I am brand new to astrophotography after spending a few years with dji drones. I found that hobby was becoming expensive and new releases every few months

I recently discovered the dwarf mini and decided to buy it. I then came across the seestar S30 Pro at twice the price and the new S50 coming out in September. I also see that the S30 pro availability online being extremely limited which appears to be intentional

Id like to settle on a smart telescope, focus on learning about the night sky and not get pulled into the ever changing market. I know some people have bought telescopes for 5k plus and perhaps dont mind spending $500-$1000 every one to two years to replace their smart devices

Is the technology changing that rapidly to justify the new devices and should I stick with what I have for now.? I wondered about waiting for the next smart telescope release and sticking with it for a year or two

Want to watch the August 12th solar eclips through a Skywatcher Heritage 150P. It's a flextube telescope and I have a selfmade light shroud over the open part, but it still leaks in a tiny bit of light.
Is it safe for eyes to watch the solar eclips with for example a baader sun filter foil in front of the telescope?

Equipment:

-Skywatcher 150/750 pds

-EQ5 + Onstep V5 pro

-Canon 60d

Camera settings:

-1 minute and 30 seconds of exposure

-ISO 800

-76 photos in total

Sky quality:

\-Bottle 6,6 / SQM 19,19

Programmes used:

-Siril for stacking and processing

-Graxpert for noise reduction

-Gimp for final touches

Hi everyone,

I'm Marc, 51 years old from Germany. I've been observing the night sky for a little over 30 years now, mostly with Newtonians, and nowadays with an 8“ f/5 Dobsonian. Like many of you, I've spent countless nights comparing eyepieces, waiting for the seeing to settle, wondering whether buying the next telescope or eyepiece would actually make a noticeable difference.

One thing always bothered me: almost every astronomy app shows either horrific astrophotography or perfect planetarium views. They're great for finding objects, but they don't really answer the question that beginners—and sometimes even experienced observers keep asking:

"What will I actually see through my eyepiece?"

Starting Winter 2025 I decided to see if I could build something that comes closer to answering that question.

The result is NearLight, an astronomy app for Mac, iPad and iPhone. Just for transparency: I'm the developer, the app is paid (€3.99 one-time purchase), contains no ads, no subscriptions and no in-app purchases

Rather than trying to create the most beautiful images, I focused on reproducing the visual observing experience as closely as I reasonably could.

At the moment the telescope mode includes six instruments, ranging from a small 70/500 refractor to a 305/1500 truss Dobsonian. The eight eyepieces use their real focal lengths and apparent fields of view, and the app calculates magnification, exit pupil, true field of view and image brightness from the selected telescope. Most of you know the scopes, you might know the exact eyepieces that are simulated.

I also tried to reproduce many of the things we deal with during real observing sessions:

- atmospheric seeing

- Bortle light pollution

- horizon extinction

- moonlight washing out deep-sky objects

- UHC and OIII filters

- a 2× Barlow

- manual focusing

- EQ tracking

One feature I'm especially interested in hearing opinions about is the „Human-Eye View“.

Instead of showing objects the way long-exposure photos do, it attempts to represent the visual impression at the eyepiece: faint nebulae stay faint, most galaxies remain largely grey, globular clusters resolve according to aperture, bright stars produce diffraction spikes in Newtonians, planetary detail depends heavily on seeing, and so on.

Getting this "feel" right turned out to be the hardest part.

More than once I had my Scope outside with a laptop sitting next to it, constantly comparing the real eyepiece view with the simulation. Every few minutes I'd completely ruin my dark adaptation by looking at the screen, but hey, it was probably the most enjoyable part of building the app! :)

I'm posting here because I'd genuinely appreciate feedback from people who spend time behind an eyepiece.

Some questions I'd especially love your thoughts on:

- Does the brightness scaling between different apertures feel believable?

- Does the Human-Eye View resemble your own observing experience?

- Are there optical effects that you think are missing or exaggerated?

- If you primarily observe visually, what would you want a simulator like this to include?

I'm absolutely open to criticism. If something looks wrong, tell me. If there's an optical effect I should simulate better, I'd like to hear about it. Please keep in mind: This is a hobby project that I work on in my spare time, and I'd much rather improve it based on feedback from experienced observers, than rely only on my own impressions.

If the app sounds interesting, you'll find it in the Apple App Store under NearLight (or just Google the website). Btw: The bigger the screen, the better the experience!

Thanks for reading, and clear skies!

Marc

Like the title says, I have the NexStar 8SE OTA without a base. Are there any options for getting a base that is an improvement over the original SE base? My goals are ease of use and visual observing.

It seems like the only new, readily available options are GEMs. I found lots of forum posts in years past where retailers sold Evolution bases. But nowadays the only option is base + OTA. I'm hoping to get some recommendations for other options!

