essentialblend

52 minutes ago, PhilB61 said:

Might be worth taking a look at it this website, it's aimed at beginners looking to buy there first telescope

https://supercooper.jimdofree.com/choosing-telescopes-complete-essentials/

This article is gold! Thanks for sharing. Still going through it.

20 minutes ago, PhilB61 said:

Similar to Grumpiusmaximus I currently have a 127mm Mak, 80ED triplet and 72ED. Which have I used most in the last few months? none of those, it's been my 60mm spotting scope with zoom eyepiece, because it always available on the photo tripod and I can pick it up in one hand and be in the back garden in 30 seconds. Great for when the weather has been so poor and your trying to dodge rain and clouds

If I was in a position where I knew I could simply upgrade later at will on command, I'd be much much more comfortable with the beginner 60-70mm frac. 

I just don't want to get something and then feel any aperture regret, although I saw a bunch of representation images and have some faint idea of what to expect. Even with this 150p + stuff, I'm running close to 400 quid. 350 if I remove the barlow. Too much if it doesn't get used and is making me consider an open box 130.

24 minutes ago, GrumpiusMaximus said:

The 130p is by all accounts that I've read, an excellent scope.  The focuser is very basic (just a helical model) but functional and can apparently be improved with some PTFE tape to provide a little more resistance.  There are threads on this forum about modifying them for improved performance (flocking, adding a light shield, etc.) but they are popular.

In your situation I would be seriously considering one as they are highly portable and give a decent amount of aperture for the money, with a simple mounting system.  A 5" reflector would give you plenty to look at an it's the kind of scope that many keep around even after they've upgraded.

I've found these reviews to be generally well-written and well balanced:

https://telescopicwatch.uk/sky-watcher-heritage-130p-review/

It's even cheaper if available open box, absolute steal. Completely alleviates my tension on the spot. Just dealing with ap-fever on this one and unable to fully convince myself against the 150p because I feel I'm kind of spending a lot of money either way. I'm waiting, lets see if I stumble upon good deals.

1 hour ago, Gfamily said:

Heres our Heritage 130 in the bag we use for taking it out. It's slightly smaller than the 150 Heritage, so is probably a bit more manageable if you don't have transport yet.

Depending on where you're observing, there may be a table or something similar to rest it on. That, a 32mm eyepiece and a 7-21mm zoom will probably scratch most astro itches to start with.

However, you might also consider a pair of binoculars, the Opticron Adventurer 10x50 T WP are very well priced, and if you have a look at the Binocularsky.com website you'll have a multitude or targets to go for. There's a monthly newsletter too that gives you binocular friendly targets for the time of year. The website is run by Steve Tonkin who writes for various astro magazines, and is also here as @BinocularSky . 

Thank you so much! 130p looks so much more manageable than I'd presumed. I'm not considering binos right now sadly. And yet to conclusively figure out the "where" and "how" of it's day to day usage sadly so I don't even know if I'll have any table (or chair hah) available.

Lots of haze unfortunately.

The only things I was comparing for was aperture per mm, and portability. Funnily enough Tiny Clang told me the same thing, and I get it, I could make this far more expressive and count in every non-trivial factor. The "ease of use / setup" effectively depends on the portability, or so I abstracted it out. All I have done on my end is self-assign one worst case portability metric, is all. No other subjective assessments.

Regarding refractors, I thought a bunch, and simply eliminated it for my first scope. These are just comparing the 100-200 'flecs I came across online. I felt my conservative portability score is at least fair. I'm not doing a quirk-per-quirk totality comparison between these products, it's just getting some more data to better make a decision as I gather the money.

I just wanted to know from those two angles, what serves well, and the ratings are almost what I intuitively imagined (i.e 100/130p being better portable and aperture per mm than a 150p), which reflects in the score, or so I thought. Here's my latest. The only easy hole in this I see is, it doesn't account for the "wow" factor of those big dobs, so regardless of how I prioritize the weights without extremes, the big ones probably get rated low.

Some data for fellow math peeps, if it helps anyone else.

I calculate aperture per quid using data, then assign a worst case portability score (of 3, higher is more portable) based on the advice I got here + what I can assess. Then I normalize them, assign weights, some basic math later, we get a final score. I'm going to buy some base accessories/upgrades regardless, so I didn't want them to influence the core value proposition.

It'd be fun to hear if people agree (or disagree) with these scores (considering the weights).

20 minutes ago, LondonNeil said:

Just playing devil's advocate, by March the days are drawing out.... by end of Feb Jupiter is gone until August...Saturn is gone in a few weeks....Saturn's rings are getting more edge on and won't be visible next year..  .

