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Hello again, After a lot of you gave me some good suggestions for what my first scope should be someone had suggested the Skywatcher a heritage 130p. I just wanted to know if anyone has had this scope and would to share your opinion/experience with it. I was looking something portable and under £200 and this seems to fit. But when scopes are usually this cheap sometimes they don’t perform that well. Also I wanted to ask is having a open tube a problem for dew etc. Many Thanks, Ps (here is the original post if you have anymore suggestions) someone had mentioned

Hello there! Been using my telescope without issues for months on end, managed to collimate it once which greatly improved the views (The main mirror central dot was way off). Been away from home for a few months now and just recently got back, so I took my 10" Dob with me to a field and my views weren't good at all. No where near as good as the were a few months back. Mars just looked like a fuzzy orange ball, not sure if it could've been the thin layer of clouds which was causing the terrible seeing, but still a little confused. The telescope hasn't been touched or changed since I last used it and the collimation stills looks good, the main mirror doesn't seem to be off at all. Only thing I noticed is the reflection which I've marked in the picture below seems to be a little too "high" up? It doesn't look completely centered. So, my question is, does this collimation look good? Should the secondary mirror be adjusted to move the reflection I marked "down" a little more? Extremely thankful for any help!

Has anyone tried one of these with a 12" Dob? I'm waiting for Bresser's Messier 12" Dob (which was rumoured to be released around now) and although I've only ever used telescopes manually, I can imagine that in my dotage I might find it frustrating to have object drifting out of the FOV every few seconds(!). These platforms would seem to be the answer and this particular one seems heavy duty enough for the size of my chosen telescope/base. If only it had wheels.... https://www.firstlightoptics.com/equatorial-astronomy-mounts/asterion-ecliptica-pro-tracking-platform-for-dobsonian-telescopes.html

Hi all, This is my first post here so apologies if this isn’t the right topic to post this thread on. I’m a fairly new astronomer and use a Skywatcher 200P Dobsonian Classic, and had great fun with it. I’ve so far been able to get great views of Jupiter, The Moon, the Pleiades and also the Orion Nebula. All have been imaged from a heavily light-polluted location (central Tyne and Wear) but I don’t feel this has impeded viewing significantly. Saturn is currently in the evening sky, but it has been too low to image with the scope. I’ve also tried to find Uranus, the Pinwheel Galaxy and the Andromeda Galaxy, but it is difficult to locate any of these due to the light pollution washing out certain stars I intend to use as waypoints in the sky to locate these objects. Consequently, I’m looking for a sufficiently dark location in or near the North East with an unobstructed view of the West/South-West sky (hopefully to see Saturn before it disappears this month). I know of a few good areas with almost zero light pollution locally, namely Derwent and Kielder reservoirs, although their hilly locales still make it difficult to see objects low in the sky. Does anybody here have suggestions over appropriate locations? I’m happy to travel an hour or more, as long as the roads are safe and I won’t have to carry my huge Dobsonian too far from a parking location! Thanks in advance and all the best, JM.

Hi everyone, I'm new here. Great site! I'm also almost new to this whole thing. I just got my new 12 inch SW dobsonian telescope (upgraded from 6'' SW DOB). I had followed all the steps in setting up the telescope. I hope I've done nothing wrong in setting it up. I've came into a disappointment after trying to view through 25mm because everything came out blurry! Can understand the light is there but blurry. Also did the laser collimation as well but still of no avail. Can someone please help me out? I'm very confused and frustrated. Much appreciated. Thanks in advance for your help!

