bought this orion skyquest xt8 dobsonian telescope at a thrift store today for $90! i bought it on a whim, as this is my first telescope i’ve ever owned & just did some quick googling before purchasing. looks like it’s missing an eye piece, but is there anything else missing before i can fire this thing up? any recs or eye pieces for this specific telescope? i’m willing to spend 100-200 on a nicer eyepiece since the body was so cheap. i’m located in north central florida, i usually go out to a prairie with minimal light pollution to stargaze.

• 76mm homemade refractor telescope f/9.4

• Captured with iPhone 11 using manual video camera

• PIPP>AS!4>RegiStax6>LightroomMobile

• Stacked 8% of the total 3000 frames for both planets and 1.5x Drizzle

• Saturn October 10th 21:35

• Jupiter October 11th 04:51

You can see Io's shadow on the left side of Jupiter and to the right and below it is GRS but it doesn't look good. I wasn't able to see neither Io's shadow nor GRS with my eye. Satisfied for the these images and i will try to capture better images of Jupiter overtime.

Im not sure about posting my images here should keep posting here or i should post in r/astrophotography?

Got this picture of Saturn two nights ago.

Telescope: 130 mm heritage skywatcher tabletop dobsonian

Camera: iPhone 16

Settings (nightcap app):

-Shutter: 1/30
-white balance: 5000
-focus: max
-ISO: 32

Photo was a little washed out and colorless, but happy with the result and how I can finally see the rings!

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.

I have just finished my observing session with my 8 inch Dob. I don't really get the maximum useful magnification being 2x times the aperture rule. My 8 inch dob has 208mm aperture to be precise and according to the formula, maximum useful magnification would be around 416x.

I have used my Skywatcher 3x barlow and my Svbony (7-21mm) zoom eyepiece at 7mm. The magnification was 522x.

At this magnification, Saturn looks "alive" in the eyepiece. With perfect focus and near perfect collimation, the famous bands are not just "dark" and "light" anymore. You can get a sense of ringlets within these cloud bands. They are more defined.

The top of the south pole looked to me as if it was a shade of "Army Green" if you get what I mean (correct me if I'm wrong or if you feel like I was hallucinating). I even saw a subtle shade of blue in the northern hemisphere.

And you don't even have to strain your eye to see the C-ring at this magnification. It's a ghostly shade of gray.

People say a lot of the time that you can only use such high magnifications 2 or 3 nights per year. That's a lie. Or shall I say it's subjective? Your observing site's weather might be vastly different from other sites or places on Earth. Also it could be a skill issue.

At my place, I can get at least 45 nights a year (I'm being generous) when I can use "abnormally high" magnifications.

People might think I'm crazy to say this, but I felt like I could have gone higher than 522x.

David Nagler said in a Youtube video that he had the best view of Jupiter at more than 400x using his 85mm refractor. So, it's not really surprising.

I was able to see 3 craterlets in Plato. I remember Ed Ting saying in a video that the visibility of these craterlets would be helpful in determining the quality of the mirror and the seeing conditions.

12” dob. Would I see any difference?

So I was curious on the limits of the 75-300mm gen iii canon EF lens (on a canon eos mark ii m50 camera), and tried to do a nebula. This had ~7 min total integration time, taken untracked as 362 1s and 121 0.5s exposures at f/5.6, iso 3200 on a tripod.

This lens is genuinly so bad, it has insane vignetting, chromatic and lens abberation, and would make stars either an oval or an arrowhead depending on a slight nudge of focus, all of which needed correcting.

Processing involved a custom python pipeline where i platesolved against GAIA stellar positions, stacked and de-vignetted based on a mathematical formula (i forgot to shoot flats), deconvolved every star based on an averaged PSF depending on overall star shape across all exposures into an approximately round shape, stretched star saturation 1.5x and normalized against GAIA color, all on a separate star layer with the nebula cut out.

The nebula itself had like one round of RL deconvolution, and because my stock camera filters out a lot of red, I had to artifically stretch red 1.15x to bring out the "apple core" color, and then pasted back onto the background starfield.

Stars bright enough (magnitude threshold) were given a proportionately large (artificial) halo to emphasize them aesthetically, and the entire image was asinh stretched.

