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This is my first ever observing report but it’s something I want to do a bit more of. I’ve had plenty of eyepiece time on Jupiter, Saturn and Mars over the years, but I’ve never been certain that I’ve actually seen Uranus yet. I was hoping to use the occultation with the Moon last night to finally lay my eyes on it but complete cloud cover here in Northumberland scuppered those plans. Early evening tonight came with crystal clear skies so I thought I would give it go, hoping that the Moon would still be close enough to use as a guide. After checking Stellaruim, at about 17:00, I got set up in the back garden under perfect Bortle 4 skies with my Skywatcher 707AZ, a 25mm eyepiece, and my Adasion 12x42 binos. Stellarium showed me that Uranus would be about the same distance on the West of the Moon as Mars is to the East. Should be an easy find I thought. I used the binos to have a quick look at Mars to try to get an idea of how far across the sky I need to look from the Moon. I was briefly distracted by the Pleiades, which look amazing through these binos. I couldn’t really get a fix on where I thought Uranus should be so I went back to Stellarium to get an idea of what it should look like through my scope - see attached. Starting at the Moon and working West, I stumbled on the bright blue star to the bottom of this image first and thought it might be my target. Luckily, the little triangle of stars in the image were visible in my scope and pointed me straight to Uranus. It didn’t really look like a disc through this 25mm lens so I added a Barlow Lens to see if I could get in closer. Unfortunately my tripod is not the most stable of fixings and that level of zoom combined with my heavy-handed tuning of the elevation and azimuth made it impossible to settle, so I went back to the 25mm and enjoyed the view for a while. Although the disc was difficult to differentiate from the background stars, it was easy to make out the expected blue-ish colour of the planet and the little right-angled triangle of stars in the Stellarium image were obvious through my scope and gave me the confidence to say that finally, I have seen Uranus.

A local scout group got in touch with our astro society and asked us to help them with getting their astronomy badge, so John (a fellow astro council member) and I arranged an evening session this Thursday (27th Jan), at a local fishery car park, about seven miles from the city. Not exactly a dark sky site, but at least away from the city lights enough to see the constellations properly. They'd tried to see the constellations from their scout hut but the light pollution was terrible. [ I took my 10” dob, and tried to get them to arrive for 6pm as Jupiter was still in the sky, but most turned up at 6.45, after having their tea etc. The few that did turn up early got to see the planet and all four observable moons, before the planet disappeared behind a hedge. At such low altitude, only one cloud belt could be seen, and the disc wasn't sharply defined. To earn their astronomy badge, they needed to see three objects in the night sky. So we thought a nebula, a galaxy and a star cluster would be perfect. So our first stop was M42, and I checked that every scout could see the nebula, and all four stars of the trapezium clearly. I was quite pleased with the view we got, (I do most of my observing from a rural campsite so I’m used to observing under much darker skies). I could see a blue hue to the nebula, very obvious shape and ‘buffeting’ (for want of a better word) as it extended southwards in the eyepiece. I used a 38mm eyepiece for all these observations by the way. On sessions like this, you don’t have time to do hardcore observing, where you can take your time to get your eyes relaxed, and tease every last bit of detail out of your subject with long viewings. I only ever seem to find new objects when I’m on my own, and can study my maps (in peace, basically! Insert smiley here). No, this is a different kind of observing session. Next was M31, and it was a very useful object to see, because we could use it to explain how the elongated fuzz was a cloud of millions of stars two and a half million light years away. As a test of the seeing, I looked for M110, and yes, it was there. This galaxy can be quite tricky anywhere near the city, so I was pleased to see it. It’s not really dim (my book puts it at mag 8.1), but any nearby streetlights can erase it from the sky. My primary mirror needs a clean too I’m ashamed to admit, so M110 was a welcome sight. I didn’t ask the scouts to look at it as I’m sure most would find it underwhelming. I was going to show the M35 for the star cluster, but John suggested the Double Cluster in Perseus, which was a good idea. Both cluster jest about fit in the field of view. Some of the parents also looked at it, and the scout leader enjoyed the views too. He had more than a layman’s basic knowledge of astronomy, and told me later that he was interested in all sciences. I think this particular scout group are probably lucky to have this guy in charge. He made sure they were all wrapped up well and had thermos flasks of hot chocolate. We showed them the constellations, Ursa Major, Taurus, Orion, Gemini, Canis Major and Minor and told them about the hunting dogs etc. While people were talking and milling about I took in some extra deep sky objects, and did the ‘Auriga line’ of open clusters from M35 to M38, and showed them Alcor as an example of a double star. At one point, a bright meteorite streaked towards Orion’s belt, and left a dust trail. Most saw that as we were looking at Orion at the time, so that was a bonus. The clouds drifted in around 8pm, but that was okay, they’d seen their objects and the scout leader told them they’d all get their badges soon. Later, I thought how it was unfortunate that the ‘wow’ objects weren’t in the sky, as Saturn’s rings, Jupiter’s moons and the craters of the Moon are the things that can really enthuse youngsters new to astronomy. But they enjoyed what they saw, and hopefully it will have encouraged some of them to dig a little deeper into this fascinating hobby.