If you buy used you'll but lose loads of you sell again,  and the best way to learn is often through trying something..

I'm not helping am I?

I can always look at something and pretend it was Jupiter.

6 minutes ago, Kon said:

I wouldn't rush. The night sky will be there in March too 😉. No point buying something that you will regret a month later. You have got some excellent advice from others here.

Thanks to all of you! I definitely invaluably appreciate all the time, help, and all the first-hand experiences.

I'll do my best to wait this stretch out, and also take the opportunity to try and find a home that better aligns with this hobby as well, as someone that's seen many people pick up and drop hobbies, especially instruments in my case, I can definitely imagine the portability hurting if not ruining the entire experience. I can always return it if it's absurdly problematic, but I'd rather not. I gotta wait 7-8 days either way. I'll triple it and delay gratification.

It also gives me a chance to attempt and gather some more money, in case something better comes out in the way of new products or open box deals. I still yet don't have access to the buy-sell lounge here.

I'll try and look up more on refractors, and see if I have a more portable option with the least aperture sacrifice. I only looked up newts/dobs.

On a side note, what are the better places in the UK from a minimizing transit perspective (like from a Bortle zone perspective?). As of now, I'm looking between Nott, Le, Derby, Sheffield, and the likes. I understand just based off of intuition that most of these at best will be B5-6 zone especially the closer I go towards the concentration points, are there any "avoid at all costs" areas?

Just now, Second Time Around said:

Many astro societies have loan scopes.  This may be at least a short term answer.

Yep, will definitely try my best to attend the Nott soc meeting.

11 minutes ago, Kon said:

Have you seen theae here? 

 

 

I am not sure a 150 dob is really portable under your circumstances. I have a 200P and there is no way I would carry it around especially in public transport (from your earlier comment).

You haven't said what you plan on observing but a nice portable setup as the linked sites above might give you more pleasure to take around. Take a look on other posts in the discussion section about telescopes.

 

 

I just checked these threads. No opinion on these yet.

Also, regarding your question. That's the main issue as of now. Where I am till Feb end, is an amazing spot with a proper front yard clean area etc at the worst case. Ideally, I should simply postpone this decision till atleast I confirm where I'll be staying in March, so I know what's feasible for the mid-term to begin with. I'm simply not sure I'll be able to wait "that" long, but I'm trying to convince myself to at least wait till March, or till I get a good deal. I agree with your concern, ideally I should be waiting longer than I am planning currently.

6 minutes ago, PhilB61 said:

Also try not to let your heart rule your head, even a 6" DOB is a big heavy item if you get the wrong one (lightest seems to be 8kg without accessories and easily over 20kg for a more typical tube and base). Also don't forget you will need eyepieces, finder scope and collimation tools as a minimum. Great advice above about attending the show and seeing these things in the flesh.

I accounted for the eye-pieces, I'm not fully sure on the finder scope or collimation tools. I thought I'd check it out and if something feels off, maybe try some collimation tool, but I'm not at all sure about this.

As of now, the dob + eyepiece + barlow + microfibre lens cloth is setting me back around 310 quid (all new, unless I find some deal here in the coming days). This 150p seems about 7.5-8kg on the OTA.

I'm also considering Peter's advice, albeit not sure if I can wait that long, off a cursory search, I don't know if something new / substantially better is going to be out at that time. If so, I have more incentive to wait.

1 minute ago, PeterC65 said:

You could wait for the Practical Astronomy Show on the 23rd March and have a look at the various options in the flesh.

 

Extremely tempting. I could also gather a good chunk if something better comes out by that time, no idea if that's the case. Thank you so much for sharing.

6 minutes ago, Cosmic Geoff said:

If you are not able to handle one of these scopes in the metal before buying, you could find some cardboard and a couple of bricks to make up a dummy of the same length x width x height  + weight, and see how you feel about carrying it downstairs and onto  a bus. 🙂

I'm mostly not going to do that, if I were being utterly honest. I'll do my best in assessing, and rely on a return in the worst case where reality turns out completely opposite to whatever I gathered, but that's the only place I'm considering a return. 

I also think the Notts soc has a meeting in the coming days, will definitely attend that to see if I can get to see one of these in person. If anyone's going, please do let me know.

EDIT - I'm in no hurry to pull the trigger, I gotta wait around a week anyway.

23 minutes ago, Robthepiano said:

Well for goodness sake don’t imagine that any 120 refractor even a shorter widefield one is going to be remotely portable! And it will need a much beefier mount!

you must start thinking from what you can easily manage to carry/ transport, not your ideal at this stage! 

