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Hello, i live in delhi,India with bortle 7-8 skies I recently got an astromaster 130eq and wanted to picture jupiter and saturn with it. With jupiter i could see two of its moons with my eyes but wasnt able to capture it and saturn just appears as a regular star. Im new to this so need some help. here are some pics i took at 5am in the morning

I recently bought a Meade Polaris 130mm telescope Newtonian reflector and I am quite disappointed. I know that with a beginner telescope you should have low expectations with planetary and deep sky viewing, is which I did. However, I noticed that even with collimation, good atmospheric conditions, allowing telescope to cool to air temp, appropriate magnification (around 120) , not viewing over rooftop and viewing when Jupiter is high in the sky, I still could not see any of the cloud belts in Jupiter nor the Great Red Spot, which I heard should be visible. I currently live in a bortle class 6 area, but my viewing area is relatively enclosed in my garden so not much excess light can enter. So, my question is whether these eyepieces are of poor quality (and If so, which should I buy), is this telescope not good or if I am just doing something wrong. many thanks, josh

While I was out waiting for the Starlink 7 satellites to pass: I grabbed a couple of videos with my Nikon D3300 DSLR and my 2.5X barlow in my Evostar 72. I know the large sensor of the DSLR and "short" focal length of 1050mm is far from optimal but I'm quite surprised with how the final images came out! I've always wanted to do some planetary imaging but because of a lack of time and to some extend also money I've never really committed. These images have made me reconsider purchasing the ZWO ASI-120MC for my 10" dob or even the Evostar 72ED. Not too bad for a 72mm ED refractor if I should say so!! Advice is of course appreciated! Victor

Some images of Jupiter including a transit by Europa's shadow. 127mm Maksutov, ASI224MC camera, captured with Sharpcap4, processed with Registax6. Because of a mistake with a newer laptop and software, I recorded the videos as thousands of .fits files and had to figure out a way of converting them to something usable (=use PIPP to output an .avi file). The images have turned out much better than I expected - I noted the seeing as "not good". I have had worse results with my 8" SCT which seems to under-perform unless the seeing is really good.

Finally the skies cleared yesterday, and at last a chance to do some observing. It turned out to be a really good session - one of the best I've had for a long time - and I got through a good number of targets in just over 2 hours. I started off with the 4" refractor, hunting galaxies - the Andromeda Galaxy and companions, and M33 in Triangulum. These were really well placed at around 8.30pm, and despite a knackered red dot finder (!) I was able to get a great view of M31 with the 24mm Panoptic eyepiece (giving x20 magnification - ideal for large, diffuse objects like this). M31 showed a bright central core and an extended haze of light which stretched pretty much across the whole field. M32 was clearly visible as a small blob just to the south, and with averted vision M110 also came into view as a faint cloud off to the west. A quick star-hop through Andromeda led me to M33 - much fainter than M31 but certainly visible with averted vision. This gave an impression of being quite large, especially when I jiggled the scope around a bit. After a quick look at Lambda Tauri (to check it off the Moore Winter Marathon list) I had a look at M44, just rising out of the murky eastern horizon. A really lovely object this, one of the best in binoculars for sure - the 4" at x20 gave a great view too. Next, on to the undoubted highlight of the sky at the moment - Jupiter, by now high in the south and fantastically placed for viewing. At this point I rolled out the big guns - the 10" Dob got to work. This was probably the best view of Jupiter I've ever had - at times the seeing was crystal, and the detail on the planet at x171 using a 7mm BGO eyepiece was stunning. Lots of fine detail, especially in the northern hemisphere, with a prominent dark spot on the NEB and a white storm right next to it. Awesome. By this time the Moon was well above the horizon and the sky transparency was deteriorating a bit. So, one last target - M34 in Perseus. Very nice at x20, and some nice colour contrast amongst the group - one yellow / orange star in particular stood out. Overall, a really good session. Let's have some more of that kind of weather please....!

Telrad fitted. Baader zoom has to be used in place of the 1.25" focuser, straight into the 2" focuser. Had a go at collimating first and managed to mess it up. All I could see after pointing at Vega first was a blob of light. Collimated again and was better, but realised it's too far from the secondary mirror. Removed the 1.25" focuser and fitted straight into the 2" one and that's perfect. Need to grease the focuser. Found Double-Double but was unable to split the 2 stars into 4 at 162x. Jupiter at 162x fitted 4 moons in the fov and shows nice banding. Saturn at max zoom a bit fuzzy but still can see the rings very nicely. Forgot to look for Cassini division but probably need Barlow for that. Was still to bright for Andromeda and was getting late so looked at Mizar but haven't seen the second star, I think. Need to check sky maps. (Turns out my zoom was too big and missed Alcor)

