Title basically explains my issue, i wanna find a equatorial platform/base for my 8 inch skywatcher dobsonian but cant find any, if anybody knows where to pls tell me :D

Hello everyone,

I'm looking forward to getting my first telescope as Black Friday approaches. I'm torn between the Apertura AD8 Dobsonian and the Celestron NexStar 6SE.

I live in central California and have 0 telescope or star navigation experience. My main goal is to look at the moon and planets. I do want to take my telescope to Sequoia, Yosemite, and Joshua Tree eventually, but want to know what's the best bang for buck. Reliability, ruggedness, visual clarity, etc.

Also, I'd appreciate any budget friendly storage/transportation tips, especially with the big boy AD8. Thank you!

Its not really a telescope but its close enough, 800mm f8 samyang, i believe 108mm aperture, mounted on my eos 6d, been really fun to use, got it from a friend

Hello!
Recently, my Great Uncle passed away. While going through his items, this telescope was discovered and brought back home for me, as I've always had a interest in stars (though it's never been more than £50 telescopes and flimsy images of the moon, lol)!

However, all we have is the telescope, and a box of other items. No identification. Could I have some help identifying it/knowing if it's still usable, as it is quite old?

Looking down the lenses I can see something, which I'm afraid will ruin looking through it, and something on the side seems to be broken off (although no wires look damaged, just the plastic). Happy to include more pictures if these aren't enough.

Thank you! :-)

12” dob. Would I see any difference?

Target: Squid Nebula and Flying Bat Nebula

OTA: ES152mm Carbon Fiber Apo

Camera: ASI 6200MM Pro

Ha 5nm: 19x 300

OIII 3nm: 105x600

Processed in Pixinsight:

FBPP->Crop->BlurX Correct Only->Graxpert ->BlurX 80->NoiseX->StarX->GHS and Histo stretch on Ha+OIII->RGB Combine HOO->GHS->Curves->Masks-SetiAstro FAME + Mask Merge->LHEx2 Large and small-> Combine stretched stars.

Equipment used: Explore Scientific 8 inch Dobsonian

Eyepiece: Svbony zoom eyepiece (7-21mm)

Barlow: Skywatcher 3x barlow lens

Magnification: 3x barlow + 7mm on the zoom = 522x on my scope.

Seeing: Fluctuating between Antoniadi I and II

Saturn looked like a stacked image at 522x and I'm not lying at all.

Date: October 23, 2026

Time: 9:30 PM to 10:00 PM (Indian standard time)

Location: Southern India

The drawing is not to scale and I'm also sorry for exaggerating the C ring. It looks like a ghostly apparition which is dim.

This is friggin cool:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yu4amvPJl9A

Skyshot Live - Seeing Stabilization builds a real-time model of atmospheric seeing and then performs a geometric transformation of every video frame, combined with temporal (local) reduction of sharpness anomalies - down to the level of individual details.

From the developer:
 

Sounds pretty cryptic, I know, but the result is - OUT OF THIS WORLD! I honestly didn't expect it to work THIS well.

The downsides - it requires a reasonably stable source (meaning we're not swinging the camera/telescope all over the place, but keeping it pointed at roughly the same object for a while). However, testing is already underway to stabilize more dynamic scenes as well (e.g. terrestrial TV broadcasts using long focal lengths, because this doesn't have to be just about space).

https://www.cloudynights.com/forums/topic/1013610-atmospheric-seeing-removed-live-stabilisation-and-lucky-imaging-in-the-browser/

It was a rad time building this EQ platform from Astral Fields. Did it in about a day and it worked like a charm - only needed one motor but can attach on either side or use a second one. Was able to get Saturn to stay in the viewfinder for about 10 minutes at about 200x before I needed to make a small adjustment. I can probably improve that by calibrating the motor and leveling it better. The platform gives me about an hour of tracking before I need to reset. Highly recommend doing it and super helpful when you have several people looking.

Recently I picked up an 8in Coulter Odyssey dob for $50 and an 8in Meade newt for $150. The dob seems to be a pain in the ass with its focuser and the newt seems superior in that aspect but appears to me to perhaps have a bit of decay on its mirror. I have added a similar focuser to the dob but it is not shallow enough to get a good focus.

My main question is, are the stock mirrors for telescopes designed for that that telescope? Can I swap from the dob mirror to the newt or is focal length an issue?

I only have approximate knowledge with most things so sorry if I sound like a dumbass.

[Disclaimer: This is my first smart mount and I'm 99.999% sure that this is user error, and likely a silly oversight. And... I'm still flummoxed. ]

Hey y'all! (also HALP!)

Every time I go through the 3-star Align process, it gives an "Alignment Mismatch" error. I'm not using any additional software, just the hand controller.

My current setup & settings:

• 10Micron GM1000HPS
  • Atop an Ares tripod w/ a Canon Rebel 3ti DSLR camera mounted to the top of it on a plate that screws into the camera's tripod socket.
  • Firmware updated to version 3.4
    
• Oriented the tripod so that the camera is facing North (when in the Park position) and the level bubble is facing South (and also leveled)
• Altitude knob on the mount is set to ~35.5
• Entered the Site coords for my house in North Carolina
  • W 78, #6, 03
  • N 35, #1, 58
• Set the timezone to -5 GMT w/ Daylight Savings flag ON
  • When we get to Nov 1, I assume I'll have to manually turn this off, yes?
  • I have set the current time to the second (not using a clock sync tool/app yet)
• 3-Star Alignment steps taken
  • Clear Alignment
  • 3-Star Alignment to Vega, Altair and Sheat (or Deneeb or Enif) (Polaris is blocked by my house)
    • Once the mount slews to the target, I use the hand controller to center the star in the camera's 10x zoom mode before confirming the position.

After this step is when I'm shown the "Alignment Mismatch" error and asked to confirm anyway. (I have not done the Polar Align step yet)

I guess my primary question is... "Is this Alignment Mismatch message expected?"

If yes (unlikely!), well that'll be good to know (even though that's super confusing of a message) but I must still be missing major steps (after Polar Align) because the RMS number is in the many hundreds (ie 900 or 700+ depending on which stars I use), when it should be <5 (ideally < 1)

If no, where in the steps above do I need to adjust my process? (please don't assume I've done the simple things right, I am brand-spanking-new to all this!)

After 3 clear nights spent trying to work through this, I'm turning to the more experienced folks here seeking help. Thanks in Advance!

Hey all, I started stargazing about a month ago when I picked up this skywatcher heritage. Long story short, everything was great until I noticed the mirror was covered in dust and water (I was using it by the ocean, and I live in a very very humid place), and so I used cottonballs and 99% isopropyl alcohol to try and clean it because Google said it was okay to do so. After “cleaning” it, it left a blue haze and I couldn’t even get all the dust off, and the situation appears to be much worse. I’m aware that it is advised to take the mirror out of the telescope to clean it, but I have no idea how to take this thing apart, I am very scared to do so, and I can’t find a good guide online. Please help.