44 replies to this topic

[bluewaterfree]

i use the 9.25 on an eq6rpro wifi for galaxy imaging.  

Curious.... I'm debating Celestron Edge HD 8" versus 9.25" and mounts... 

 

The EQ6R Pro is rated at 44lbs.  The Celestron Edge HD 9.25" is 21lbs.  Dew Shield is 2.3lbs. Focal reducer is 2.3... .... if you don't mind, what all is on your rig, and the total rig payload weight?  Everyone advises me to stay at 50% of the rated mount capability... Seems like a 9.25" rig is going to be pushing 70%+.... it's obviously working for you... not questioning you... I guess I'm questioning the guideline.

[Cfeastside]

Curious.... I'm debating Celestron Edge HD 8" versus 9.25" and mounts... 

 

The EQ6R Pro is rated at 44lbs.  The Celestron Edge HD 9.25" is 21lbs.  Dew Shield is 2.3lbs. Focal reducer is 2.3... .... if you don't mind, what all is on your rig, and the total rig payload weight?  Everyone advises me to stay at 50% of the rated mount capability... Seems like a 9.25" rig is going to be pushing 70%+.... it's obviously working for you... not questioning you... I guess I'm questioning the guideline.

Im using the non hd 9.25.  It seems to do well enough for me.  I only use the dew shield dec-feb as its too cold then and i get frost forming on the corrector plate.  Pic here https://www.instagra...zRlODBiNWFlZA==

[bobzeq25]

Curious.... I'm debating Celestron Edge HD 8" versus 9.25" and mounts... 

 

The EQ6R Pro is rated at 44lbs.  The Celestron Edge HD 9.25" is 21lbs.  Dew Shield is 2.3lbs. Focal reducer is 2.3... .... if you don't mind, what all is on your rig, and the total rig payload weight?  Everyone advises me to stay at 50% of the rated mount capability... Seems like a 9.25" rig is going to be pushing 70%+.... it's obviously working for you... not questioning you... I guess I'm questioning the guideline.

Two key things.  The weight rating is not based on _any_ standard, it's simply whatever the manufacturer wants to claim.  And weight rating is not the only thing that counts, focal length also counts.  A _lot_.

 

So the "guideline" is just a very rough approximation.  If it says something won't work, it probably won't.  If it says something will work, it probably will.

 

"Probably" is the key word.  <smile>  It's far from a certainty.

Edited by bobzeq25, 10 December 2023 - 08:17 PM.

[diex]

Overkill for a beginner? Around $3000 for telescope and mount + some accessories. My lowly opinion, yes.

[Sebastian_Sajaroff]

1. In my opinion such a telescope is overkill for a beginner, is like learning to drive on an Audi R8.

I'd start simpler, something like an 8" Dobson or a 4" refractor (depending on what you value most : aperture or portability).

 

2. Forget AP (astrophotography) for the moment. Visual astronomy alone comes with a steep learning curve, don't double its complexity by adding AP on top.

 

3. Lunar, solar and planets are perfectly fine for an urban observer, they don't need dark pristine skies.

Edited by Sebastian_Sajaroff, 11 December 2023 - 07:05 AM.

[jseyfert3]

The EdgeHD OTA is on track to arrive Wednesday, and the EQ6-R Thursday. Astropheric is predicting clear skies and average seeing Thursday night, so if all goes well that may be the first time I get it set up.

 

I did throw in a cheap moon filter with the mount order. And last night I bought a Baader Hyperion Mk IV zoom. But otherwise I'm holding off on additional eyepieces until I have some experience, and see what focal length(s) I want to spring for. That's the goal of the the zoom lens. Then once I have one or two focal lengths in particular I want, getting something like Morpheus eyepieces for wide AFOV. And probably the 0.7x reducer. But I'm going to hold off until the scope actually has some use.

[jseyfert3]

Got the scope and mount today.

 

My girlfriend excitedly looking at Jupiter. She exclaimed something to the effect of “you can see the moons, and details on Jupiter!”

Also took a look at the Pleiades, but with the 40 mm eyepiece, giving a 0.85° FOV, it really didn’t do it justice. I’ll need to pick up that reducer…

 

More details tomorrow, quick night tonight unfortunately. But good news is everything is working.

[Max Headroom]

As someone else said, mount weight ratings seem to be arbitrarily set by the mfgr.  I doubt they did much more then try out whatever rated load they claimed and if it worked, it was probably OK in their mind.  Tested to destruction, or endurance, I doubt it. 