The summer equinox has passed and people are looking forward to Star Parties. I have never been to one, don't know what to expect, have never met the participants. As a solitary observer tucked away in my small North West garden I have been happy to gaze the night skies alone (Mrs Polar Bear often pops out for high mag views of the Moon and Planets) but otherwise I enjoy my own company and get along very well with myself. So I have taken the plunge and committed to attend CSP9 oop North in Cumbria. Watching the CSP9 thread develop I noticed comforting words such as friendly, whisky, bacon butties, and with a host called delilahtwinkle what could go wrong? Being a tent snob, and loving Glamping my 'usual' nights out are spent in a Cabanon that is the size of a Jovian Moon and takes 2 people an hour to set up. Not ideal, so ebay to the rescue and luckily a smaller Cabanon (think Europa vs Ganymede comparison) was found just up the road from me. Sleeping will be the usual twin air bed and duvets, a single burner will suffice for snacks, unsure as to whether to take the BBQ and the fold away hanging wardrobes ! So camping equipment sorted, onto the scope. Easy decision as I only own one (this week) so the C8 will be coming. Do you put the scopes away each day? unsure, so I found a new moped cover on the local car boot for £3.00 that will do the trick of protecting it. Red light etiquette is an unknown to me, I always observe at home amongst the fairy lights strewn around the garden. As a smoker I worry about lighters, do they affect dark adapted vision? Can I open my car door or do I need to shield the interior lights if I do? So much to learn regarding Star Party etiquette. I am really looking forward to it, and to meeting up with like minded individuals (whisky drinkers) :wink:

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....!

Not much chance of any actual observing in the coming days, so instead I've been thinking of targets to look for when the weather finally improves. I was browsing around on SkySafari on the iPad and noticed that there's a globular cluster in Cygnus - M56. I realised I'd never seen it, and I sort of wondered how I'd missed the fact that there's a glob so well-placed at this time of year. So, that's top of the list. I'm also keen to have a go at M33 through my 4" refractor - I've only ever seen it in binoculars before, and a few months ago I failed miserably to see it at all in my 10" Dob at 50x. I suspect it's just too large and diffuse to show up against the skyglow with that setup, so I'm wondering if the 4" at 20x will be a better bet. There are a few others I'm keen to see, mainly drawn from the Moore Winter Marathon which I'm about halfway through at the moment. Hopefully I'll be able to report some success at some point soon...

As the poor weather and short nights are limiting my observing projects, I have been busy finishing a heavy duty aluminium and stainless steel parallelogram mount for my large 100mm APM binoculars. Here is a summary description of its build: http://refreshingvie...rammount.htm�.� It has been derived from a wooden version that I built last summer. I plan to give away the wooden model to a fellow SPOG astronomer who wants to do some bino observing while his camera is capturing photons on the scope. The parallelogram mount is an extremely comfortable to observe the night sky – the eyepieces really do seem to float in front of your eyes. If you are observing at the zenith, simply push the binos higher or if you are looking at the horizon, simply lower them down. This really does make a refreshing change from my Newtonian where the eyepiece remains where it wants to and I have to crick my neck down to meet it!! I have yet to use it for serious astronomy as the awful weather and long summer days are getting in the way. That being said, I have managed a few sessions at dusk scanning the brighter stars against a blue sky before it gets properly dark. To put the mount through its paces, I have had great fun tracking numerous airliners and high flying birds. The mount moves with ease across the sky with wonderfully smooth and controlled motions in pan and tilt at all altitudes. It is quite something to see high altitude airliners in detail from the ground as they slowly cross the sky! This mount is clearly going to be a pleasure to use once the observing season starts up again. This setup is definitely a keeper and will be used my observatory and under the dark skies of Salisbury Plain.

