McQ

I have the Orion Mak90 and I keep the sbony 22mm aspheric in it, a 25mm plossl is also fine. The Celestron Xcel is significantly better than the plossls. Mine does not do well at high magnification, probably need a sturdier mount.

As a former 10-year-old that insisted on having a Newtonian because aperture is king, bang for the buck, etc., I now know I would have been happier with a refractor in the 102mm or larger category. However, I didn't have anyone to help guide me, no internet, and not even telescope books in our local libraries. Decades hence, I have a 90mm Mak, an XT6, and Starhopper8, guess which one goes outside more often ... the 90mm. I'm thinking of selling it and the XT6 and buying either a larger Mak or a refractor. Dobs are nice for a planned viewing evening or event but when I notice it's clear and Mars is burning orange in the sky (like tonight) it's the 90 I grab. I can have it set up and viewing and back in the house before the Dob cooled down.

2X barlow won't work on my 76mm either, not on space, it works on terrestrial. I have a Russell 19mm that won't work in the 76 at all. Not that it matters, I'll probably sell the 76mm in a few weeks.

I should keep my mouth shut because I'm not a physicist but I suspect dark matter is a math error, not real. This video popped up in my feed the other day which I find interesting.

There might be life all over the universe but I suspect most or all of it (excluding us) is unicellular. The jump to multicellular on Earth was never a given and if it hadn't been for the ancestor of mitochondria becoming cozy with our ancestor, none of us would be here. The last 1.5 billion years of animal evolution was only possible because one eukaryote ate another eukaryote and didn't digest it.

I had one of those wiggly Meade refractors, and I wouldn't recommend them to anyone. By the time you find your target, you see it for a few seconds, try to move the scope and the wibbly wobbly tripod sends you way off course and then you spend several minutes hunting it again. Also had a wiggly 3.5" reflector on a tripod, same thing. I tried everything to fix the tripods but they are junk. There are only a few scopes at any price point below about $800 worth owning and almost all of them are Dobs or baby Dobs for good reason.

I own the 25, 7, 5 mm, and 2x barlow Xcel eyepieces and like them very much although I don't have anything better to compare against. Compared to 25mm Orion/Celestron/etc Chinese plossls, the Xcel is much more comfortable and easy to use with better contrast and wider fov of course. The 7mm vs a 7mm TMB II = Xcel has a wider fov but otherwise they are more similar than I would have expected. The Xcel has a slight edge but both are good on planets. I haven't been able to use the 5mm yet.

Technically 14, if you include the cheap ones that came with scopes or I bought out of curiosity. 32mm plossl <--- Will upgrade this to something better in a 2" 25mm plossl x3 <--- I keep getting them with used scopes 25mm Xcel, 19mm Russell Konig, 7mm TMB II, 7mm Xcel, 5mm Xcel <--- These are my main lenses 23 & 10mm aspherics <--- I was curious) 9mm Meade MA (?) I don't like it and put it in the focuser as a cover. 20 & 10 mm Celestron somethings that came with a cheap scope.

Telescopes skyrocketed in price during the pandemic. If the telescope has a long focal length like 1000mm but looks short (like the 127mm), don't buy it. Within your budget I would look for a tabletop dobsonian 114mm-150mm, or a used 6" (150mm) or larger Dobsonian. Refractors are fine but inexpensive ones come on shaky tripods or cheap EQ mounts. I've seen some good reviews of the Celestron 102mm refractor. Amazon is fine if you pay attention to what you are buying, compare prices as resellers sometimes slap ridiculously high prices on things. Very few companies build telescopes, they are mostly resellers so if 2 scopes look alike, they are probably the same. All the new telescopes in your price range will be Chinese with a Celestron, Orion, Carson, Bushnell, whatever label.

I asked about the type of light outside my house and city doesn't know, a very nice woman said it's not on the bill and told me how to find out. So then I asked for shielding, we'll see how that goes. The lights are nice for discouraging trouble makers but they spray light every direction. Photo, 11pm.

According to maps I'm Bortle 6 but you can read a newspaper in my front yard at night because of the streetlights. I'm sure the B scale is fine, but the maps can't account for every individual locality.

Born in the age of the moon landings, I had a foldout children's book of the solar system with each planet and their satellites. I could name all 12 of Jupiter's moons and knew the relevant trivia about each planet. When other kids were building toy cars, I was building toy telescopes. They traded baseball cards while I studied Edmund Scientific and read Popular Science. My first real telescope was a Sears 200X !! reflector that made the moon look magical but the shaky tripod and bad lenses made everything else look disappointing. Then life happened and all that went away until the pandemic when I bought a telescope and began to recapture the magic.

13 days from order to delivery, aliexpress. Weather is supposed to be good for observing tonight so I'll get to try it against the 25mm plossl that came with the scope. If I like it, I'll order other sizes.

PBS Spacetime (I thought my humor was dry), Sabine Hossenfelder, Space Official (launches), Astrum, The Science Asylum (his personality is a lot, but no one explains complex ideas better), Huygens Optics Ed Ting, Eyes on the Sky, Learntostargaze, Catching Photons, Dakota Starry Nights, Reflactor, Astrobiscuit (just for fun).

I recently collimated because it was a little out but haven't had an opportunity to view anything at higher power. Hopefully it's better. Also, that was from home and not a dark site.