Advice

[nikooo]

Hi guys, I recently bought my first telescope ever, dobs 250/1200 mm. Also with that a barlow 2x, and UHC lense. I'm amateur, so do you have a piece of advice to give me: What should I expect...?

Edited May 7, 2023 by nikooo

[Marvin Jenkins]

10” inch Dob is a capable piece of equipment. Lifetime scope for some people who are happy to stick with visual. 

I understand from your post you have a Barlow and a UHC filter but you do not mention your eye piece/s.

A lot will depend on your location and dedication. Good luck and clear skies.

Marvin

[dark knight]

Get the very good book Turn Left At Orion, it is invaluable.

[iapa]

From http://astronomy.tools/calculators/field_of_view, here is a potential view of Jupiter using 250P, 2x Barlow and a Celestron 20mm Plossl eye piece, and showing the overall FoV

 

[Ratlet]

It's easy to get carried away.  Take your time with buying kit, unless you are just looking to experiment.  Loads of people will give you opinions on what to get, but take your time and see how you get on.

Knowing what eyepieces it came with will help with advice given.

[Spile]

I would agree that apart from Turn Left it’s worth spending time simply getting used to your telescope and honing your skills.

[bosun21]

Nobody has mentioned that he needs to learn about collimating his dobsonian. You will need a collimation cap at the minimum or even better a cheshire eyepiece. There's loads of good guides on YouTube and even better ones on this forum. Just search for "collimation" and/or "collimation guide" and you will find everything you need. Good luck with your new telescope.

Edit:- I have already advised the above on your other Advice post. Why post it twice?

Edited May 8, 2023 by bosun21

[RT65CB-SWL]

Hi @nikooo and welcome to SGL. 

Following on from @bosun21 reply, collimation is key to make every photon hit you in the retina.

Should you wish to purchase a laser collimator, you will need to ensure that too is [ahem] collimated! There are plenty of YouTube videos showing this.

All you need is a simple gadget called a 'V' block. They can be made from most things, such as an offcut of wood and four nails, to being made from Lego bricks, [other brands of plastic bricks are also available].

[great_bear]

Note that you don’t *have* to get a laser collimator - but it definitely helps when the scope’s so long that you can’t look through a Cheshire collimator at the same time as adjusting the primary mirror - it makes the process a lot smoother and more intuitive than ‘tweak-peek-tweak-peek’…

Edited May 8, 2023 by great_bear

[great_bear]

On 07/05/2023 at 17:34, nikooo said:

What should I expect...?

Expect to get cold - especially if you’re in the UK. So buy a pair of fingerless gloves, a woolly hat, some thermals to wear under your jeans, and a generous scarf. You will likely need these things even in the summer in the UK - it’s shocking how much the temperature drops once the sun goes down. I assume you already have a jumper and a warm coat.

It’s frustrating to cut short an astronomy session on a perfect night for no reason other than being frozen to the bone. On the flip side it’s wonderful to be smugly warm whilst everyone around you is saying “Well I simply must go inside - I don’t know how you can bear the cold out here!”

You’ll also need a chair.

I find with a 1200mm Dobsonian I don’t need a fancy chair; a simple lightweight walking stick chair is enough, as the seating position is typically quite high on those.

Smartphone apps are handy - I use Stellarium, and that’s mainly because I can tweak my on-screen settings so the views match what I see through the eyepiece under the heavily light-polluted skies where I live.

One final thing I’d recommend is a head torch with red-light mode - it’s more useful than a standard torch in my experience. It doesn’t need to be super-bright and it’s better to have standard batteries as it won’t see enough use to justify the hassle of rechargeable batts. You can make do with a rear bicycle lamp as an alternative.

Edited May 8, 2023 by great_bear

[great_bear]

Oh - one other thing - this time of year seems awful for astronomy here in London - high-level cloud seems to be a permanent fixture here. As such I don’t expect to get much astronomy done for a few weeks until the weather clears up. 

That’s frustrating but you learn to live with it.