Thank you so much for chiming in!
Here's where my logic is clashing. If I take convenience as the primary measure, something around a 100-130p max, is a no-brainer purchase if I'm sticking with dobs. Now from being in the ball-park range in spending anyway, I feel if I'm going for 130, might as well max it out at 150 and try to manage carrying it around for shorter distances in the near-term. That's where my confusion is, as I've never used one first hand, or have immediate access, it's hard for me without that information bit, to confidently settle on one.

But for now I'm thinking 150p and calling it a day.

EDIT - I also understand the value in picking a smaller scope to begin with, as it stays with you as a grab-n-go option, and then picking a better bigger scope for a next purchase. The only issue is, say I stick with ~130p, I'm as is spending ~200 quid anyway. 100p, I probably save 50 quid more. For this amount of money when it's not "fully" disposable, I'm trying to account for each and every quid with regards to aperture, causing further haze in what should be a relatively easier decision.

If I found out that even a 150p, I couldn't carry around walking a bit, then I'll either call it a day on a 130p, or just max it out and call it a day with 100p/equivalent 'frac. This is what I'm thinking for now.

4 minutes ago, Elp said:

Think the OP needs to read this too:

 

Thanks for sharing! Indispensable read (I read it a day or so ago), and also helped me align and better appreciate what I was seeing.

Just for posterity, I didn't think I'd see Hubble type images or something, but one mis-expectation I did have which quickly got corrected, was that I'd see more DSO stuff in colour.

1 hour ago, Robthepiano said:

Would you consider a wide field refractor like this https://www.firstlightoptics.com/startravel/skywatcher-startravel-102-az3.html

at 3.8kg including mount it would be easily portable, fairly robust and give you some great views till you have somewhere you can use a dob. 

While I am almost dead set on the 150p, with post accessories totaling around 310-320 quid as of now, I haven't completely ruled it out. I want to try and maximize the aperture per pound, is why I was ruling these out, but the portability definitely makes up for some of it. I don't feel confident enough making a decision here despite finding both of these appealing, but my gut wants to go with the 150p just from a value perspective.

Open to having my mind changed, with refractor options, I saw the Startravel 120 AZ3 for 379 quid alongside your rec. Are there any other options in that range? I don't know enough about mounts / tripod thing, to decide. I just want to get as much aperture as I can for a first telescope even if I'm paying a bit over, reflector or refractor.

Thanks

Okay based on Elp and Cajen's advise I'm sticking with dobs. Narrowed it down to 150p and Bressier based on cajen's suggestions.

What would be the best 6" dob y'all would recommend from a purely DSO perspective? if any I've missed maybe.

5 minutes ago, cajen2 said:

Look at our sponsors' website, First Light Optics, for a huge range of scopes in your budget. Check out the 6" dobs available from the likes of Bresser and Ursa Major, especially the tabletop versions.

Yep this is what I gathered for now off FLO. Could definitely use your advice in narrowing down. One more thing I don't know is, would an OTA + Tripod of some sort be equally if not more portable than a similar dob? I don't know what tripods / stands to go for if I went the OTA way, I'm presuming I'd have to spend more than its dob equivalent. I don't yet fully understand the specs either, to know what'd be the best option amongst these for DSOs.

I excluded the StellaLyra 6" for now as it was more expensive than the others, unless I get personal recs.

Just now, cajen2 said:

As for my experience of refractors, I should let others answer this as I've only owned one, a Starfield 102 ED, though I've used a huge variety of different ones at star parties. The SF is superb.

What I will say is that cheaper ones may suffer from colour problems as above. This annoys some people more than others. More expensive ED scopes have glass which can lower or eliminate this.

Looks slick, just 3x out of my budget is all. I also quite enjoyed the Seestar rec from Second Time Around, I just don't have the money for it. Even if I killed myself, the max I could penny together'd be 350-400 quid lol.

As of now I'm simply considering the 6" dobs after taking yours + others advice. I found 3-4 sku's counting OTA's + dobs. Thank you so much for taking the time to help! :))

I also did some basic youtubing on refractors and the good ones I found to be way too expensive for my current situation.

Amazing thread! Thanks for taking the time. I'm now beginning to better appreciate these smudges.

1 hour ago, cajen2 said:

I'm in a good position to pass on a bit of experience here. I have a Heritage 150p, plus a Starfield 102 refractor and until last year, had a StellaLyra 8" dob.