This weekend my Dad and I got round to making a portable, adjustable table for my Heritage 150p. I thought I'd share how it's made in case anyone might find it useful. I can't take any credit for the planning, but I did get to use a bunch of power tools, and I'm really happy with how it's turned out! I had some old pine bed slats kicking about in the garage, and we used these to make the top, adding 3 indentations for the scope feet. There are pronged T-nuts set into the top, which the legs screw into from underneath. The legs are made from one length of 180cm 2x2, cut into 4 (the finished height is perfect for me at 5'5 to stand and observe). They have a thread to wood thread dowel screw in the top end, and a pronged T-nut in the foot end, into which adjustable height self-levelling feet are screwed, so uneven ground isn't a problem. The whole thing packs down flat for transport, and will fit under the boot floor in my car. As soon as I get a dry day I'll sand and varnish it, to protect it from dew etc. MiladyB x

Hi, there will be plenty written on this but I’d be grateful if anyone could point me in the direction of a well written beginners guide. I am awaiting delivery of a 10 inch Dobs (250p classic) and although will be primarily for visual use I’m interested to see what would be possible astrophotography wise (planetary) using my Celestron Skyris 132C cam. I assume something along the lines of the drift method - I’m not expecting miracles given the set up here but any advice or tips on this would be appreciated to help get started. Clear Skies AD

Hi, I am a beginner and planning to buy my first telescope. After much research I decided to go for an 8 inch Dobsonian and since I am in Germany I chose Skywatcher 8 inch classic which seems to be the favorite. However, Astroshop.de pushed out the delivery date to July and others like Teleskop Spezialisten have refused to take any preorder before he has cleared his backlog. Astro shop has already postponed delivery by two month and there is no guarantee they won’t do it again. They have a earlier delivery date on GSO 8 inch Dob with the deluxe version with 1:10 micro reduction and better EP - 2” 30 mm vs 1.25” 25 mm on SW. The GSO is 50 Eur more expensive but at this point I am beyond caring for EUR 50 to be honest. Finally, they also have an Omegon 8 inch option which Stefan Taube as an expert has commented as the same GSO OTA essentially with a better rockerbox. This unit is available for immediate delivery. https://www.astroshop.eu/telescopes/omegon-dobson-telescope-prodob-n-203-1200-radiant/p,62920 Does anyone have experience with Omegon and GSO and would care to share with me if this is a prudent choice given the circumstances? Are they indeed the same? I do not want to wait a year for the device but also would not want to jump in without checking with you experts. cheers, shiladazz

Just wondering what peoples thoughts are on the pro's and con's of the different types of mounts out there? Do Dobsonian mounts have issues on non-flat surfaces (like a garden) or can Equatorial mounts ever have issues getting out of line too easily?

Hi,currently owned 70mm refractor, want to upgrade and many suggested me to get 6" dobsonian. The only 6" dob i can find in my country is GSO 150mm/1200mm dob (https://www.opticaluniversescientificinstrument.com/products/gso-6-dobsonian-telescope), is this brand and specs ok? My main targets is planet and moon, maybe some star, i wonder is it hard to imaging planets? ill be using ccd eyepiece connected to laptop. I live in malaysia city area, very less likely i will bring the scope to darker area because its pretty far from my home,and the scope quite big, so its dobsonian suitable for minor light population? I heard that that dobsonian can affected by weather and cooling the scope be a big issue? hope expert can give some advice. thanks