Also keep in mind balance.  A well balanced thirty pounds might be easier on the gear train then a poorly balanced 20 pounds.

[jseyfert3]

So by the time I had everything setup, and we had dinner, it was dark. Hauled it outside, re-set it up. Leveled the tripod. Got the mount on, eyeballed the mount north. Adjusted elevation to 43°. Mounted scope, which had been sitting out for an hour and a half to cool down. Then I powered the mount up by using the included cigarette lighter power cord and some clip leads from that to a lithium 12V battery I have. (The battery has internal short-circuit protection, do NOT use clip leads on unprotected/unfused batteries!)

 

I needed to do polar alignment. Polaris was barely visible in Bortle 7 skies, with some extra sky light in that direction, plus neighbors unshielded lights. I took a look through the EQ6-R Polar Scope, and was greeted with a solid red haze. For some reason, rather than lighting the reticle, the EQ6-R polar scope lights up the view, which washes out faint stars to outline the black reticle. (I found with some internet searching later that other people have the same complaint, why don't they light up the reticle and leave the view dark?) Anyway, even turning the light in the scope off, I wasn't sure if I could see Polaris or not. I could barely see it with my naked eye between sky light and neighbor lights. No problem, I can see lots of bright stars, and the SynScan controller has polar alignment feature. Okay, look at manual, gotta do a 2 or 3 star alignment first. Okay...

 

Problem was it was already dark, and I hadn't aligned the finderscope in the day as the manual recommended. I looked around, and there was a bright star visible (Vega). I eyeballed down the scope tube to line the scope up with Vega, and lo and behold I got Vega in the viewfinder of the SCT! I then adjusted the finderscope so the reticle was centered on Vega.

 

Cool. Then I selected 3-star alignment. I used Vega to start with, it was nice and bright. Except I forgot to home the scope first, and when it started slewing to Vega, it quickly was pointing to the ground. Cancelled alignment, told mount to home, then undid clutches and moved scope to home orientation. Okay, try that again. Alignment > Vega. Slewed over somewere roughly approximating Vega. Not quite even in the ballpark though. WAY far off of finderscope. Okay, no problem. Did this once, I can do it again. Sighted down the SCT at Vega until I got it in the finderscope, then it was cakewalk to center and it was in the scope's eyepiece. Centered, then hit enter and onto star 2.

 

I looked around, found another star. Using SkyView Lite on my phone, quickly ID'd it as Capella. Try to scroll through alignment stars on controller, they did not appear to show in alphabetical order, and I didn't know if I could try to type name somehow. Ran across Caph, thought it may be an abbreviation for Capella (not knowing better as a beginner, and annoyed stars were in seemingly random order on alignment star list). Clicked enter, it slewed almost straight up. Okay, pulled my iPhone and SkyView back out...I see. Wow, those are dim. Scope wasn't close enough for finder. Eyeballed down SCT again...eventually got what I thought was Caph in finder. Centered in viewfinder, hit enter, on to star 3. Not completely sure I got Caph, being very dim, not standing out super much over nearby stars, plus the inverted finder and being new. This may play into things later. Also got some sort of Caution message at some point in process, maybe here, but I didn't know what it meant and can't remember exact message.

 

Anyway, this time I scroll more and there is Capella. Select it, same as before. Not anywhere close enough for finder. At this point I start wishing I had a Telrad or red dot finder, because either would have been SO much faster than eyeballing on the outside of the SCT. Got that done. Okay, time to do polar alignment.

 

Selected Polar Alignment on menu, selected Capella as star, it slewed off of Capella. Weird. Centered with controller, hit enter. Then it slewed off of Capella just a little. Expected this time. Adjusted mount screw. Hit enter. Slewed, adjusted mount screw, hit enter. Okay, done. Tried slewing somewhere (maybe Jupiter), way off. Gah! It said you may have to do polar alignment more than once. Did it again, tried Vega. It slewed over and was way off, much worse than when I started the alignment and Vega was the first star, and it slewed from home position with eyeballing north. Okay, I ran through it, cool.

 

Selected Jupiter, slewed over, and yeah, you guessed it, nowhere close to being in viewfinder. Screw this, we are almost out of time. Eyeballed...you know the drill. Got Jupiter in view. Tracking at 51x was perfectly fine for visual. Seeing was decent. Could clearly see two bands. Obviously the four Galilean moons. My girlfriend loved the view.

