Cosmic Geoff

I have a C8 on the CPC800 Celestron twin-fork mount. It's great for visual and for planetary imaging, but for imaging nebulae, I'm not even going to try. I'd need a completely different setup.

I used to have an identical combination and I hated it. With the tripod legs retracted, it would not see low objects over the garden fence. With the tripod legs extended when aiming at the zenith the eyepiece was about 7ft off the ground. The eyepiece could get into some awkward positions. The straight-thru finder was hard to use and a red dot finder was not more helpful - it really needed a coarse finder or gunsight and a right-angle finder. I wanted to try it on M81 and M82 - easy galaxies, but never managed to get it aimed at them. Within months I bought a used 8 inch Goto SCT which ticked all my boxes.

Most of us upgrade by buying further telescopes or mounts. If however you want an upgrade path from manual > motorised > GoTo, you should buy an Eq3-2 or Eq-5 mount. A 200mm f6 Newtonian really needs, in terms of equatorial mounts, a HEQ6, which is somewhat expensive. The upgrade path from manual Dob to GoTo Dob is to dispose of it and buy the GoTo version. I am not familiar with the equatorial platform, but the question has to be asked: if it's such a great idea, why does everybody not use one or why is it not a standard upgrade?

£350 is probably not enough for a GoTo outfit unless you buy second-hand. £350 for a GoTo is barely entry level. I would however recommend GoTo as I have tried both Goto and manual and found that manual was a waste of time except for obvious brighter objects, or the grab'n go role with a smaller sized scope. The GoTo has a further advantage in a light polluted area where fewer stars are visible to the naked eye. I have been interested in finding things, not "learning the night sky". If you prefer a more basic instrument, you could get a nice new Dobsonian for £350, assuming you can find stock. Maybe get a smaller table-top Dob with a view to upgrading when you have had some experience.

A one-star or one-planet align is not good enough to find objects far from the original aligning point, unless you level the mount with great accuracy. The one-object align assumes that the mount is perfectly level. Accuracy will be much better with a two-star align.

Replace the mirror diagonal if you like, but I have not found that replacing diagonals made much of an observable difference. The extra cost tends to get you better build quality rather than a flatter mirror. Even a 8mm eyepiece will not give you a lot of planetary magnification in that scope. (x83) You need a lot more magnification than that to see much. I found that using a x2 Barlow (the one supplied with it) significantly improved the image quality of my 102mm f5 Startravel achromat, asides from the increase in magnification, when looking at planets. So I suggest your next purchase should be a x2 Barlow lens.

I'm surprised you cannot source a circlip - there seems no reason for Meade to use a non-standard size. re the power, I would be surprised if the mount does not have a socket for plugging in an external +12v power supply. If it really has not, you could dispense with the battery holder and wire in an external connection yourself. Nearly everyone uses an external power source instead of internal non-rechargable cells anyway. As for the mount, if there is no standard dovetail allowing you to fit the scope to any mount, you could either re-work the tube clamp so you can bolt a dovetail to it, or invest in a pair of tube rings and dovetail bar. I would suggest though that fitting the 'scope to a new GoTo mount would be more expensive than the project is worth. Maybe a used manual mount?

You can look up what the message means on the nexstarsite.com. I think you will find that it means something like 'No response from mount' aka 'something not working' 🙂. I had this and so far as I can remember the cure was to reload the mount firmware (not the handset firmware). You can do this but it is rather a faff and you need the right connecting cable and maybe a USB-to-serial unit if you have an older mount.

I suggest you find and read the "What can I expect to see?" thread here. I suggest you start with visual only in mind. When you have some experience, you can re-purchase for imaging projects - the latter is likely to prove expensive. What kind of telescope? Really this is up to you; with a budget of £400 to £500 your first decision should be whether you want an entry level outfit with GoTo, or a somewhat larger telescope without GoTo. Next choice: what sort of mount? The German equatorial is versatile, but needs polar alignment, and is only really useful or essential these days when equipped with a RA motor to make it track, or for long exposure astrophotography. Alt-azimuth mounts are easier to understand, and in GoTo form work just fine and will track and do almost anything else you want. The Dobsonian (a mount, not a telescope, but for Newtonian reflectors only) is popular because of its simplicity and low added cost, offering maximal aperture per £. Then there's the telescope itself (the OTA): again plenty of choice here, and again it's partly a matter of what appeals to you. In your budget you will be looking at Newtonians - a simple classic design, but need periodic collimation which will worry some beginners, achromatic refractors: the short tube f5 versions are only fit for widefield viewing (or entry level inaging), while the long tube (f10) ones are good for looking at planets etc. The Maksutov is a reliable design with long focal ratio that rarely if ever requires collimation - buy with confidence. The smallest SCT at 5" aperture is another reliable design that has a long focal ratio (typically f10) and may or may not be within your budget. If all this just leaves you confused, then get a table-top mini-Dobsonian telescope (e.g. the Heritage 130p) and try that till you are able to decide what to buy next.