I just recently got 15x70 Celestron Skymaster binoculars, and finally got a nice clear sky. I'm in bortle zone 4. I looked up online how to find certain messier objects, and looked for them, but i couldn't find them. (btw, i do have a tripod, and i used that most of the time) Why couldn't I find ANY messier objects?? I was certain i would be able to find some.... Any tips?

I saw another post similar to this on here and the replies seemed to be very believable and informative so I thought I’d ask here. For the past week or so I have been sitting outside at night between 10pm and 12pm and just watching the stars come out. I haven’t been using my telescope because I didn’t feel like I would need it. The skies have been very clear and the stars beautiful but I’ve been noticing some strange happenings in the sky. I’m not saying ufos I’m just wondering what these may be, so let me explain further. First my mother and I witnessed a singular light, white light flying through the sky. There were no navigation lights or sounds. Just a singular light flying by, we ruled out airplanes because it was two low to be one but was also way too fast to be a helicopter. I’ve seen them twice and they always seem incredibly high up and barely distinguishable from stars. They aren’t shooting stars because they fly completely differently. Another thing I have noticed are flashes, like stars that get bigger and then suddenly disappear, like a flash. And I mean completely disappear! Now I’m sure I’ve read of these things before in one of my astronomy books but I’m honestly not sure what they could be. They fly and react different to any aircraft or stars so I’m intrigued. They also appear as if they are stars and look like they fly or flash right next to real stars. Now I feel like I need to note that I know a lot about astronomy it has amazed me since childhood and I am a skeptic. My family has a long history of being in the airforce, mostly as engineers and creators of new technology so when it comes to lights in the sky we usually have a good answer, but no one could explain these sightings. I also live near an airfield so I don’t understand why (if these aircraft were from there) were flying so incredibly high up, so fast and so far away from the airfield, they seemed to come out of the night and fly off and back into the dark. It was also completely clear nights with little clouds during these sightings. I’m asking here because I believe anyone who reads this will have a good answer for me and won’t immediately ridicule me for thinking I saw a UFO. Please let me know if there’s anything you think this could be or any questions you have! Thank you so much for reading and happy stargazing!