The 8" is NOT what I'd call easily portable, especially if you'd be carrying it up and down stairs. You'd have to split the scope and its mount, and both are pretty heavy, so two trips required. You can buy an Oklop bag for the 8" which makes it easier by having the strap over your shoulder, but it isn't so much the weight as its sheer awkwardness. I'd leave the idea of a large dob until you're totally settled.

The Heritage overcomes a lot of these problems. It's easy enough to pick up the scope on its mount and carry it in one hand. For carriage on public transport it's simple, particularly if you get a carry bag for the scope itself. The only downsides are the focuser, which takes a bit of getting used to, and the fact you need something stable to mount it on. I use a three-legged stool, which works well but is something else to carry.

IMO, your best bet for now is a smallish but good quality refractor using a lightweight mount and tripod. With carry bags, all that's easy on a bus or in a taxi. A 100mm class frac like mine is perhaps a little too long and expensive for you currently, but an 80mm one would be ideal and is capable of giving you excellent views. I'm sure the assembled crowd on here will give you recommendations, as I never try to recommend something I haven't used myself.

Also @cajen2, could you please give me a low down on your experience with refractors? I feel I saw a bunch of representational images for reflectors, but not for refractors, I don't know what I should be comparing against apart from portability.

32 minutes ago, PhilB61 said:

I think you really need to get to see and use an 8" DOB before committing, for one thing it's bigger than you might expect and if you are in a bedsit where will you keep it? You are unlikely to be able to carry it in one go, especially with required accessories and if negotiating stairs etc. a sack cart or trolley might help. And taking on public transport would be a nightmare. You would also have to collimate on every outing. However if your accomodation has an outside amenity area that you could use it might be doable. Viewing through a window is not a viable option unless you have very large windows and still gives very poor quality views. A small refractor used outside will give better views than a large DOB through a window! One other consideration is your personal safety, an urban park or public space after dark is not somewhere I would like to be, especially with valuable and bulky equipment to that you can't easily pickup and walk away with. Sorry if this all sounds a bit negative, that is not my intention, but sometimes we have to adjust our desires/objectives based upon our current circumstances and at this point in your life you may get more use from a small refractor than a large DOB.

Highly appreciate your advice. Even based off those scale images, it does look big and unwieldy. I've all but ruled it out, and I'm now leaning more towards a 150p (either a dob, OTA + tripod(?) setup) or a refractor. I will only ever consider an 8" if my living conditions 150% accommodate it. Good egress / immediately accessible clean back/front yard areas / no stairs etc. (which is all just a hope-shot, I'd need to get ultra lucky for that)

What I "want" is just making it worse with regards to the 8" because I feel I could pull it off financially, but again no point having something so inconvenient that it barely gets used.

Happy to take a refractor rec against a 150p (as that's what I'm 90% leaning towards).

31 minutes ago, cajen2 said:

I'm in a good position to pass on a bit of experience here. I have a Heritage 150p, plus a Starfield 102 refractor and until last year, had a StellaLyra 8" dob.

The 8" is NOT what I'd call easily portable, especially if you'd be carrying it up and down stairs. You'd have to split the scope and its mount, and both are pretty heavy, so two trips required. You can buy an Oklop bag for the 8" which makes it easier by having the strap over your shoulder, but it isn't so much the weight as its sheer awkwardness. I'd leave the idea of a large dob until you're totally settled.

The Heritage oevercomes a lot of these problems. It's easy enough to pick up the scope on its mount and carry it in one hand. For carriage on public transport it's simple, particularly if you get a carry bag for the scope itself. The only downsides are the focuser, which takes a bit of getting used to, and the fact you need something stable to mount it on. I use a three-legged stool, which works well but is something else to carry.

IMO, your best bet for now is a smallish but good quality refractor using a lightweight mount and tripod. With carry bags, all that's easy on a bus or in a taxi. A 100mm class frac like mine is perhaps a little too long and expensive for you currently, but an 80mm one would be ideal and is capable of giving you excellent views. I'm sure the assembled crowd on here will give you recommendations, as I never try to recommend something I haven't used myself.

I think a chunk of this decision will be much easier for me as I get a final handle on where I'll be moving to in March, and whether I have elevators / nearby areas with good egress. I am not planning to buy it immediately anyway.

I honestly am still not able to get myself to consider a refractor out of aperture fever of a kind, sounds like a no-brainer from a portability perspective for sure. This is more confusing than I'd like.

Edit- Based off the advise I got off you lovely peeps here, I'm narrowing it down to a 150p, and hesitantly considering a refractor. And I have not looked up anything on them. Considering the 150 quid working budget to a stretch around 250quid for value for money, what should I consider in terms of refractors? Not including the post purchase upgrades in this budget. 