 

I asked what else we should try. She said the Pleiades. Quick search on phone, that's M45, punch that in. Of course it doesn't get close enough for viewfinder, that's firmly established somethings wrong. Eyeballed, got it in. View, as mentioned in brief post yesterday, did not do it justice, as the FOV with the Celestron 40 mm eyepiece was 0.85°. Still cool. Looked for Saturn, but it was not in view of telescope, and wasn't going to move it. My GF gets up early, so we needed to head to bed. Tore it down and brought it in.

 

In hindsight, I feel like my alignment issues, after the 3-star and assisted polar alignment, may have been centering on a star that was not Caph. Also should have looked up that caution message. Looking at the mount later, it appears as part of that I had adjusted it to 45°, and I'm at 43. So yeah. We'll try this again the next clear night. Unfortunately, looks cloudy this weekend, though Astropheric is predicting a break in clouds now on Sunday from 1300-2100. So we'll see, maybe I'll get lucky and can try again Sunday evening.

 

Main takaways I got:

• Make sure to pay attention to warning messages, and learn what they mean. I suspect I messed up on Caph, got the wrong star, and it realized I may have got the wrong star and I didn't understand what it was trying to say.
• Get a Telerad or similar unmagnified finder. I feel if I can eyeball Vega into the scope's eyepiece without a finder, I can get it into the eyepiece with a Telerad with no issues, and quickly.

[gnowellsct]

I have four beautiful refractors and a c-14 but the C8 on a German equatorial remains one of my most used telescopes. I do mount a 92 mm refractor on it however.

Imaging at f/10 should be a matter of planetary imaging only. That's a completely different activity.

Deep sky is another matter. There are reducer/correctors out there which will make it a bit easier to do deep sky at about f/6. But your best bet would be to call Starizona and get their aftermarket system so you can image at f/3.

If you are imaging at f/3 with your C8 edge you will not have the complaints that you see in those videos. But it is definitely the case that you want to avoid being a beginning imager working at a long focal ratio.

Even if you get the Starizona aftermarket kit, it would be wise to spend 6 months or a year or more doing deep sky imaging with an 80 mm fast refractor.

Greg N

[jseyfert3]

I have four beautiful refractors and a c-14 but the C8 on a German equatorial remains one of my most used telescopes. I do mount a 92 mm refractor on it however.

Imaging at f/10 should be a matter of planetary imaging only. That's a completely different activity.

Deep sky is another matter. There are reducer/correctors out there which will make it a bit easier to do deep sky at about f/6. But your best bet would be to call Starizona and get their aftermarket system so you can image at f/3.

If you are imaging at f/3 with your C8 edge you will not have the complaints that you see in those videos. But it is definitely the case that you want to avoid being a beginning imager working at a long focal ratio.

Even if you get the Starizona aftermarket kit, it would be wise to spend 6 months or a year or more doing deep sky imaging with an 80 mm fast refractor.

Greg N

The Starizona HyperStar looks like f/1.9 (2.1 in prior version). Focal length of 390 mm. Why do you recommend 80 mm fast refractor even if I was to get the Starizona HyperStar kit?

 

Looks like 80 mm fast refractor may be like f/5? That would be a focal length of 400 mm. I feel like rather than spending $1500 or so on a refractor, I'd rather get something like the Canon EF 100-400 mm L IS II lens. f/5.6 at a focal length of 400 mm, so it'd be an aperture of 71 mm instead of 80. But I rented that lens for my camera once, and it is absolutely an amazing lens for terrestrial photography. So rather than spending money on a dedicated AP scope, I think I'd rather get a great telephoto lens I could use for terrestrial photography, and just mount the lens and camera to a tracking mount for DSO imaging.
 

[gnowellsct]

The Starizona HyperStar looks like f/1.9 (2.1 in prior version). Focal length of 390 mm. Why do you recommend 80 mm fast refractor even if I was to get the Starizona HyperStar kit?

Looks like 80 mm fast refractor may be like f/5? That would be a focal length of 400 mm. I feel like rather than spending $1500 or so on a refractor, I'd rather get something like the Canon EF 100-400 mm L IS II lens. f/5.6 at a focal length of 400 mm, so it'd be an aperture of 71 mm instead of 80. But I rented that lens for my camera once, and it is absolutely an amazing lens for terrestrial photography. So rather than spending money on a dedicated AP scope, I think I'd rather get a great telephoto lens I could use for terrestrial photography, and just mount the lens and camera to a tracking mount for DSO imaging.