I have been waiting for this telescope for almost five months. Since May, 19th, to be precise. The day I went to the TS Italia store and saw for the first time the SLD model, model now discontinued. I even missed the last available piece just for a few days, once I finally placed my order, June, 25th. It was to be replaced by a newer model, available at the end of the Summer. Boy, am I glad I did miss it. The wait was definitely worth it. The new and improved model is simply beautiful. I fell in love with it as soon as I saw it on the Tecnosky website a few weeks ago, when they posted the product sheet. But in person, it's even more beautiful. So, the people from the store emailed me Friday, October the 2nd, telling me that it was finally available for pickup. I read the message only a whole hour later and it was soon going to be closing time. I started calling at 4:30 PM and I finally managed to get my phone call through at around 5:05 PM. The store closes at 6:00 PM and doesn't reopen until Monday. And it's 40 minutes away from where I live. I made it there in 35. There was no way I was going to have to wait till Monday, knowing my scope was only a few minutes away. So, here's the pre-unboxing picture: - top left, brown box, behind: Vixen clamp for guide-scope - top right, white box: 60mm f/4 guide-scope - top left, white boxes: T2 Nikon ring, 30mm spacer, adjustable spacer - center, behind white boxes: Optolong L-Pro 2" filter - right of filter: spacers mounted and already calibrated for 55mm backfocus, for eventual use of the ZWO ASI 224MC camera with the refractor - top right, Bahtinov mask - underneath the white boxes, top left: Losmandy bar to attach telescope to my NEQ6 Losmandy saddle - big box underneath all of the above: Tecnosky 80mm f/6 FPL-53 OWL Triplet, with carrying case and 0.8x 4 elements flattener/reducer - ZWO black case: ZWO ASI 224MC guide-camera / planetary camera - front left: Talisker 57° North and two glasses (don't mind the shape of the glasses, they are the closest to Whisky suitable glasses that I currently own...) ready for me and my wife to celebrate the end of the wait - front right: box for the aforementioned Whisky I actually waited for yesterday (Saturday, the 3rd) for the unboxing, because I wanted my best friend Omar to be present and help me with filming and taking pictures. We have been friends since we went to kindergarten and we always have had astronomy as a common interest. It just so happens, to my immense surprise, that my telescope is actually SN. 0001, so I own the first telescope ever produced of this new series. The certificate is also very promising, with a Strehl ratio of 0.974 and a Ronchi test that seems very well behaved. I like a little less the red edges on the lenses, but I guess only time and a proper visual - and astrophotographic - session will be able to tell. Obviously the "new equipment curse" didn't help, but we got almost a whole hour with clear sky patches and obviously I couldn't pass up the opportunity. I quickly setup with the bare minimum necessities for a visual observation and me, my wife and my best friend Omar - who helped with the staging, recording and directing of the unboxing event - took a quick look at the Moon, Saturn, Mars, M31 and Perseus Double Cluster. I can definitely understand now, even if the seeing wasn't perfect, and my eyepieces didn't offer enough magnification (25mm and 10mm give me 80x and 200x, with my C8, but with a native focal length of 480mm, even with a Barlow 2x, we could only achieve about 38x and 96x, respectively), what people mean when they say that an apochromatic refractor brings out the objects from the background sky. The contrast was stunning, the stars were absolute points, pinpoint, small and sharp (with my C8 they always have kind of a "blob" feeling), the contrast on the Moon was fantastic and I could see many details, despite it being almost full, and only at 48-96x. I think it passed the visual test with honors. I was also very happy to be able to see the Double Cluster all in the same field of view for the first time. Saturn was well defined, could clearly make out the rings - don't recall, in all the excitement, rush and cycling between me, my wife and my friend, if I saw the Cassini division, but I'll definitely try again next clear sky night. Mars was also beautiful, could clearly see its rusty red color, the polar cap and some darker, black features on the surface. I really can say it's a beautiful telescope, very well made and machined. The attention to details is really of another level, the paint finish is very nice and matte. Also very lovely all the different red and black anodized surfaces, they really give it a nice finish and personality. The focuser is also the best I have ever had on a telescope. Very smooth, precise, with no backlash. Coming from a C8 where every touch of the focuser throws off the image all over the place and the backlash is quite significant, I really appreciated how easy it was to fine tune focusing with a proper focuser, especially with the 10:1 focusing knob. I can't wait to be able to take the first pictures of some star field, to check if even photographically the telescope lives up to my expectations. I hope to get pinpoint stars corner to corner and that the backfocus won't be something too hard to make perfect. Here's some accessories. Optolong L-Pro 2" filter, Bahtinov mask, Losmandy dovetail to replace the Vixen one the telescope comes with, Nikon T2 ring and spacers to use the ASI 224MC with the correct backfocus directly on the telescope, instead of a guide-camera. Here's the 60mm f/4 guide-scome, with Vixen clamp. And the ZWO ASI 224MC guide-camera. Here's the mandatory celebration beer, at Corte dell'Orso (the Bear's Courtyard). It's a Belgian sour beer, lambic style. Oudbeitje by Hanssens Artisanaal, with added strawberries. A very nice beer, sour, tart and fruity. Could definitely taste the strawberries. Cheers! Here's a couple of pictures of the full setup, with everything mounted on my Sky-Watcher NEQ6 Pro. The setup is in its astrophotographic configuration: mount, telescope, guide-scope, guide-camera, filter, flattener/reducer and at the end the Nikon D5300 astromodified. All controlled by Astroberry on my Raspberry Pi 4 4GB, conveniently mounted on a bar across the two telescope rings. And finally a close up of the rig.

Hi everyone, I really want to get out and do some observing- it's been a long summer! Does anyone know of anywhere near Glasgow that you can get to by public transport that's ok for observing. I'm not looking for super dark skies- I just want to do something. I don't drive so mugdock, campsies etc are out of the question. Kelvingrove has been ruined by that glasglow event every winter. Thanks for any help!

