Is the Skywatcher 130P any good?

[Dom1961]

Hello, im thinking of buying my first ever 'proper' telescope and im thinking about the Skywatcher 130P on EQ mount. Is this any good for me? I want to look at moon, planets and nebulae and galaxies and i have a little bit of light pollution, also and eyepieces you recommend for this scope?

[ronin]

Scope is fine, will do a reasonable job on the things listed, it is still 130mm so do not expect the light gather of a 200mm or the images to look like Hubble.

Why the EQ mount?

That often means thoughts of a DSLR and imaging.

The 130P is supplied on an EQ3-2 and it is too lightweight for realistic imaging and the scope (unchanged) will not allow you to get a focused image on a DSLR. If the blurb says "to attach a DSLR" that is correct, but attaching one and getting an image is different. You could attach with superglue or a 6" nail, both attach neither give an image.

[astronymonkey]

Hi dom,

What sort of budget do you have to spend as there may be other options. The 130 though is considered a good starter scope but I often think and eq mount complicates things too much for beginners..... I am a biased though being a dobsonian fan !

Cheers

[MAN or ASTROMAN]

I have a 130P,which I bought as my first scope,on returning to 'proper' stargazing,after a break of about 35 years.I'd read good reviews of the scope,and I wasn't disappointed at all by it's performance.I think that it's a pretty good all-rounder,and is portable.Mine was supplied on the EQ2 mount-which is lighter that the EQ3-2. I saw this as a cheap introduction to German Equatorial mounting,which I'd not previously used,so provided a good education for me. Mine was always intended purely for visual astronomy only,rather than astro-photography,and wouldn't be up to the job,bar the simplest 'piggy back' mounting of a camera- as far as my next to non existant knowledge of AP is concerned!

[Dom1961]

Is the parabolic version better than the spherical version? The spherical one is cheaper so I was just wondering

[Astro Imp]

Is the parabolic version better than the spherical version? The spherical one is cheaper so I was just wondering

Quick answer yes, a spherical mirror cannot bring the light rays to a common focus so you will have spherical aberration, a parabolic mirror overcomes this.

[jonathan]

I would say if you can afford it go for the SkyWatcher 150P, this will open up many more objects and better eyepiece options for you for future expansion (read: spending money).

I have my 150P on a Celestron CG-4 mount, which I also use for my solar scope and 4" refractor; once you have a good medium mount you can put a wide range of scopes on it, I could put my 8SE 8" SCT scope on it too if I wanted, it would be over the weight limit but it is do-able (EQ5 is the widely recommended mount for the 8SE, I normally mount it on an NEQ6).

The EQ3-2 is very similar to the CG-4 but I think is normally supplied with a weaker tripod.  Motor drive in one or both axis is an optional upgrade at about £100, they will run from AA batteries (the motor drive kit comes I think with a C cell battery holder, but I replaced it with an AA battery holder because these are easier to handle) which makes things nice and simple.

An EQ mount is very good for tracking, even if you don't do imaging, especially for planets and the moon which will move past surprisingly quickly.  To get motorised tracking with a dob mount usually means DIY or an expensive GOTO dob mount.  When I observed the solar eclipse I just aimed my tripod roughly where I thought North was and it tracked the sun very well, hardly had to adjust it much at all.  The sun moves along the same path as most of the planets and at roughly the same speed.

[MAN or ASTROMAN]

NB:- it's the EQ2 mount that is supplied as standard with the 130p. In fact,I don't think that you can buy the 130p as an OTA only.

[happy-kat]

Only to say Solar observing can only be done when using the correct filters on the telescope (including finder).

The eye pieces that come with it are ok to get going with and then add to as you decide what you like looking at.