I am fairly new to this sort of stuff and this forum.
I bought some small solar panels for a project i'm working on. (I live in China so everything I buy has no instructions and I have to assemble everything)
the panels are rated at 5V 0.8W 160MA and they came with 1N5819 schottky diodes (one for each cell)
My questions are, are these 1N5819's to protect the cells?
My second question is are these 1N5819's bypass diodes?
Thanks 
Schottky refers to the type of diode. It's a diode type with a very low forward voltage but most of the time have a higher reverse leak current.
Bypass diode is a possible application. And they provide a bypass of the cell if you connect multiple cells in series and a single cell has less light on it. Because it is a series connection the weakest cell would otherwise block the current of the other cells.
Blocking diodes is another solar cell application of a diode and is used to block current going into the cell. For example from the battery to the cell or from a parallel (set of) cell(s) when the cell has little light = little voltage.
Thank you very much I did a lot of research and thought that was the case but I couldn't get a strait answer from the internet.
bare with me here I need to block the positive (from the battery) from flowing back to the panel correct?
Yes, otherwise the panel will just burn the energy from the battery again when it's dark.
Came across this site. Didn't read it, just scanned it but it looks nice.
Thanks
Karma coming your way LOL
(I live in China so everything I buy has no instructions and I have to assemble everything)
I live in the US, and I can tell you that the instructions are not as helpful as you might think....