29 minutes ago, Second Time Around said:

Bear in mind that if you buy something like a Heritage you're going to need a table to put it on and probably cart around.

As you're primarily interested in DSOs and live in the city another possibility is the ZWO Seestar.  It's essentially a camera rather than a scope in as much as the image builds up on a screen over a period of a few minutes rather than your looking through an eyepiece.

However, it'll show you way more details in DSOs than an 8 inch Dob used visually.  It's also extremely portable indeed and can easily be carried on public transport.  Plus it doesn't need to be mounted on a table.

It's not cheap at £539 but it comes complete and will serve you for many years to come.

I can't speak from personal experience as I use night vision devices for DSOs, but I'm sure others will chip in about the pros and cons of the Seestar for someone in your circumstances.

 

This looks super cool! Way out of my working budget for now, but would definitely consider this for when I have some money to blow. I was primarily interested in basic visual astronomy for now. Thanks for sharing!

3 minutes ago, Cosmic Geoff said:

+1 for a Seestar.  It will work well for imaging emission nebulae even in a city, giving you far better views than you could hope to get visually.  It will also work on other DSO's, especially if you can take it to a darker site, which would be easy to do, since it is small, very portable, and comes in a carry case.

Be aware that galaxies will be a disappointment visually, and barely visible unless you have a scope of significant aperture at a dark skies site.  All I can see of galaxies from my urban location is a grey smudge representing the central nucleus of a few of the brightest ones.  But if I use EVAA (q.v.) it's a different story.🙂

Oh I definitely agree (and read up on this on a site), I saw a bunch of pics of DSO's which effectively looked like a faint smudge. My original expectations were slightly higher (lol), but I definitely appreciate them as to where I don't imagine being bored. Gotta say, could be totally wrong on this lol. One of those things I'm not fully able to gauge without using one first hand.

55 minutes ago, Elp said:

If you've got an astro society nearby I'd attend and see what others are using. An 8 inch dob is doable, you'd have to look at the weight as most of the weight is in the rocker box (base).

I looked up and joined the Nottingham soc, will try and catch them in a couple of days. Sounds fun! I'll get to maybe use one and see, just to get a reality-check on my expectations before buying anything, although I think I know what to expect based on what everyone said. Definitely not making the rookie mistake of confusing astronomy with AP, for sure.

13 minutes ago, Elp said:

It's the bulk/volume you have to think about. Think about the ease of carrying a refractor in your hand, tripod and mount in the other vs a large and bottom heavy bucket which you need two hands to comfortably carry, maybe up and down some steps too. I need to carry my stuff out so only get what purposefully fits into bags I can carry on my back, the limit due to the amount of other stuff I had to carry (full AP rig) was a 130PDS which I did find a backpack for, but still called for multiple in and out trips for everything else. Compare this to my refractor or camera setup where everything fits into one bag, maybe a tripod in hand also if I decide to use the taller one. Far far easier to manage and I use them more as a result.

What you can visually see between scopes will depend on your bortle zone and local light pollution. I'm bortle 7, have little chance of seeing DSO (I've gone up to 6 inch), they're the slightest slightest fuzzy blurs almost invisible even something like Andromeda galaxy, so you'll have to be prepared for this. Going to a dark site will be far better, but you need transportation or someone who's got the same passion as you with transport and my point about portability comes into play again, though you can likely get away with a larger setup more if it's on occasion rather than regular.

The heritage comes widely regarded. Solar system viewing is quite easy with most scopes, resolution and focal length usually comes with larger apertures. DSO objects requires both, but also minimal LP. It's why I image more than view, a camera can see over time so will always see more than via human vision, the halfway gap is doing EAA using a camera as a visual assist tool.

Just for clarity, I don't care about AP at all right now. All I imagine having is the tube, the stand, and its accessories (unless I'm missing anything). I tried looking up my current area's bortle zone, but only found some maps without labels, so don't have a clue about this at the moment, thanks for this information. I had no clue.

Is it even possible to carry an 8" dob via public transit if I had to? What I can imagine doing occasionally, is just booking a cab to the nearest clear view available and making an occasion out of it. And on the daily, maybe use it near my residence. I can still imagine carrying and setting it up nearby my residence, but it's this inter-area thing I'm confused about. I find the 8" to be the best value for money in this circumstance, and just trying to see if I can realistically make it work. If not, I will simply go for 150p and call it a day, but I don't want to do that. Refractors, honestly I'm not even considering.