Hello everyone! First time poster here, so please go easy! Am looking to purchase my first telescope, so I am a complete beginner and although there are loads of similar posts, all are slightly different and it's quite confusing! Although I did study Astronomy and Astrophysics as part of my first degree (although that mainly concerned the calculation of the speed and mass of galaxies and such like!), but we did have access to the university's telescopes which included their 37" SCT! Link here if you are interested: http://observatory.wp.st-andrews.ac.uk/files/2018/06/JGT_manual.pdf I would therefore consider myself very technically minded and certainly like a challenge. I am always go big or go home and that will certainly apply to me taking up this awesome hobby (although I value your expert advice). I am fascinated with space and spend hours reading science journals and books. So for my first foray into the hobby I would like to get proficient in visual astronomy - no astrophotography at all. But I don't want to start small, I want to start large(ish)! But I don't want to go bigger than necessary considering my sky conditions. So: My skies are bortle 5 - although it's fairly decent to the North, East and South - not as good to the west due to a town; I do have nearby access to Bortle 4 and 3 and my wife's parents live in a Bortle 3, which is a three hour drive away. There is a local club about 5 miles away in Bortle 4/5. However, I will not get into this if I can't spend the majority of my time at my home. So consider 90% of my time will be in my own garden. So I do not need the scope to be particularly easy to transport. I am a fit and relatively strong individual anyway. I am 6'1"; I don't want to limit my viewing to one object or another, although my interest is definitely more on the DSO rather than planets. So my interest probably in this order: Galaxies, nebulae (not so much planetary), globular clusters, planets, sun; I'm not settled on a budget yet....depends if stretching it gets me some tangible benefits.....perhaps £5,000 for scope + mount - or lower!; I'd like a premium quality scope; I know that one scope doesn't do everything and that a good visual scope will not make a good astrophotography scope, but I would like the OTA to be capable of at least getting me into astrophotography at later date (subject to purchasing a relevant mount and other goodies) as I believe that is where I will go (although this scope is purely for visual for the purpose of this post as I may just not use it enough and feel the expense of moving into astrophotography is not worth it); I think that star hopping and the hunt for DSOs will be part of the fun - so not looking for GEM or tracking - unless you feel I will struggle to spot enough stars and not end of finding anything. I have purchased Turn Left at Orion and a variety of other books. So having searched this site I believe what would be best would be a dobsonian. I want stunning views so I was thinking a 12 inch or even 14 inch. But only if I am going to get a tangible benefit considering my Bortle 5 skies (although I may fall in love with the hobby and travel to better sites - my cousin is also into astronomy and has a scope and has suggested the Northumberland dark sky park which is close to him - largest gold rated dark star park in Europe). So I was thinking of the Orion Optics UK CT14 (or the CT12) with a dobsonian mount. This is an f4.6 carbon fibre tube with 1/10 pv mirror. This is a local company (I am based in the UK) and like the idea of using British, rather than SE Asia. https://www.orionoptics.co.uk/our-telescopes/ct-series/ Would this be a great beginner dobsonian? Any draw backs? Any better alternatives? What benefits would a 14 inch have over a 12 inch in Bortle 5? The 14" is considerably more expensive; Could this be used for astrophotography with a suitable mount? The 12 inch weighs 15kg and the 14 inch 29kg - when upgrading to a GEM at a later date for photography, what would be suitable - CEM120 or EQ8 enough? - only want to know if at some point it can start me off in photography - no intention of doing so for 12-36 months; If I don't go dobsonian, what else is out there for visual? I'm impressed with the large SCTs - 11HD edge for example. Would this be too complex to start with? Poor choice for DSO's / photography? Will have loads more queries and can provide any more info I may have missed......just want to make sure I am on the right track and start planning that first scope. Thanks everyone! and great to meet you all! Nic

Want to buy a telescope? I give you 5 good reasons to choose an 8" DOBSONIAN Telescope. Usually the right choice for beginners but also experienced astronomers can benefit from its advantages. That's why i bought this one to join my 12 inch. This is not just a single video but the beginning of a beautiful JOURNEY with this set up which i hope you participate too. Please feel free to leave your comments: do you have already an 8inch DOBSONIAN or would you like to have one? What are your thoughts about it? SHARE. This is a TS Optics (GSO) 8" f/6 DOBSONIAN. Have a nice weekend!

Important improvements you should do to your 8" DOBSONIAN telescope. This is the first wave of upgrades you can do in your Dob to properly prepare it to have much better visual and imaging sessions. A second wave will be needed which includes also the Telrad finder and it will be explained in another video. Have a nice weekend!

