New to this.

[y216812]

Afternoon folks, 

I am new here and waiting for my Skyhawk go-2 to arrive today. I used a very basic scope around 20 years ago but life got in the way, I am seeing so much technology now and would love some advice. 
I have downloaded an app that seems popular called stellarium. Any thoughts?

my kit says it will have a smartphone adapter included, I assume it’s just a case of attaching to the eye piece to take images of what I can see through the eye piece without long exposure due to the tracking?

another assumption is that the eyepieces provided will not be good so I am looking for something a bit wider than standard. 

[NGC 1502]

Welcome to SGL lots of folk on here ready to help😊

Never used Stellarium but many do and recommend it.

The smartphone adapter may be useful.  But please be aware that many of the fabulous images you have seen will have been obtained by dedicated imagers with expensive kit.  Best to start with visual and see how it goes.

The BST Starguider eyepieces available from our sponsor FLO are recommended as likely the best available for the price. I’ve used most of the BSTs and the best of those were the 5mm 8mm & 12mm.

Cheers from Ed.

 

[Bogmonster]

I've only seen screenshots of Stellarium but it looks pretty much identical to the Celestron Syyportal app. If that's the case then I find it very useful. I have that synced up with my scope and it's so easy to use.

I have one of those smartphone adapters and my main bit of advice is to fit it to your phone and line it up with the eyepiece before you go out in the dark. It can be a real pain to set up in the dark. It's pretty cool for getting a few shots to show to your family or buddies.

I also wouldn't go too mad on eyepieces yet. The ones you have will probably be fine and get you up and running and you can decide later on down the line if you need more. That being said, I was recommended another eyepiece (I think an 8 mm?) with my scope and I've gotten a lot of use out of it too. 

The one thing I did get was a moon filter which I find very useful. I'm very new to this so even though I could be outside for ages looking at stuff and trying to find stuff, I always go back to the moon. I've never seen it through a telescope before I got mine and every time I look at it I'm just blown away.

It's definitely a hobby of patience and the more you do it, the more you notice. My first view of Andromeda was incredible even though it just looked like a white smudge. I saw the Pleiades for the first time last night and it was crazy as I pointed at a dark section of sky and had a view of a bunch of stars (a meteor also passed through as I was looking).

I still find it crazy that I could have only seen maybe 4 or 5 targets in one night (I have yet to see Jupiter and Saturn) and I have been outside for over an hour. As a newbie myself, I think just learn your scope and the sky before upgrading anything. 

Hope that was some help!