Managed to get some clear skies shortly after 10 pm after the weather kept me anxious all day with sunshine, rain, and thunderstorm. Had to align the scope slightly, still needs some tweaking but I can’t get it to turn as it shows on some YouTube videos. Still, managed to put it near Jupiter and then with a bit of scanning with the 25mm piece found It. At first, only saw the bright disk and 3 moons (from left Callisto, Ganymede and Io on the right side of Jupiter). After a moment I was able to make out the fourth moon (Europa) near Jupiter’s shape and could see the colour bands on its surface. Next moved towards the Moon and then I moved the telescope towards the luminosity to focus on it. I wasn’t expecting Moon to make such an impression on me. Spent a while just looking at the Moon and took a short video on my phone, not mounted just trying to alight it to the eyepiece. Still below from the video, crappy quality but I wasn’t preparing for this. Still a memory of my first night with a telescope We were going to finish for the night, but I was still hungry for views. Spotted a bright star near the zenith, turned out later it was Vega.

3rd of July 2017 / 21h30 UTC+01:00 / Stargazing Conditions: 80% After much reading and hyping myself so much, I was pretty stunned by the early notification on my phone that yesterday night could potentially be a good evening with good seeing. So I went home after work (with my phone still showing 80% of potential seeing), sat on my desk and prepared myself. I chose to watch the Moon, since I never really observed it, Jupiter, Saturn and search for the Sombrero Galaxy! Last week I searched for a few good atlases and stumbled unto the Interstellarum Deep Sky Atlas. A promising atlas which should arrive this week, but still would let me be without a field atlas, since it is a desk edition... After cramming in the forums I mainly found three downloadable recommendations: 1) The Deep-Sky Atlas 2) Deep-Sky Hunter Atlas 3) TriAtlas I downloaded all of them and browsed through them, noticing that only the Deep-Sky Hunter Atlas exists in a field edition. I printed the normal Version on A3 paper to look if it fits the need and, hell yeah, I really like it so far!! Only downside (for me) at the moment, is that the constellations are in black lines in contrary to the Deep-Sky Atlas. So I think I'll print both of them, laminate them and take them with me on my sessions. (I will have to inverse the colors on the Deep-Sky Atlas though) To round everything up, I figured that I'll need a software too, to plan my sessions a little better and just give me the right impressions on where I will have to search in the sky. A while back I downloaded Stellarum, which seemed to be a great free app, but it simply kept crashing on my laptop... Searching for alternatives I found SkySafari 5 and Starry Night 7. Given the prices of Starry Night 7 and the fact that it isn't to be found on the AppStore, I went ahead and downloaded SkySafari 5 Pro. It is a beautifully simple app which does the job just fine and gives me the needed input to satisfy my thirst for knowledge (at least for now). At this point, I was wondering if someone knows if Starry Night 7 was up-gradable? So let's say I buy the Enthusiast Edition and wanted to up-grade to the Pro or even Pro-Plus version one day. Do I have to buy the App entirely new or does it give the opportunity to up-grade for a few bucks to the next edition? Enough rambling an off to my stargazing site! I arrived well early before sunset, which gave me the opportunity to once check again, if my finderscope was well aligned with the 'scope. It also gave me the chance to let my 'scope acclimatize the same way as last time and so I sat back and waited a little until the moon gained a little on contrast as the sun was setting. The Moon The Moon, being a waxing gibbous, shone bright in the slightly dark blue night sky with literally NO clouds in the sky. I put my 15mm BTS eyepiece in and looked at the beautiful moonscape. It is defiantly the first time I've seen the Moon so up-close and I was in awe by it. I never imagined that it could be so nice to look at all these craters and I began to wonder where they all came from. It is simply a battlefield of craters and each and everyone has its own story to tell... after a good 30 minutes of switching between the 8mm and 15mm eyepiece and lots of "ohs" and "wows", I figured I could try and photograph the Moon with my phone through the eyepiece... what seemed to be a really stupid idea at first turned out to be a really great shot (I think?)! (very little photoshop-magic to increase contrast and sharpness) Jupiter Next on that nights list was Jupiter. I remembered the image last time I looked at it and I was thrilled to already clearly identify Europa from Io through the finderscope. I managed to see Callisto, Ganymede, Europa and Io. I think that Jupiter itself was a little less contrasty as last time BUT I think I could make out the Red Spot which really made me happy! I was so thrilled by the view I even can't write down how I felt... I switched from 15mm to the 8mm eyepiece and focused in... I kept focusing and focusing and focusing but nothing happened... As I looked up in the sky I was shocked... the beautiful cloudless sky had turned into a thick carpet of Cumulus Cumulonimbus... I immediately looked at the horizon on my right to see if there was a slight possibility of clear sky but the enemy had invaded the sky... To make matters even worse at that moment, I met my locations' neighbor, which is no other company then Arcelor Mittal... The sky with the clouds lit up in a bright orange from the molten metal... At that moment I knew it was over for that night... Thanks for reading Abe