Hi all, I'm trying to get back into astronomy (had a Meade DS 2090 Mak when I was 10 but was too young to get into it) and I'm having a very hard time choosing a telescope. My main goal is to observe a bit of everything. Planets and the moon are great and I definitely would want to observe them, but my main focus would be DSO's. That being said, I would also like to have the possibility of doing some basic astrophotography afterwards. Not expecting to do 2 hours of long exposure and getting some insane images, but having a telescope (or rather a mount?) that can track would be nice to get some decent images. Basically, visual observation is a must, AP would be great but only basic, no need to get one JUST for that. I realize that visual observing and AP are 2 very different things, but my question is if it is possible to find something that is mainly used for VO and is somewhat capable (even if it's not great) to do AP with. Furthermore, a push to or goto would be fantastic as well since I'm not too familiar with the night sky. Is it really difficult to find DSOs yourself without reading and learning for hours and hours? My budget would be around 800 euros, that is everything included, telescope, mount, eyepieces etc... (If it's a little bit more than that that's fine as well). After hours of doubt and searching I thought the Orion Skyquest Xt8 Intelliscope would be good (push to) (around 750 euros), however being like most dobsonians, this one wouldn't track. This made me think : Should I rather look for a newtonian reflector with an EQ mount, or just give up my basic AP wish and go for a dobsonian that doesn't track? Some people have suggested to drop AP for now and go for the dob, is there a possibilty to upgrade later to make the dob work for AP, like putting it on an EQ mount, or would I have to buy a new telescope again? Any telescope, mount and added equipment like eyepieces and filter suggestions would be reaaaally appreciated, cause everything just feels overwhelming and I don't know what to look for anymore. Thanks in advance!!

Hi! I really want to get into watching the night sky. After a looking at the scopes that are available in my country, I chose to buy a SW Explorer 200P (haven't yet) and build a homemade dobsonian base. I really like the aesthetics of the Orion Sky-quest dobsonian bases, so I draw a really similar design to fit the SW scope I want to buy. But while drawing it, I had tons of questions and I hope you can help me. First of all, I just could get some aproximate measures of the parts of the scope out of the internet. If any of you has one of these SW reflectors, I would really appreciate if you can take some measurements for me to make the design more precise. Specially I really need the thickness and size of the holes of the rings. About the bearing surfaces, I can't get anywhere the Teflon pads you usually use. What can I use to replace them? Also, what about the radius of the altitude bearings, Is it important? Finally, which should be the height of a dobsonian mount? I don't want to be bent over to be able to see comfortably, nor I want it to be too tall. Is it supposed to be used on a stool or something? I will really appreciate any other tip you can give me. I have never had a telescope, neither have I seen a dob mount. So I can be making a big mistake trying to convert this OTA to use with a dobsonian mount. Anyway thank you very much. Cheers from Argentina Almost forgot to add some pics of the 3D design I made!

I recently purchased an Orion XT10g which will be replacing my Evolution mounted EdgeHD 8 and a 10" Zhummel Dob. This scope will give me the extra aperture that the Zhummel has as well as the tracking and GoTo of the Evolution. I made a few upgrades before I took it out for its first night under the stars... Center spotted the primary with Catseye's Hotspot (already have set of their collimation tools) Installed Protostar FlockBoard along the full length of the tube Replaced the focuser with a Moonlight CR focuser Added a couple Farpoint lifting straps Added Bob's Knobs to the secondary holder. Last night it had its first light. Overall I'm quite happy. Collimation was easy as expected using Catseye's tools. Alignment (two-star) was similarly quite quick and easy. Objects were found easily and well within, if not near the center of my lowest power, widest field eyepiece (17mm Ethos) Skies were clear and transparency was above average. Seeing wasn't the best so I kept to low powers. Very impressed with the optical quality. Using my GSO coma corrector I got near perfect images even at the edge of a 100º field of view. As was the case with my Zhummel Z10, the GSO corrector is plug-and-play. No need to do any adjusting or fiddling. Panning around via the hand controller was very smooth. No backlash noted. Now the only issue that I have is that the azimuth movement, manually that is, is very stiff. Stiff to the point of really not possible without toppling the whole scope over. I've already raised this concern with Orion and they are sending a new base out to me. I'm hopeful that issue will be fixed.

I recently decided to give the SynScan app a try on my new Orion XT10g. Now using the hand controller I was familiar with the "Brightest Star" and "Two-Star" alignments methods, indeed I always use the Two-Star method. With the app however I see that the Two-Star has been replaced with the level north two star. What is that? And since there's no manual for the app, what precisely does level north mean? I'm guessing that you level the OTA and point north but with what precision? Any idea why that replaces the Two-Star method from the hand controller? OK, so fine. I did the Level North alignment. I noticed that as it goes to each of the two stars and stops, while waiting for you to center the star, a couple of the directional buttons are flashing. What's interesting is that the ones flashing are not the ones for the direction that the scope needs to move to center the star. Again, what's up with this? Finally, after aligning and doing a Goto (reasonably accurate), once it arrives at the target again, one of the directional buttons is flashing and there's a message above the object name that says that I'm to center it. Huh? Can someone help me make sense of all this. And, is there a manual for this app ?? Thanks.