Have a look on the for sale section here, or on astrobuysell UK website.

Reasonable if it's like new and has all the accessories. But if you are not sure walk away. I got my C8 SE for half the discounted new price. It is a bit marked and used looking but works like new. And I got a more expensive SCT outfit that looks new for half the price of a new one.

From a dark skies site, the C8 SE was great for looking at DSOs - I could find them quickly with the GoTo and found lots. I also took my 102mm refractor + GoTo mount to a dark skies site and saw some DSOs with it. But if seeing galaxies is a priority you need aperture. BTW, SCTs are often available used at greatly reduced prices, possibly because people buy them with deepsky imaging in mind and then find they've been misled by inflated claims.

I have never seen the point of having a manual capability. A star alignment does not take long compared with the faff of erecting the telescope and carrying out the accessories. To find Mars manually I would have to slew the telescope and fiddle about peering in the finder. Why bother when I can just press 'Mars' and wait a bit? At most, with 'Freedom Find' I would not have to wait for it to slew. BTW, I have both Celestron Nexstar alt-azimuth GoTos and Skywatcher Synscan equatorial GoTo and I find the Nexstar easier to use and quicker to set up.

Be aware that there are sharply different opinions here on the merit of 'GoTo'. Personally, I would not be without it for my principal telescopes. The telescopes you cite are all fine, and in a dark skies area should keep you occupied for years. The mounts though, may be a different matter, and may well prove to under-mount these scopes. Also give a thought as to whether you want wifi control via a phone or tablet, or via the potentially less troublesome cabled handset. A really rigid GoTo mount for any of these scopes could consume your entire £500 budget. Some of those tripods seem the same as the tripod of my 127mm Mak, a tripod I rarely use now because I consider it too wobbly.

Astronomy is not a cheap hobby, and £150 does not go very far. With that budget, you need to shop carefully to avoid getting a poor quality telescope on a poor quality (wobbly or difficult to use) mount. With the often-recommended Heritage 130p, the optics are said to be good, there is not much to go wrong, and if you don't like the mini-Dob tabletop mount, you can transfer the telescope onto a better (and more expensive) mount of your choice at a later date. I suggest you avoid equatorial mounts on the grounds that beginners often find them confusing, and other than the fact that they can be motorised (at extra cost) they confer few if any practical advantages to the beginner.

You need to take some basic decisions. You can hang a camera on almost any scope and take 'astro snaps' but if you are serious about astrophotography you need to give some serious thought to getting the right kit (which will not be cheap). Requirements differ depending on whether you go for wide field imaging, planetary imaging, or deep space imaging. Is having the maximum aperture for your money a priority? In that case get the large manual Dob. Do you think you will want GoTo so you can find faint non-obvious objects with the minimum of hassle? If so, unless you have deep pockets you may have to compromise on aperture. If you have GoTo, consider that if you are using it for visual only, a German equatorial is a liability, and an alt-azimuth GoTo will be quicker and easier to set up each time you take it out (no polar alignment). Consider the possibility of ending up with two setups - one for visual and one for imaging. I once had a 200p Newtonian on a manual equatorial mount, with a straight-thru finder. I found it a thoroughly unpleasant beast to use - the eyepiece was sometimes out of reach, the finder gave me a neck ache at high elevations (it really needed two finders - coarse and fine), and I struggled to find any faint objects with it. As soon as I could, I took it out of use and got a second-hand 8" GoTo SCT outfit.

You need to set some priorities. If you are definitely not going to image, you probably don't want the complication of a German equatorial mount. If you have GoTo, it will save a lot of time and effort if you want to find faint and non-obvious objects. The Dobsonian outfits are simple to use, and you get a lot of aperture for your money, but they don't track, and don't find objects for you (unless you go for a GoTo version.) I found the Celestron Nexstar alt-azimuth GoTo system easy to use, a Skywatcher Synscan GoTo rather less so. If you live in a light-polluted area, a GoTo is particularly useful for finding non-obvious objects. You don't have to buy the telescope and mount as a package, or even from the same manufacturer, but it usually saves you money. Don't get over-ambitious with your first telescope - just get something that works properly, as you will probably upgrade if the astro bug bites.