21 of June 2017 / 22h30 UTC+01:00 / Stargazing Conditions: 88% So, I crammed all of my new acquired stuff together and went to the darkest place I could find near my town. It's a mere 5 minute drive from my home. As I set everything up, I tried to wait for 20-30 minutes to give the 'scope a chance to acclimatize but I really couldn't! Jupiter I looked west south west to find Jupiter, pointed my finderscope at it and I was amazed by how clear the image from the 'scope was!! I had a 5 minute stare through my 25mm BST eyepiece where I could distinctly see the two belts, the north and south equatorial belt. As clearly as the belts were also three of its moons were, namely Callisto, Europa and Io, although Europa was quite close to Jupiter. The color was also great and the view, simply mesmerizing! I then switched to the 15mm BST eyepiece. First I was a little, let's say disappointed, but not that strong, by the magnification, and immediatly switched to the 8mm BST. To my surprise I wasn't convinced by the view either... So I decided to get back to the 25mm and calm down and enjoy the view as I clearly was getting hasty. As I started over, I remembered some words from a friend of mine who told me that watching the stars often comes down to 50% of actually seeing the stars and 50% imagination and concentration. So I tried the 15mm a second time and... I was hooked. I could now clearly see eight different colors and belts! I'm not quite sure what it was I saw, except the north and south equatorial belt, but I will have a look at some Jupiter maps and educate myself about the planet's surface. This will help in better understanding and watching next time, the case given that the seeing is as clear as it was that night. With the 15mm eyepiece Europa was now very distinct from Jupiter. I couldn't manage to get more detail out of the 8mm eyepiece, everything just got a tad bigger and a little fainter if my impressions were right. After good half an hour of watching the delightful planet and its moons I sat down and searched for Saturn, which was south not very high above the horizon. Saturn I switched back to the 25mm eyepiece, pointed my viewfinder at Saturn and peaked through the eyepiece. What a marvel! I clearly could see some colors on the surface and easily distinct the ring from the planet itself. As I switched over to the 15mm eyepiece, the separations on the planet's surface became a tad clearer and the ring/planet separation obviously bigger. I encountered the same problem as before of not knowing what I was looking at, which bothered me a little. I have to do a little homework here and get myself started with some fancy vocabulary. Milky Way All in all it was a marvelous first light experience and I clearly have to learn the stuff I'm looking at, but I think that's just me and my endless thirst for knowing things. I randomly gazed through the skies at the end, beeing absolutely overwhelmed by everything I saw. Furthermore, I simply was flabbergasted when I ran across the milky way in the north east... There were so many stars I couldn't see with my bare eye, but only with the 'scope (which made aiming with the finderscope a nightmare... How do you guys do that really?!). I'm glad I acquired the Skywatcher Skyliner 200P with the eyepieces. It is one of the best things I got myself and I think I will have a lot of fun with it and furthermore learn so many new things. Thanks for reading, Abe

Just an example of a typical quick observing session for me, trying to fit it in around 'life'! I have a baby due in a couple of weeks so we are manically preparing the house and nursery for the arrival. I set the TV76 and PST up in the garden early on Sunday morning, and during rests from painting skirting boards had some lovely white light and Ha views. My mini giro rig is working very well now, more compact with the shorter CW bar and L bracket. During breaks from assembling a flat pack IKEA wardrobe (AAAARRRRGGGGGHHHH), I realised there was a double shadow transit on Jupiter last night so thought I would chance my arm at a little evening session too. I popped the PST and Herschel wedge away, put the longer CW bar on and away we went. It's amazing the detail visible with such a small scope. Earlier on GRS was clearly visible, with nice detail around where it nestles into the belt, whilst the Ganymede shadow transit was stunningly clear, really jet black. Nice details in the other belt too in moments of good seeing. I tried a variety of EPs, and settled in the 3.7 Ethos earlier on (x137) when the seeing was better. Later on the 4 mm radian gave sharper views at x120. I watched the double shadow transit at its mid point, Io's shadow smaller and less obvious but still very clear. That's a first for me I think. My last view was as Ganymede's shadow was about to exit the disk, but the seeing had dropped off by then. Packed away very quickly and off to bed. It's great to be able to view these events with minimum hassle. I know the detail is not what you would get in a larger scope, but if the choice is that or nothing, I'll take the small scope option every time. Cheers, Stu