Urumiko

Hi all, Thanks again. Some excellent insight, suggestions, and well researched answers. To be honest I think its all starting to make my head hurt and I've spent way too many hours trying to dance around a very limited budget and options. I think its clear something akin to a Sky-Watcher Explorer-150PDS OTA, and an EQ3 or better mount would have been an ideal setup to get real mileage out of, but this is obviously a step up in budget, and the longer I look the more I'm inclined to not push the budget and see how I get on with starter gear first. As such I've decided to opt for the skywatcher 130x900 with Eq2 motorised mount and see how I go. Its basically the same scope I was gifted so shouldn't cause upset, but seems to address the 2 immediate concerns I had with the Celestron (fragile plastic parts on the tripod, and fiddly access to the motor controls, which I dont think has a quick release on the motor like the skywarcher eather). It should be a reasonable platform to see if i stick with it, learn to tweak and columnate etc. See which issues I want to improve on the most, stability, optics, aperture, tracking etc. If I find myself hungry for more I can explore better quality eyepieces, and if I stick with it long term, I can start looking for a better mount in the £600 range to build upon. If any one has any suggestions on something i might be able to aim for as an easy target from my garden when initially trying it out at this time of year please let me know. I have a north facing garden and live in north east England. I cant get too low in the sky at home as There are other houses around.

Thanks again all. OK New plan of attack based on your responses and talking to a friend that is in to astrophotography. I'm actually quite blown away by what's possible with the 135mm Samyang and a good mount, but I would offend if I poopooed the gift of a scope and would still like to try one anyway. So I think now my plan is to just get something with the best viewing experience in budget as long as I can get a basic smartphone or camera pic from it for now to share what I've seen. I want to get something that is suitable to take to the beach/fields and get the best view of planets and hopefully things like andromeda or Orion nebula are reasonable to expect also? I would like to bear in mind leaving the option that I could later buy a good tracking mount that could be used with the scope and or my camera. Fuzzy vague images of saturn/jupiter + moons seems the signature sample image of the Newtonians vie mentioned so far. I'm just checking out a website which lists the gear used to get photos to get an idea, but these are all stacked and tracked images. So what will get me the sharpest views of my targets, and has a fairly universal mount/eyepiece/adapter compatibility? And yes it really does have to be amazon for the initial purchase.

Hi all. Thanks for taking the time to reply. Sorry if I wasn't clear enough, I take the point on not buying from amazon however the person who bought it for me opted to return for store credit so I'm locked in with them for the replacement. I will bear that in mind for accessories if I get the bug though. FLO seem a good store. Also I am not afraid of the computer/software/imaging side of things, I'm an IT professional, serial tinkerer and was a competition photographer for a while. I just know little of telescopes, but I assume all of that is mostly a separate consideration. Hopefully I can help hone in. after doing a bit more research tonight. Yes absolutely I want to be able to observe with the eye and I appreciate taking images through the telescope would be tricky, and understand it will likely require a lot of experimentation with questionable adapter configurations but it does seem its possible with Sony mirrorless cameras like mine. If its not amazing its ok I just want to try. All that said After doing more research tonight I understand I need to set my expectations regarding max exposure time possible on cheap mounts, even those that track but I really love the idea of go to computer control. I think I've got my eye on the The Celestron NexStar 130 SLT , which is a 130mm newtonian with larger aperture and is F/5. and seems reasonable build quality. Celestron also make a sony e-mount to T adapter for it. That said it is a little more than I intended to spend but I could afford it if its worth it. The cheapest comparable I found was the Celestron LCM 113 Newtonian, which for me sits at the perfect price point but is a smaller aperture, is F9 and still feels a little cheap in construction. I like the look of the startravel 102 suggested but getting it with a computerised mount would break the bank. Thoughts?

Hi all. As someone who has always followed cosmology and enjoyed dark sky photography (my camera is a Sony a6000 which weighs less than 1lb or half a kilo) I was delighted to receive my first telescope as a suprise Christmas present celestron astro master 130 EQ MD.(£220 on Amazon) Unfortunately on assembly I found a crack on the mount so we've opted to return it without trying it out. I appreciate this is entry level price range but it also presents the opportunity to check if this model is best for my use case. Whatever replacement I opted for I'd have to get it from Amazon but I would be willing to add about 50-75% to the pot if needed. Whatever I go for I know I would be very keen after learning the basics to try attach my camera and start doing multiple exposure stacking in a quest for better images. I suspect this is possible with this model but probably tricky with the motor being a very basic manual speed control. I'm a techie and the idea of automatic alignment/location/tracking is very appealing be that via onboard computer, smartphone app, or laptop but image quality is king so long as I can track for photography purposes. Any advice appreciated 😄