Whether one prefers 'push to' or GoTo is a matter for the individual. One advantage of a GoTo mount is that it will track, while a 'push to' in common with a manual mount will not. If one looks inside a GoTo mount one may find that the motors are small and the motion encoder looks very simple, and in fact in manufacturing terms and retail pricing the 'push to' appears to have no cost advantage.

I have one, and can confirm that it is totally unsuitable for deep space astrophotography. BTW, if you quote prices in Australian dollars, UK residents (the majority here) may not be familiar with the exchange rate. That camera seems a little expensive, even allowing for the exchange rate. Be aware that the prime reason for using a DSLR is that many people already own one, and a dedicated large sensor astro camera is expensive compared with many DSLRs. I bought a used Canon 300D for £25.

I have had this happen with my CPC800. Never found out why, but some time later I had to replace a failed battery in the power pack I was using to power the mount. If you have to use AA cells, buy a premium brand, e.g. Duracell. Budget cells don't work. Unless you level the mount very accurately, the accuracy of the Solar System align will be poorer than a two-star align. If you set the OTA tube correctly in the clamp (fully forward) the eyepiece should not collide with the mount at high altitude.

Be aware that one telescope and one mount will not fill all roles equally well. There is visual observing, and planetary imaging, and deep sky imaging, and for each of these roles a different kind of telescope and a different kind of mount is optimal. A SCT is great for visual observing, and would be the preferred choice on your generous budget. And it would be equally good for planetary imaging. However they are difficult to use for deep space imaging, and a small apochromatic refractor (as commonly recommended) would be easier to manage. As for the mount, a heavy mount like the EQ-6 would fill all roles, but for visual observing, you don't need it and you may find that for a short visual session that dragging an EQ-6 out of doors (perhaps in two sections, because of its weight) performing a polar alignment, then a star alignment, rapidly loses its appeal. With an alt-azimuth mount and the Celestron Nexstar software (IMHO easier to use than Sky-watcher's Synscan) you could be ready to observe in a few minutes. Starsense or GPS could cut the setup effort even further. You don't need an equatorial for planetary imaging either, just a solid and well-behaved mount, but this is a less important point unless one has no interest in long exposure imaging. That was my idea on first buying a GoTo scope, but I rapidly abandoned the idea as it is not as easy as it sounds. It might be easier if you can use a large area (and expensive) sensor, but with the small sensor in a planetary camera it simply doesn't work as the popular mounts cannot aim the (SCT) telescope accurately enough to get the target onto a sensor a few mm across, without a good deal of manual intervention. It works better with a short focal length refractor, or if you can use plate-solving to fine tune the aim. But you could end up with a lot of extra hardware and software, just to avoid looking through an eyepiece. Rather, you could use an astro camera and laptop at the telescope for EEVA (see section in our forum), for observing things beyond the reach of the telescope and human eye.

At a city centre site, a GoTo mount would offer significant advantages as otherwise you will struggle to locate any non-obvious objects. You could fit a light shroud on the 130p dobsonian, but also consider narrow field instruments such as a long focal length refractor, or a Maksutov. If you don't go with the GoTo, upgrading the finder to a 9x50 RACI (right angled, non image reversing) finder would be helpful. A Dobsonian is the type least suited to any kind of imaging.

For a few dollars they should be able to add GPS - even more useful. I understand that a GPS chip costs only a few dollars these days. The Evolution version of the C8 has an internal rechargeable battery in the Evolution mount.

You want to eliminate the power voltage as a possible issue, so using a cheap or inadequate supply that might blow up your mount is self-defeating. Only fit one that is correctly rated and delivers +12v tip positive with a 5.5/2.1mm plug. +12v tip positive with a 5.5/2.1mm plug is a common configuration, but don't rely on it unless confirmed with the spec sheet or a test meter.

8X 1.2v = 9.6v. My Celestron mounts malfunction when fed with volts this low. Should be 12v to 14v, from a 12v lead-acid battery or a regulated 12v mains to DC power supply of adequate amperage (e.g. 2 amps or more).