GrumpiusMaximus

I would be absolutely delighted to see a video of this in action, it's absolutely fantastic.

I honestly can't remember. My 5SE is a slighly older model (around 2013?) and I haven't used a laptop with it for a long while. I've just never seen the need as the built-in catalogue is more than good enough most of the time and entering the information into the keypad only takes a few seconds and I'd rather use the handset as using the laptop ruins my night-time eyesight adaptation. I might use a laptop if I were imaging with it - but you won't find me doing any of that on the NexStar mount and if I were doing planetary I don't really need the tracking precision anyway. Not that I've tried any photography since Spring!

I have a 5SE and it's not a difficult mount to align. It takes practice but the real key is to make sure that everything is absolutely level before you start aligning. I have spent much longer trying to get the tripod level than I ever had trying to get the alignment to work and it's far more difficult! As others have said, make sure you're using a low-power eyepiece for the alignment. Also make sure that you use the two-star auto align and pick two objects that are relatively far apart in the sky or else the accuracy is much poorer. You always have the option to plug it into a computer with the right adapter (RJ12 to serial, then serial to USB) and use something like Stellarium to manage the GOTO if you don't like the handset but I've always found this to be a bit more hassle than it's worth in a temporary setup.

If it's not too far from you, the Norman Lockyer Observatory in Sidmouth are a decent bunch. I'm not at all local but have been a member for a while as I have family that are local (and a member) and they have some nice kit - including a 20" Dobsonian and Norman Lockyer's refractor. Membership is really inexpensive, too. Worth going down when they do an astro-fair if you want to meet people.

I'm an ex-GGSB too. It's a small World, really. I was there from 1999-2004. It still feels like a lifetime ago.

Hello also from Kent. I'm in East Kent but grew up in Gravesend and for the fellow Gravesendians in this thread around Windmill Hill. Where you have absolutely no chance of seeing anything...

Genuinely impressed with their response. Goes to show a bit of courtesy and professionalism goes a very long way indeed - in both directions.

This is absolutely astonishing!

That's just lovely. I'm only a few miles East of Petham so I'll have to give this a go when the conditions permit. Unfortunately I've been incredibly lazy of late!

Those dust lanes in Andromeda are beautifully captured. Personally, I quite like the red too. Amazing that this is from a Bortle 8/9. Really great work and lovely little observatory.

A known known rather than a known unknown, I suppose.

https://www.jwst.nasa.gov/content/webbLaunch/whereIsWebb.html?units=metric Looks like it's the expected behaviour.

Someone has to invent the heated nose sock.

8" Dob is a fantastic starting point. Simple, easy to set up and will give you some great views. You'll find yourself just getting lost scanning around the sky. It's a marvellous feeling.

https://gearscanada.com/collections/heated-clothing Problem solved. And if you're into astrophotography, you'll never have to worry about sensor noise either.

For the first time in ages I had a vaguely clear sky last night down here in Kent. Unfortunately it's been such a busy week at work that I pretty much wasted the evening asleep in an armchair and by the time I went outside again it had clouded over. I don't think we've had any kind of clear night otherwise for at least the last month.

I typed out a whole load of tripe here but then realised I was talking about the 127SLT, not the 6SLT. Whoops. Can't delete the post, either. I'll have another read...

This is spectacular - absolutely spectacular. Unfortunately this now means I have essentially no excuse in my Bortle 5 sky.

The processor and GPU in the Air and Pro is exactly the same, provided you go one step higher than the base-model Air. The base-model has a 7-core GPU and everything else has an 8-core. The only difference between the two machines otherwise is the size of the battery (the Air has a smaller battery) and the fan (the Pro has one, the Air doesn't). The performance difference between the two is only really a thermal difference and the fans on the Pro take a few minutes of intensive use to kick in, e.g. for film rendering. In most cases the Air will be roughly the same as the Pro unless you're doing a lot of very heavy lifting in Photoshop. I'd recommend getting a 16GB of RAM model regardless. Hope that helps!

Good afternoon everybody. A few weeks ago I bought a second-hand Star Adventurer through these forums and I've been itching to get out ever since. Predictably the weather has been shocking and/or I've had to get up early for work but last night was the exception! Now tamper your expectations when you realise that I am a total beginner. I've tried to snap things before but last night was a technical proof-of-concept. Get out the Star Adventurer, set it up with my Canon 1300D, point it at the sky, tether it to one of my old Linux laptops, stack in ASTAP and hope for the best. I didn't go for any particular objects and although I have several long lenses (I seem to get given them or picked them up for peanuts a decade ago), instead I stuck with my trusty Pentax 50mm. Pointed it roughly in the direction of Cassiopeia with 1600 ISO, F5 and 30 second exposure time. 30 sub-frames later (and 21 darks just because) I got this: Thoughts from me. I had a good polar alignment (tested with a 300mm lens and wasn't getting any significant trailing) but my focus is a bit soft. Could do with a Bhatinov mask. Could also do with a sturdier tripod as I'm just using my second-hand Velbon cheapie - although I did get it aligned. There's a Hell of a lot in the sky that isn't naked eye. Even with my good seeing I only really had the bright stars of Cassiopeia and a medley of others. For a total beginner I think this is fine and my next task is to mount my red dot finder to the camera and go DSO hunting! Thank you!

I had great luck with a pair of Swift Newports a little while ago. £17 for a pair of 10x50s and they were in collimation with a wide field of view too. They are out there...

Astonishing detail!

Welcome from a fellow Kent-based noob!

One of the few scopes I actually have a bit of experience with. My Dad bought a Celestron 5SE as his first scope just after he retired. He still has it and I use it when I go to visit him (he tends to do more photography than observing now with his refractor). It's a decently capable scope and there's no reason technically that you won't be able to see the rings of Saturn and good views of Jupiter. In fact, it was the first thing we ever saw through the scope when we were aligning it for the first time (just by chance). The alignment doesn't always 'stick' but it does help if you get the bright stars as close to the centre as possible of the eyepiece (obviously). Don't bother with too much magnification to start with, stick to the 25mm eyepiece and don't be afraid to really adjust the focus as it has a big range of adjustment. Find a few star clusters in it (Pleiades, M13, etc.) and go from there. They're quite big objects that will help you learn the focus and the GoTo accuracy. Make sure your finder scope is well adjusted too. If I remember, these usually come with an inexpensive red-dot. It's fine - but do the alignment of that during the day on a distant chimney pot or tree, etc. The better your alignment with your finder, the easier it will be to align the scope itself. They're nice scopes. Would quite happily use one for general-purpose observing and photography if I had more regular access to it (and the budget to buy one myself). I used my Dad's 5SE to do a Messier Marathon about 5 years ago and we managed well over 90 objects and at no point was the scope the limiting factor.

Personally for me being large, beardy, loud and having wild hair tends to help the situation.