This is getting into very detailed imaging matters. For visual use and for fast focal ratio photography the C8 edge is an excellent choice with the right accessories.

In terms of getting the mount to perform optimally and getting a really precise focuser you might do better with a refractor.

I use and appreciate both types of scopes.

I do think that a desire to be economical and a desire to get into photography are not exactly compatible goals. The most economical form of astrophotography is solar system: planets and the Moon. And the sun itself if you get H alpha.

Greg N

[jseyfert3]

Reviewing the SynScan controller manual over lunch, I see a potential reason my alignment was so bad last night. When doing the polar alignment without polar scope, you do a 2 or 3 star alignment (did 3-star), then the polar alignment adjusting of altitude and azimuth (did that), then you have to do another 2 or 3 star alignment. I did not do this. Oops!

 

Ah well, I had a lot I was trying to pack into entirely not enough time, and learned a lot for next time.

 

I also bought a Telrad finder. While probably not useful when I can use the polar scope to do the polar alignment, my experience yesterday pointed to the fact that such a finder would be much better for simply locating bright alignment stars to align the GOTO than a magnified finder scope.

[gnowellsct]

I did not do this. Oops!

.

Even though I had been using the Losmandy G11 several years, the boot up time on the ap900 qmd when it arrived was somewhere like 6 months.

The hassles you have with the new gear are worth remembering. When the day comes that you want a new mount, you may see some wisdom in keeping the mount you know on hand until you get used to using the new one.

In my case it went beyond that. I decided not to resell the G11 at all. The AP 900 was best for using the c14 and I use the G11 for everything else.

Greg N

Edited by gnowellsct, 15 December 2023 - 04:03 PM.

[jseyfert3]

Took the scope out the second time tonight. It was very cold. I didn't both doing GOTO alignment, as the seeing was poor. Just aimed north. Mostly wanted to look at the moon, since that was down the first time. Seeing was bad, but still cool to look at the moon. Briefly tried the Hyperion zoom eyepiece. Also got the T-ring and Canon R adapter, so I threw my Canon RP onto the scope. Completely unedited, straight out of the camera single-shot JPG:

 

And while I did power up the mount just to have basic tracking for less motion blur on the moon picture, before I stuck the camera on it was unpowered, and I just locked the DEC clutch and left RA unlocked. As the moon moved, you just move the mount slightly and it tracks right along, much easier than I remember as a kid with a dob mount (since there's only one axis to move for manual tracking).

[jseyfert3]

Good news. Got the scope out tonight, did a 3-star alignment. Got an error message, which I paid attention to. It said the NPE from last time was applied. Not 100% sure what that means still, though I’m pretty sure it is North Pole error.

Did the 3-star align again. Started with Vega, the first star recommended. This time I had my Hyperion zoom and both zoomed in and defocused as the manual recommends without a reticle to help center. Then used the next two recommended stars, Deneb and Capella. When it skewed to Capella, Capella was already in the viewfinder, so that was way better than my first alignment attempt!


After the 3-star alignment I had it slew back to Vega and it was spot on. Good. Then I slewed to the moon, Jupiter, Saturn, the moon, Jupiter, Saturn, the moon again (was showing a couple different people), then M33 I believe and the Pleiades. Finally Polaris. Every single slew the object was well within the telescope’s viewfinder.

Also if I understand the keypad correctly after the 3-star alignment finished, I had 11°21’48” of misalignment on azimuth, and 1°27’26” error on elevation on my polar “alignment” (that I never actually did). So apparently eyeballing the mount north had 11° of error. Not too bad I suppose. Doesn’t matter for visual use, at least with a 3 star alignment, as the mount showed though.

Edited by jseyfert3, 20 December 2023 - 11:06 PM.

[mdredmond]

After a lot of reading, I want to buy a Celestron EdgeHD 8 and Sky-Watcher EQ6-R mount. This would be my first scope, and outside of using an 8" dob as a kid (it was my older sibling's), I haven't really used any telescopes. Reason for going to the EdgeHD is I know I will stick a camera on there at some point, since I dabble in photography from time to time. Same for the EQ mount over an AZ mount. Yeah I know this isn't the sub-forum to discuss astrophotography, but I did want to list my reasoning at least.