Hi all I’m just looking for advice on upgrading telescop. At the minute I’ve got a Meade ETX 125 and had some good views with it so far. Mainly Moon Planets and brighter clusters. However I wanted to see more Galaxies and nebulas which is a much to ask for a F15 scope. im looking at second hand Celestron/Meade 9.25” f10 s With maybe a focal reducer and Sky-Watcher 10”-12” F4.9 dobsonians which is the better choice?

I wonder if observing star or planet in equator country is different from north hemisphere or south?

Hello! I am looking for variable star databse using which I can practice star light curves in spreadsheet programs. I am doing this as my statistics project where I can do visualization, little bit of error reduction etc. I did see a few ones like AAVSO, but they either need some specific job title or specific star etc. I need something to have in general, like here is the data-choose what star option you want etc. Thanks!

Hello! I have been really inactive here, so apologies. Here are a few images of the Solar Eclipse, happened on 21 June 2020. It was annular, but partial from Mumbai region (around 60% covered). Maximum phase of the eclipse was at around 11:30 a.m. IST. This is actually onset of our 4-5 months of monsoon season, so getting decent skies was a tough part. Luckily got decent cleared patches here and there with occasional rains. I had to use whatever I had to make a comfortable view of the eclipse, thanks to the lockdown. I simply took a box, made a whole of the size of the eyepiece on one end, cut the opposite side and attached a paper. I had to do little bit here and there attachments for perfect angle. But was really happy with the results. One of the best experience was when I was seeing the Sun while it was drizzling at the same time. Thanks! -Rhushikesh Deshpande.

Hello, Unfortunately, I will be moving from my Bortle class 3/4 skies overlooking the Cotswolds, to somewhere with class 6 skies 😫 Does anybody with any local knowledge around the Stotfold area have any observation site suggestions? Away from any local light pollution at least. It would seem driving east maybe productive according to https://www.lightpollutionmap.info Thanks Mike

Hello, I've been into astronomy since I was young and more recently astrophotography. I've just (finally) got my new telescope, a Celestron AVX 9.25" Edge HD with various accessories including a reducer lens. I'm still trying to get the auto guider up and running as that's being a pain and need to get a dew heater for the telescope (currently lookjng for a decent one). I'm also looking into what filters to get as well as that's still fairly new to me, at least for the astrophotography side. I'm also very much into microscopy and looking at microphotography, I'm currently saving up to get a new microscope. I've also got a facebook group where I share astronomy and science news, where members can share astronomy and science news or their own astro or science images, discuss things, etc. https://www.facebook.com/groups/2494142714158646/?ref=share Anyway, hello to all from Cambridge, UK :-) Adz

Hi everyone! I hope you are all doing well! I just wanted to ask if anyone had any ideas for projects to do, as the sky is clearing up and i wanted to make the most of it. Anything, maybe finding or tracking a certain celestial object or mapping the moon! I'll leave it up to you!😊

Hi, I got a skywatcher classic 200p just before xmas and I havnt done much planet viewing due to not having more than a 10mm eyepiece for magnification. I recently got a 2x barlow lens and tried viewing last night with a barlow and 10mm lens and it came out very blurry and I couldn't see any detail and it still seemed quite small. I was viewing on a close night when there was a break in the clouds so may have not been the best conditions. Any tips for how much magnification I need and how to see it better. Thanks.

Hello everyone! I hope you are all doing well! I recently joined this forum for the express purpose of answering this question: Why does Mars look like a simple star through my telescope? I have a Starsense Explorer LT 80AZ refractor with a 10mm, 25mm and 2x Barlow lens, and my telescope has a max magnification of 189x! So why is it, on a pretty clear winters night, that the mighty Mars, the Red Planet , looks like a humble star. I love stars (who the hell doesn't) but i rather hoped to see a planet. What am i doing wrong? AM i doing something wrong or is my telescope inadequate (i doubt it though). I use the 10mm plus the Barlow, and still nothing. Is this just how Mars looks through a telescope like mine? Or maybe i'm not looking at Mars at all. Although, according to my research, the Red Planet currently resides in the constellation of Aries. Correct? Please. please answer my question as it is driving me up the wall. Plus, if anyone has the time, could someone recommend a good astronomy app, other than the starsense one, that you can just point at the sky? Thank you so much for reading this. Have a lovely day.

