First telescope - London

[Deoxys]

Hi guys,

Would anyone have any recommendations for a telescope that would be decent to use in light polluted London skies.

My budget is around £350 and would prefer a goto, I also wear glasses - I don't know if that has any effect?

Any help would be appreciated

Thanks

[ronin]

Suspect that you are looking at a Skywatcher 127 Mak.

Mainly they are compact.

I would have preferred an 80mm refractor but they do not come on goto's - the one that does the Meade ETX 80 is a bit short in the focal length. Equally it is easy to use.

There is a club that meet in Regents Park - Baker Street Iregular Astronomers.

If you can get to one of their nights it is a good idea to have a look at the options in use.

For glasses it means getting eyepieces with reasonable eye relief.

Often recommended are the BST Starguiders and Celestron X-Cels.

However on a Mak you will want long focal length eyepieces to give a reasonable field of view and keep magnification down so the plossl type eyepiece will do and deliver enough eye relief.

Do you drive?

Means you could get other options if you did.

[Qualia]

My experience from city observing is that If you observe in the city, choose the largest aperture telescope you can afford and transport. In the city, aperture wins. Always.

From a dark site, a small scope will show quite a bit of detail but not in the city. In the city, you need all the light gathering power you can afford and just as importantly, move about without compromise or complication. Depending on your circumstances, if I were given a choice between a 4" frac, a 5" Mak or 6" newt to use in the city, I'd always go for the latter. 

Focal length is also worth takling into account. In the city, the sky in your eyepiece is generally a light grey rather than black. There’s less contrast between the background sky and deep space objects. To an extent, you can tackle this problem by augmenting magnification which helps increase the contrast between an object and the sky background. So, when looking at you new scope, it might also be worth focussing on those with larger focal ratios, perhaps something like an f8, f10.

Taking these considerations to heart, I feel a 6" to 10" dobsonian mounted newt a laudable choice. So too an SCT. With these you will get lots of focal length, good choice of aperture, possibility of GOTO and relative ease of transportability.

Needless to say, before buying a telescope, try to get along to a local astronomy club and check out the scopes and the views they offer. Most astronomers will be only too happy to help.

[Alfian]

A Couple of interesting related articles here:

http://www.astronomy.com/observing/get-to-know-the-night-sky/2006/12/setup-is-key-when-urban-stargazing

http://www.telescope.com/Astronomy-Under-Light-Polluted-Skies-Whats-to-See/p/99825.uts

[Captain Harlock]

A Couple of interesting related articles here:

http://www.astronomy.com/observing/get-to-know-the-night-sky/2006/12/setup-is-key-when-urban-stargazing

http://www.telescope.com/Astronomy-Under-Light-Polluted-Skies-Whats-to-See/p/99825.uts

An interresting read, thank you Sir !