 

I did a quick search and there isn't a whole lot on craigslist/Facebook around me. There is a Celestron 8" with AVX mount about a 4 hour drive from me, comes with solar filter, dew shield, and unspecified eyepieces for $1200. I had considered getting that to try out an SCT and EQ mount, and then maybe just re-sell that later to upgrade to the EdgeHD and EQ6 mount if I end up sticking with telescopes, or buy something else if I like telescopes but decide to go with something that's not a SCT or an EQ mount. On the other hand, spending all day driving to pick up a telescope doesn't sound like how I want to spend half a weekend.

 

Definitely excited to look at the moon and planets again, I remember I loved doing that as a kid, but manual tracking when zoomed way in was not easy, so a tracking mount is a must. I live in Madison, WI, so decently moderate light pollution, but I can get to decently dark skies in 45 minutes of driving or so.

 

Any thoughts and suggestions are welcome.

Be aware that there is at least one active telescope scammer on Craigslist right now.  He has a 6” or 8” SCT listed in a city several hours from me.  Actually similar ad in several cities. As soon as I told him a friend would pick it up and pay him cash, he discovered that he had moved and not updated the listing - but was happy to mail it to me if I paid him with CashApp or somesuch.  Don’t part with a nickel unless you’ve put your hands on the telescope.

Edited by mdredmond, 21 December 2023 - 09:14 AM.

[Sebastian_Sajaroff]

Good news. Got the scope out tonight, did a 3-star alignment. Got an error message, which I paid attention to. It said the NPE from last time was applied. Not 100% sure what that means still, though I’m pretty sure it is North Pole error.

Did the 3-star align again. Started with Vega, the first star recommended. This time I had my Hyperion zoom and both zoomed in and defocused as the manual recommends without a reticle to help center. Then used the next two recommended stars, Deneb and Capella. When it skewed to Capella, Capella was already in the viewfinder, so that was way better than my first alignment attempt!


After the 3-star alignment I had it slew back to Vega and it was spot on. Good. Then I slewed to the moon, Jupiter, Saturn, the moon, Jupiter, Saturn, the moon again (was showing a couple different people), then M33 I believe and the Pleiades. Finally Polaris. Every single slew the object was well within the telescope’s viewfinder.

Also if I understand the keypad correctly after the 3-star alignment finished, I had 11°21’48” of misalignment on azimuth, and 1°27’26” error on elevation on my polar “alignment” (that I never actually did). So apparently eyeballing the mount north had 11° of error. Not too bad I suppose. Doesn’t matter for visual use, at least with a 3 star alignment, as the mount showed though.

I bet you used an old compass to point North, am I right ?

Magnetic North is 5° to 15° away from True North (depending on where you live in North America).

[jseyfert3]

I bet you used an old compass to point North, am I right ?

Magnetic North is 5° to 15° away from True North (depending on where you live in North America).

Nope, I didn't use a compass. I just looked at the stand and rotated it until I though "that should be north"

[jseyfert3]

Update: The long Wisconsin winter has come to an end. Between clouds and not wanting to stand outside when it was 15 °F and below, I didn't get much use in after I last posted. Got it out a couple weeks ago, spend an hour or two outside looking at brighter objects. Then this last weekend packed it up and drove to Southern Illinois for the eclipse.

 

I found a couple of things using the SynScan controller. Night before the eclipse, being in mid-low Bortle 4 skies, I aligned the scope using the 3-start alignment. I had the "advanced filter" on for alignment stars, and found that there were stars it recommended that were much dimmer than other stars, and were unable to see them until it was darker. Also, some of the stars do not show up in Stellarium mobile, which I found odd. However, after it got dark enough, I did get the 3-star alignment done, and we used the scope for 2-3 hours, and everything it slewed to was dead-nuts centered in the 40 mm Plossl Celestron eyepiece. Great! Eventually the collector fogged up (I've purchased but not yet installed the Celestron dew heater ring) and we were tired anyway, so I moved the tube horizontal, parked the scope with the park on the controller at current position, and went to bed.

 

Morning we got up, and I took the tarp off. Once the collector had dried off after an hour or two, I popped on the white light solar filter, powered up the scope and told it to point to the sun. And it didn't get the sun in the eyepiece. Odd, I thought, this thing was bang-on all night last night. I got the sun centered and it drifted all day, requiring using the arrow keys to re-center it every 30 minutes or so, as it would be half off the edge of the eyepiece, with the 40 mm Plossl. I was slightly annoyed, but figured maybe the tripod settled in the soft ground overnight, and left it be, adjusting as needed every so often.