The first two photos were taken using my BST StarGuider 3.2mm ED EP. The middle one was using a 25mm MA EP. The last two were taking with a 10mm MA EP. I was just holding the phone to the eyepiece, using the zoom and exposure compensation. I have no control of the ISO with this phone, even using the Open Camera app.

First kit and I feel like I'm starting with the biggest setup I can own. Picked up from astrobuysell.com for £125 including a 40mm and 25mm Celestron E-Lux. Finder scope will be replaced with right angle. It has a Telrad mount (as I found out by accident) and I've alreadyt found cheap one on FB so should have that soon. Next pieces to get will be WA 6mm and 15mm. There's a small mark on the main mirror, but it doesn't seem to affect the view, and at that price I can't complain. The base also needed some attention. Vertical movement is smooth, but horizontal rotation was hindered by the bottom board being slightly bent, and rubbing the corners against the telescope base. I have added some washers between the teflon pads and it's much better. Not buttery-smooth, but I feel like that would make it too sensitive to movement, In the current condition it lets me track Jupiter easily. I guess the real test will be when I get the 6mm piece Collimating laser is also coming to make sure the mirrors are aligned after haling it home for 40 miles. Other than that it doesn't seem like it needs any serious work, so for a 20-30 year old telescope this is amazing.

Hi all I purchased a skywatcher 200p dobsonion from first light optics a few weeks back. During assembly I found that the package containing side handle and the tension control handle is missing. I have contacted the first light optics but they are not sure when and how they are going to make it available for me. Does anyone of you have these to spare??

Hi! I'm Fran Not so long ago I took a picture of the ISS I never thought I was going to be able to get with the equipment I have. After saving for a long time, I was able to buy my first scope, an OTA Skywatcher 200P. I adapted it to be used in a dobsonian base because it was the cheapest way I had to get it to work. One night, I thought it might be cool to try to aim and record with my phone an ISS pass overhead. During the first attempt, I messed up the focus extremely bad but you can't imagine how happy I was to get a white blob in a frame that only I knew was the ISS. The following afternoon I tried again. This time the flyby was almost exactly overhead and the night was crystal clear. So I manually tracked the station looking through the finder scope and recording it with my phone at 1080p 60fps. Without much expectations I downloaded the files into my computer to review them. And was shocked with the results. The video was processed with PIPP, AutoStakkert and RegiStax. If someone told me the image was taken with a phone and manually tracked with a shitty dobsonian base I would not believe him! I got really lucky that night, but I can not be happier with the results. I believe I got to the edge of what I can accomplish with the equipment that I was able to buy. I'm not sure if ext step up should be a real camera or a mount. Anyway, any of them are too expensive 😬 If you want to see the frames before processing (and some nice shots of the moon that night), I'll leave a link to the video where I show them: Thank you so much for reading it all. Cheers, Fran

Hi, I got a skywatcher skyliner 200p dobisonian a few days ago, my first observing session was out in the cold and the telescope dewed up when I bought it back in. I then noticed that the glass on the base of the telescope(not the primary mirror inside) was smudged and had a little ring shaped scratch on it. I tried cleaning with a lense cloth but it is still slightly dcratched and smudged. Does anyone know if this makes a difference to the inside primary mirror?

Hi, I just got a canon eos 600d to take pictures with my skywatcher 200p scope. I am using prime focus with it which seems to work fine despite the problems people face with getting it to focus. I plan to get some great shots of the moon, planets and orion nebula but I was wondering if theres a way I can get shots of dimmer objects in the sky. At the moment i am finding this hard as I am limited to a 1.5 second shutter speed in order to prevent star trails, I am putting the ISO up high to get the most light but I was wondering if there were better ways to go about getting the best pictures without a tracking mount. Thanks.