lets imagine I wasn't to see a nice DSO about 15' size and I think it should look good nicely framed with a 1 deg field of view in the EP.. Which would give the better (or higher probability of seeing anything at all ) view from a semi urban light polluted home site (e.g Bortle 6)? a) an 100mm f/6 refractor (fl 600mm) and a 10mm EP (60 deg afov, gain 60x = fov pf 1 deg) (and exit pupil of 100mm / 60 = 1.6mm) or b) a 200mm SCT with focal reducer to give f/6 (fl 1200mm) and a 20mm EP (60 deg afov, gain 60x = fov of 1 deg) (and exit pupil of 200 / 60 = 3.3mm) My gut feeling is that the SCT should give a better view just based upon its 2xaperture - but Im not sure I understand fully the maths why. Is the larger exit pupil going to result in a better / brighter / more successful view? Or will the view be 'roughly' the same ? Or have I got it all wrong..... Thanks.

Hello to all! Just posting some of the images I took recently! (Total first attempt from someone who can't even hold a camera properly) I was out to conduct a public overnight sky observation event, which was the last event before 6 months of monsoon. For a lot of time, we had cloud cover too! These images don't include much of editing more than just some basic stuff in cellphone. I forgot to take the photos in RAW so either way I can't do much! Quite happy with the first attempt. Will improve even more in next season! Nikon 5300, with the basic 18-55 lens. Any suggestions appreciated! Thanks!

Hi. Was up at dawn observing Mercury rising in the southeast and slowly swept my binoculars left. I was able to vaguely see a small triangle formed by Upsilon Ophiuchi, HR 6128 and HR 6137. That was the limit of view as sunlight was washing out anything else to the left of that. But I clicked on the adjacent HR6144 star in my Sky Guide app and it lists as being 6,900 light years away. When I checked the Ski Safari app, the same star is listed as 1,900 light years. I went online and found little info but, “In the Sky” web page it’s HR 6144 at 9 kilo years / 9,000 light years. Does anyone have any info as to why the huge discrepancies? https://in-the-sky.org/data/object.php?id=TYC5627-1490-1 Thanks in advance for your help.

Hi there, our Astro group were booked into our normal dark skies venue for an observing weekend in February. Unfortunately, the accommodations are now going to be undergoing renovation and will be closed for the first 3 months of the year. We are looking at a couple of alternative venues. These are field study centres, one at Blancathra near Keswick and the other Malham Tarn in the Yorkshire Dales national park. Wondering if anybody has any observing experience of the skies in these areas. Kind Regards Paul.

I am considering buying a Skywatcher al/az+eq mount to use in alt az mode for lunar CCD photography. I currently have a celestron 11 CDC and a celestron 8 on a nexstar evo mount. I can use both these telescopes with the celestron 'solar system align' and sharp cap for short (~10 sec 300-500 frame) captures. I want to replace the nexstar evo mount for the C8 with a sturdier Skywatcher AZ-EQ 5GT mount BUT - 1) the altz/az option is supposed to be 'for visual use'. Does this mean its tracking in lunar rate/alt-az mode is very poor ? 2) I am confused about 'alignment' (is this only necessary to accurately access the database of interesting object positions?) The skywatcher mount does not have solar system align - but it does have lunar rate tracking in alt-az mode. If I align on any random stars in lunar rate+alt-az mode with the moon centred in the telscope will the mount then track the moon? If not ,is there another way to track the moon ?

POLAR ALIGNMENT IF THE POLE STAR IS OBSTRUCTED (e.g. OBSERVING ON A S-FACING BALCONY!!!) Set up your scope on the floor (assuming it's reasonably level) in equatorial mode, with a rough guess at North. Put the tube into whatever 'home' position the instructions specify, or that you have chosen. Now choose an easily recognisable bright star at mid altitude. Pretend you HAVE polar aligned, and tell the scope to go to this star. When the slewing stops lift the scope very gently and turn the mount round till the star is in the centre of the field of view and you should have a fairly good polar alignment. If you are for example videoing planets and can also autoguide, this alignment may be all you need. But you can now refine it by the drift method if you need to - see https://www.skyandtelescope.com/astronomy-resources/accurate-polar-alignment/ This method should be quite useful for Southern hemisphere observing, where the 'south pole star' - Sigma Octantis - is difficult to find especially in light polluted skies. And of course my advice here applies if you have a North-facing balcony!