 

It was fun to watch the sun through the scope leading up to the eclipse. During the 3:57 of totality, I popped the solar filter off the scope and 9 of us WOW'D over the view of the Sun's corona, and the awesome prominances visible! After the quickest 4 minutes of my life, my phone eclipse app was saying "PUT ON SOLAR GLASSES!" and I firmly and immediately told someone who's head was heading to the eyepiece to NOT look through the telescope, then grabbed the solar filter and replaced it as the ground around me began to brighten.

 

What a view that was...

 

Anyhow, that evening we continued to camp, as we didn't want to drive in the after-eclipse traffic. It was clear, so I powered up the scope. Given the Sun had drifted all day, I figured I needed to do another alignment. I selected 3-star alignment and after again being frustrated by Stellarium mobile not finding some of the stars the controller wanted, shut off the "advanced filter" for alignment, and aligned by some of the brightest stars visible: Sirius, Capella, and Regulus.

 

Oddly, when the scope slewed to the 3rd star, Regulus, it was way off. Previously, by the 3rd star the scope is usually pretty darn aligned, so this was odd. I got it centered and got an "alignment may be poor" message, but it said it was successful. I told it to slew to Sirius, as I previously found that if I messed something with the alignment up, it wouldn't be able to get back to the 1st alignment star. You think that wouldn't be possible, since you literally centered the scope at it, but somehow it is... Anyway, yeah, it failed to re-center Sirius. After trying again, I figured maybe my finderscope was not aligned and I accidentally picked the wrong alignment star, because for this alignment process I think the finderscope is WAY too zoomed in. No go. Getting annoyed, I pulled out the Telrad I had purchased but not installed, and installed and aligned it. I used Sirius because it's so bright there's no way I could confuse that with another star when looking between the Telrad, finderscope, and eyepiece. Is the star super bright? Then yeah you're on Sirius.

 

Well, the good news is the Telrad is exactly what I had hoped for. It's the perfect finder for a mount alignment process. The lack of any zoom means there's no possible way to confuse what star you're looking at (assuming it's aligned with the scope properly), and it's super easy to get the scope pointing at the star, even if you guessed the polar alignment and are way off. Perfect! The bad news is the 3-star alignment continued to say "alignment may be poor", and it was unable to re-slew to the 1st alignment star. I kept using Sirius/Capella/Regulus, since they were all visible, seemed plenty far apart enough, and are nice and bright and cannot be confused with other stars. After several more attempts I gave up because my partner had found someone with a campfire and they invited us to join them, and I was getting frustrated and was too tired to stay up long anyway.

 

Well I did some searching now, and found on a different forum someone saying they got that message. And other people said "yeah, I found if my scope was not polar aligned enough, and the scope wasn't in the "home" position well enough, I could get this." The solution seems to be after it slews to the first star, roughly align the scope by unlocking the clutches instead of using the arrow keys. Somehow, if the initial alignment is too far off, and you use the arrow keys, the controller can give this "alignment may be poor" and not center on stars properly. But by unlocking the clutches and rough centering on that first alignment star, it's way closer on the next two stars and never gives the "alignment may be poor" message. So there's some bad programming in the controller, apparently.

 

I know, I know, I really need a camera of some sort and a laptop and just do plate solving, but I did want the ability to use the mount without the extra hassle of setting up a laptop. It's annoying that the controller has these issues. At least I know a reason now for next time.

 

My coworker just bought a big 3D printer for work, so I plan to 3D print a dew-shield for the scope using that, instead of buying one. And I'm going to go ahead and design and add to the dew shield 3D print a fan mount, to use a fan to avoid dew without heat, if possible. But given I'm in the midwest, I know there are times I will absolutely need heat to avoid dew, so I'll be installing that dew heater ring as well. And probably will get a nice wide angle (both TFOV and AFOV) eyepiece at some point. I see lots of praise for the Nagler 31 mm T5, but going to do more reading before dropping $700 on an eyepiece...

 

Oh, and during the night before the eclipse, one of the items on the "deep sky tour" of the controller I was going through was the Orion Nebula. SO COOL! That's definitely a DSO I will recommend to anyone with a SCT in the future, who's a beginner. Brightest, most detailed of all the nebulas/galaxies we looked at, or attempted to look at, that night, and definitely not a faint fuzzy!

 

Looking forward to a summer with hopefully many clear nights, and dragging the scope camping with me to dark sky camping locations.