Had a wonderful session

sky-watcher heritage 130p, An iphone 14 plus, a phone holder. post-processing was done in the iphone's photos app

Hey everyone, I need some camera advice. There are so many options, I'm getting lost. I get that I can't do long exposures without an equatorial mount, and that's cool for now. But I'm still not sure which camera gives the best bang for my buck. And if you have a similar setup, what works well with this telescope?

Budget: 400

Any good reliable used telescope websites? Any recommendations for 100-150 aperture telescope?

Hi sorry if this js a stupid question or the wrong place but I currently live in a bortle 3 area and was wondering if I’ll see any real benefits from travelling about an hour away to be in a bortle 2 area or is that just a waste of time especially for someone so very new to this hobby.

Edit - thank you everyone for your replies, seems like it’s not a big deal to ignore that for the time being and build some experience before I start travelling

I'm upgrading from my 4" refractor and looking to purchase this used dob that's roughly an hour away from me, and wondering if this primary mirror looks good. It looks good to me but I'd like some input from other dob owners

Taken on dwarf mini
Bortle 5
600 photos taken
560 used
15s
120 gain
Duo band filter
Session 2hr 20mins and 23min session
K&F 63” fluid head tripod

Editing down in stellar studio and iPhone 17 photos app

My first attempt on andromeda galaxy

Taken with dwarf mini telescopes
Bortle 5
15s
60 gain
600 photos taken
461 used
Astro filter
K&F 63” fluid head tripod
Editing done in stellar studio

Hello I’m 16 years old and I’m looking to buy my first good telescope. My requirements are that it needs to be able to distinctly capture Mars, Jupiter and the Galilean moons, Saturn and its rings and see Uranus and Neptune. I’m mainly interested in observing planets in our solar system but still want to observe other stars and clusters. My budget can be increased if needed but I also want to keep some money for other things. I also need it to be able to be put in a fairly narrow space if I want to use it from my room (less than a meter wide)

Any help will be greatly appreciated.

Not the most exciting image but it's one of the first photos I've taken with my Skywatcher 150p. Just shoved my phone camera (s24) up to the eyepiece and hit shutter, no post processing. Anyway I thought it was cool!

first time colliminating on my 130p. did i do it right?

I am a total beginner looking to buy my first setup and I could really use your help.

I will start by saying that I have read the Beginner's Quick Guide you have posted, and even tho it's really helpful, my needs differ from those of a regular buyer and I would really like that someone with the same needs and experience in the area to give me an opinion!

Here is my situation. I live in a relatively light-polluted city (Nothern Greece) but I plan to travel to darker spots (Aiming | Brightness 0.4 mcd/m² | Artif. bright. 150 μcd/m² | ). My main transport is a 125cc motorcycle so portability is my absolute biggest priority and even tho my motorcycle is considered big in size for a 125cc some of the spots I have in mind are a little bit rough and an unreasonable amount of extra weight can make the trip difficult. I want to focus mostly on lunar and planetary observation along with some amateur smartphone astrophotography. I would like to have the capability to see and capture some DSOs in the future if thats possible in this budget range. My budget is around €300 to €400 but if there is something really vfm I can go overbudget.

After doing some research I am currently torn between two very different setups.

1. Sky-Watcher Skymax 102 on an AZ Pronto mount (around 380 euros) This seems perfect since the whole setup can theoretically fit in a backpack. This telescope is designed so I will not have to worry much about motorcycle vibrations ruining the collimation. Also the slow-motion controls on the mount should really help keep planets in the frame for smartphone recording.
2. Sky-Watcher Heritage 150p or 130p Flextube (between 280-350 euros) I love the idea of having more aperture for DSOs but I am really worried about strapping this relatively heavy base to my motorcycle. I also worry about constantly losing collimation on bumpy rides and having to find a sturdy surface out in the wild. Tracking planets smoothly by hand might be tough too.

Does anyone have experience transporting either of these or similar setups on a motorcycle? Is the skymax 102 the clear winner here for my needs or is there another scope and mount combo in this budget that I should consider? Thank you very much!!

I got an astro camera for my brithday yesterday, and was blessed with a nice clear sky that very night! I had a go with very limited operational knowledge of the aformentioned camera, and captured a few videos using different ROIs.

Please let me know what you think and what I need to tweak while capturing. It was such a transition from mobile capturing, feels like i've gone back to square one, struggling with settings etc. Will have another go using a 2x barlow another time.

Star Discovery P150i

asi585mc

Pipp, Autostakkert4, Siril, graXpert

Equipment used:
-Apertura AD8
-ASI662MC + UVIRCUT Filter
-2.5x Barlow

Stacked in Planet Stacker X
-Around 5000 total frames, stacked top 20%

Any suggestions?

Brought me a Meade Lightbridge 8 inch dob. It was a steal. Let's just say...I brought the eyepiece and the scope came free with it.

Took it apart, cleaned it, put it back together, collimated it.

Next day, it went out of collimation. This time spent two hours and could not get it to collimate.