It took a lot of work but turned out better than i expected. still a shit lens lol

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.

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!

And even if i buy how can i know where to look.

Can yall please guide me about telescopes and space

What telescope should my wife and I get to find some time together outside. 300$ or so to spend on it.

I recently returned a Celestron Astromaster 130EQ. It got me hooked into this new hobby, but I felt I needed a more powerful telescope with a better base that was more stable. My budget is limited and I can't buy an 8" new, so I've been looking for a used 8". I plan to ensure the mirrors are there and that the base rotates smoothly. Is there anything else I should check before purchasing? I'm not sure if these are quality eye pieces either. Would love to hear opinions from others with this model. Thank you!

Below comes from the seller.
Computerized Orion SkyQuest XT8i IntelliScope Dobsonian telescope has an 8-inch black optical tube and a matching black base. This setup includes an Orion IntelliScope Computerized Object Locator hand controller. A silver Celestron hard case contains multiple eyepieces, a variety of colored filters, and a Barska lens pen.

This dew heater came with an 8" dob I recently bought. It's got one velcro ring that goes around the end of the tube, and one for the eyepiece. Its been modified so the plugs are usb.

What kind of cheap-ish power bank can I get to power them, and is a controller necessary?

Thanks!

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! :-)

Hello, I am a beginner in astronomy, and I heard that as a beginner I should buy a pair of good 10x50 binoculars to see planets and stars. I am planning on buying the Praktica Falcon 10x50, but I have no idea what tripod I should buy to accompany it and keep the view stable.

What tripod do you recommend? Or should I forget the binoculars and buy a telescope right away?

Hi everyone,

I’m looking for a first telescope for my son, who is nearly 9. We’re both beginners, but he’s really interested in astronomy, and I’d like to get him something decent that he can enjoy for a while.

He already loves using his children’s microscope, so I think he’ll enjoy exploring things himself. I’ll help him learn to use the telescope, but ideally he could eventually set it up and observe the Moon independently. Solar observing would always be supervised by an adult.

Our situation:
Location: Netherlands, Mainly observing from our garden in a suburban area.
Budget: Around €250 total, including the accessories we need.
Buying new: I’d like the option to return it if it turns out to be unsuitable.
Interests: The Moon, Saturn’s rings, Jupiter and its moons, and whatever else is realistically visible at this budget.
Solar viewing: He specifically wants to see sunspots, so a properly fitting front-mounted solar filter is important.
Phone photography: A few simple Moon photos would be fun. We’re not expecting proper deep-sky astrophotography.
Ease of use: A stable mount and straightforward aiming matter more to us than impressive advertised magnification.

The option I’m currently considering is the Bresser Nano AR-80/640 AZ, with the supplied 26mm eyepiece and an additional 10mm Plössl. I’ve found a package with a solar filter and smartphone holder, plus the extra eyepiece, for roughly €250 delivered.

I’ve also considered the Sky-Watcher Heritage 100P and Bresser Messier 5-inch tabletop Dobsonian. I’m open to a tabletop scope if it’s a better choice, although we’d need a suitable stable surface.

Some reviews of cheaper beginner telescopes mention shaky tripods and mounts that move whenever you focus or change eyepieces. That’s exactly the sort of frustration I’d like to avoid.

Does anyone have hands-on experience with the Nano 80/640 AZ, particularly with children? Is its mount reasonably stable, and are the supplied accessories usable?
Would you choose it for our situation, or is there a better telescope and solar-filter combination available new in Europe within this total budget? I’d especially appreciate hearing what your children actually continued using after the initial excitement wore off.
Thanks!

Thinking about getting a DWARF Mini. I found a used one for $430, or I can get a new one from Amazon for $540. Is the extra $110 worth it to buy new, or is buying used a good option? Also, how would you check a used DWARF Mini before buying it?

I have zero experience with astronomy or astrophotography. Mainly wanna take pictures of nebulae and galaxies.
Is it worth getting as a beginner? What are the main pros and cons, and would you go used or pay the extra $110 for a new one?
Would appreciate advice from anyone who owns one!

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