set up my home WiFi network so that there's reasonable coverage in the garden and then control it from my office. That probably needs an externally-rated access point setting up. Ideally, I'd upgrade my router to a 5GHz-capable one. I work full-time from home and have Ethernet in my office so WiFi isn't a major priority...

I'm so little into it so far that if my Pi's memory card were to be wiped, it would put me back about five minutes. It runs the INDI server on Astroberry automatically when it boots and puts out a WiFi hotspot, so provided I'm in WiFi range of the Pi I can control from any laptop by connecting to that hotspot. If I sorted out my home network properly (ironically, I work in IT...) then I'd just connect the Pi to my main network (I have a second SSID for my outdoor office) and Astroberry lets me log in with the network IP and connect that way. Sluggish but it works. If the Astroberry can connect to the Internet directly it will pull down the time from NTP. However, if I'm hotspotting onto it, it won't pick up the time as there is no time server to reference - unless I set up a standalone time server on the laptop I'm using to connect and point the Astroberry towards that...

I have - but I'll need to check it again. Had an 'incident' with it a few months back that involved collimation...

I've got KStars and EKOS running an 8GB Pi4 (on Astroberry) as well, which is strapped to my tripod and feeds into an AZ-GTi. It all works pretty seamlessly with remote access via another laptop and had no problems with the EQMod cable I'm using. The main problem is setting the time and having the patience to get it all set up. At the moment I'm mainly doing visual astronomy. I do want to get this all going though, looks really impressive going from you there.

Finally got a session in tonight after waiting for more than a week! My garden (faces practically due East, with the South and North visible, West totally obstructed by my house and all aspects obstructed by other houses, curse you developers!) was lit up by the Moon but I decided to look at M42 first of all through my 70ED and whilst much of the nebulosity was washed out by the Moon, it did afford me an excellent view of the Trapezium, which only improved once I put my 2X Barlow on with my 20mm WO Swan. Averted vision gave me a nice view of the nebula too (obviously). Had a little peek at Sirius. No chance of splitting it in a million years but thought I'd have a look anyway whilst it was in view and not obstructed by my neighbour's house. It's a star. It's bright. That's all I got! Then I spent a while on the Moon's terminator. I know absolutely nothing about Lunar geography but based on a bit of reading I had a great view of the central prominence of Langrenus as it was right on the terminator. I'm always amazed at how much clearer the elevations are when they're on the line. Grabbed my C5 for comparison but quickly realised that I desperately need to clean the front corrector plate. The view in the 70ED was much sharper! A good night, all told.

Strongly disagree. A 6" refractor would be an absolutely enormous, unwieldy scope that would require significant investment not only in terms of optics but also time and storage space. Realistically, a beginner can get a good start with a 4" reflector but bigger would be better. A 6" Schmidt-Cassegrain is more than enough telescope to get started. I've been using a 5" SCT for years and have recently been having a lot of fun with a 70mm refractor. The 'minimum' size really comes down to your personal expectations. If you want to see stars at -16 magnitude then you're going to need something enormous like a 16" truss Dobsonian but if you want to split tricky double stars, you don't need much more than a quality 4" refractor. It really is a case of horses for courses. Ed Ting's excellent videos recommend a 6" or 8" Dobsonian (as do many others) and this is a sensible suggestion for many as it covers pretty much all of the visual basics in a relatively affordable package but this is a recommendation, not a rule. A 6" Schimdt-Cassegrain is a highly capable scope that the original poster will be able to get excellent results with, if a bit of persistance and practice is applied.

No experience here but would it be more economical to buy a 10"/250mm Dobsonian and remove the mirror?

Our lawn always gets absolutely waterlogged in winter -mostly due to the clay but there is very little 'green' space in our development. All the houses are directly onto paving, very little gravel, etc. I'm tempted to dig a similar sump or French drain (without a pipe, just a gravel trap really) at the bottom of our garden. Unfortunately, directly behind our garden is a small car park and I think there's concrete a foot down. Councils really need to start thinking about water run-off better when approving housing. It's maddening that it's still an issue and that there isn't a strategy for effectively dealing with it... Your sump looks highly effective!