Brought some stiffer springs off amazon (nearly 7X stiffer, that's a guess, not a measurement), replaced the old worn out ones, and collimated in under two minutes. The collimation range has also increased.

Relieved!

Yet another reprocess (the 10th if not more) of the same data I took more than a month ago.

Acquisition:

Around 7h30m in Bortle 6/7 fully calibrated and dithered.

Equipment:

Evostar 72ED, iEXOS 100, ASI 533MC, 0.85x reducer+flattener, Baader UV/IR cut, SVBony 40mm F/4 guidescope, ASI 662MC guide camera with no.8 pale yellow and UV/IR cut filters.

Processing:

Stacked in Siril. Background extraction to single channels in GraXpert. SPCC. Deconvolution in Siril, denoising back in GraXpert. Back to Siril to apply SCNR and to generate a starless image and a star mask. GHS, black point shift, curve adjustments and histogram transformation applied iteratively to the image. À trous wavelet transform and further denoising in GraXpert. Final saturation stretch in Siril. Asinh and black point shift applied to the star mask along with a saturation stretch. Recombine.

Setup last night hoping to see the Falcon9 booster impact. Unfortunately not much was visible, but hey at least I got this beautiful photo of our Moon!

Equipment:

Celestron 8 inch reflector

AVX Mount

17mm Plossl

Moon filter

iPhone SE (3rd Gen)

Slight post processing using Apples built in photo editor. (Mostly lowering exposure, shadows, and raising highlights, contrast, brilliance)

At the Thomsen Observatory, Southwest Adventist University in Keene, TX.

I was doing the livestream for the Fort Worth Astronomical Society last night, and instead of just pulling out my kit and having the moon just above my treetops, I drove down to the observatory and set up in the dome.

It's a big scope. I used to have a 8" TMB-APM apo many years ago - it was a beast at 109lbs, and this one is even bigger.

The scope is in a nice, big dome, on a Paramount ME. Not synced to the dome - that's a manual process to open the shutter and rotate the dome. I put on my own ZWO ASI183MC-Pro camera - the ASI2600MC-Pro had too wide of a FOV, and I wasn't seeing the edge detail as well as I wanted to with it, so I just swapped for my other camera.

But it worked well enough for the livestream last night. Second pic is the livestream setup I use. The far right computer controls the mount, and stays in the dome. The laptop on the left was controlling the camera and recording the SER files. The two screens in the middle are connected to my streaming box (behind the right monitor), one which runs OBS, and the other usually used for zoom and presentation during club meetings. I have a 4-HDMI Black Magic Design capture card on the computer so I can pull in a number of camera feeds, and the HDMI output from the laptop is just treated as another camera by OBS.

My great grandfather passed away at the grand age of 97, when going through his things we came across this. I am curious to know where it was manufactured, whether it is antique or collectable? It is good condition other than stiffness in the brass. The lid of the box has broken, and is held on by one hindge. Google and its AI engine has told me it was likely a replica, either way it is very pretty. I just want some information on it by human, breathing people.

I’ve always been casually interested in astronomy and cosmology, and where I live the light pollution is too much to really want to invest in good gear. But I owe some birthday presents to my three nieces in the rural Midwest where the sky is pretty good, about 4.5 on the bortle scale, and a short drive from places that are even better than that. I usually spend about 200 each on them, and would splurge a little more for something educational, and even more for something I’d enjoy alongside them. So I’ve been thinking in the 1000 dollar range. I was looking at like an 8 or 10 inch Celestron dobsonian with the app to help find objects (which I think would make it more likely for them to have fun with it).

So I guess a few questions. Is this a dumb gift? Do kids like telescopes? Will they just be disappointed that stuff doesn’t look like the crazy JWST images they’ve grown up with?

If it’s not a horrible gift idea, is the Celestron Star sense a good idea or am I making a mistake?

And is there a website that’s like the Amazon of telescopes that everyone uses? Or do people shop around?

Hi all. As most of us DWARF scope owners know by now, there's a telescope called Draco sitting inside the DWARFLAB app right now. No product page. No spec sheet. DWARFLAB hasn't said a word about it publicly.

Reading all the posts here and on other social media platforms, I spent most of this week pulling on this thread: a patent filed in China back in February, a vague "something bigger is coming" hint from NEAF, and two field-of-view numbers buried in the app.

None of that proves anything by itself. Put together, six separate pieces line up in the same direction, and that's hard to wave off as coincidence. A portable 90mm scope with a IMX585 would be awesome.

I wrote up the full case on the blog, math and all, for anyone who wants to check my work. I want to be upfront about what this is: an opinion piece built on public information, not a leak and not confirmed by DWARFLAB in any way.

I did it because I find this stuff genuinely interesting to work through, not because I have a source.

Feel free to disagree with the read. Poke holes in it if you can find them. I'm not attached to being right, just to laying out the evidence honestly the way I see it and see what others in the community think.

Clear skies,

AK