[stephenb (Stephen)]

Hi Spotty,

Welcome to IIS and this wonderful hobby.

Firstly, do not give up. There will be plenty of people with more answers than me but let me chime in with a few opinions.

The type of telescope you have purchased is a great one, especially for beginners. One thing you will hear is "Aperture is King" The bigger the aperture (size of the primary mirror), the better. You have a magnificent scope - 12" is a great size, bigger than most beginners buy!!!

The Celestron NexStar you have shown is a good scope - easy setup, decent optics, realatively newbie friendly, but it is 1/2 the aperture of your 12" Skywatcher and you will not be able to do any decent astrophotography with it either because it has a rudimentary drive and gearing and not suited for taking images.

My advice - forget astrophotography and just concentrate on visual observing for the moment anyway.

Your main issues with your current telescope my be one of three things:

(1) Your current telescope may not be collimated (mirrors aligned). But I suspected they are by what you have described.

(2) Your issues may be urban light pollution.

(3) and also a lack of knowledge on where to look for objects in the sky?? I do not know your knowledge level, sorry.

Check out the club listings in the Links page here and try to meet up with a local Astronomical Club who will help you to no end!

Others on this forum will jump in here and provide some better and more in depth advice, but do not dispair. You have a great scope. Don't sell it!!

hoo roo

Stephen