I will take the full blame here. I got given my C5 at the tail end of 2021 and ever since then, the winters have been absolutely shocking. I'm so sorry to the whole UK-based community for my transgression.

Believe me when I say I have learned the hard way on most things and most of my learning has been in the last couple of years as I'm a relative beginner compared to many here! Just to add though, back in 2015 my Dad, myself and an astronomy friend of his did a 'Messier Marathon' with my C5 (it belonged to my Dad at the time) and his mate's C6. An incredible night of viewing and we got over 90 objects. The C6 is a very capable scope and a good balance between capability, transportability and ease-of-use. There is a bit of a learning curve with setting it up compared to a Dobsonian-style reflector but it definitely has its advantages. Focus on the basics, focus on getting it set up and aligned properly and get used to using just a couple of eyepieces and taking your time with the view. You may be tempted to start swapping out eyepieces immediately but just let the image settle in your mind for a bit and you'll see a lot more than if you keep switching out the eyepiece. Higher magnification does not always equate to a sharper image either, so don't be too surprised if you see more detail on planets with a lower-power eyepiece. It happens. Try not to get too frustrated when things don't work out straight away and be patient and a C6 is a scope that will be very rewarding to use. I am not a good example for any of the above but I can at least serve as a warning of what not to do!

No problem. I'm not familiar with the StarSense per se but my understanding is that it plate solves, so that should be a self-aligning system. There are others on here with a lot more experience on that front than me though and may be able to advise otherwise. For the red dot, the standard advice is to point the telescope at a distant object during the day (e.g. a chimney or aerial), get it into the centre of your field of view and then use the adjustment knobs on the red dot to align in precisely with the view in the scope. You check the eyepiece, then check where the dot is. If it's too high, you lower it, if it's to the left or right, you move it left or right, etc. until it's pointing at precisely the same point as the centre of the eyepiece view. If you decide to align using the NexStar alignment, it will ask you to point the telescope at several different objects so that it can make an internal map of the sky in its memory and work out where it is. When you look through the eyepiece of a telescope, even at lower power, you'll see a lot more than you can with the naked eye and there will be a magnification factor applied. This can make it very challenging to work out what you're looking at! Looking at Polaris for instance can be confusing to a beginner because although it may appear like an isolated star with the naked eye, under a telescope it's actually one of several and working out which one is Polaris takes a bit of practice. With that in mind, the red dot lets you point the telescope without a magnification and just uses the naked eye. If it's aligned properly with the telescope, when you're setting up the NexStar GOTO you move the telescope using the handset to a bright object (using the red dot), then make sure it's in the centre of your eyepiece by making small adjustments with the hand controller if necessary. Confirm it on the handset and then move onto another object. Usually I'd recommend the 2 or 3-star alignment with an SCT telescope because it's got a long focal length (and thus inherently applies a higher magnification) which means the alignment needs to be a bit more precise than a telescope with a shorter focal length as the field of view is narrower and thus it's harder to navigate. The longer focal length does make it very well suited to planets and Lunar observing though! With my short refractor I tend to just use a single-star alignment and manually adjust but I'm dealing with 420mm of focal length and low power eyepieces. My C5 is 1250mm and a C6 is 1500mm, which means that a single-star alignment doesn't really cut it for accurate GOTO most of the time. I hope that helps!

Bortle 8 isn't going to be doing you any favours but having used a C5 under similar conditions with just the 25mm and 9mm standard eyepieces, you'll get decent views of your target objects with a C6. Celestron produce a few different versions of the Nexstar mount, with one for the 4SE (Maksutov) and 5SE (SCT), then the next version is a bigger variant for the 6SE (your scope) and the 8SE. I think it's fair to say the 8SE is potentially slightly undermounted, so you are best off with a C6 on that mount. I'll echo @bosun21 and say that you really don't need to buy anything else. The most important part of this is learning to use what you have and constantly swapping out eyepieces and accessories will distract from the main task of learning to use the telescope and learning to observe. The X-Cel eyepiece will definitely give you good planetary views - but as ever, make sure you've got the telescope aligned with a red-dot (or other finder) during the day first as this will make the initial sky alignment and GOTO functions so much easier and more efficient. The limiting factor here isn't going to be the equipment, it's going to be your skies and skill level.