Cosmic Geoff

A priority is to replace the 9 or 10mm eyepiece that came with the scope by buying a better quality item.  In the case of my 127mm Mak, this resulted in an immediate and obvious improvement when used on double stars.

If you don't like the build quality of the kit diagonal, then replace it, otherwise this is not a priority. I replaced the kit diagonal of my 127mm Mak with a nice Circle T prism diagonal and did not see any improvement whatsoever in the view.  When I still had my 70/700 supermarket refractor (total cost well under £100)  I tried its cheap diagonal in the Mak and could not detect any optical difference.

The specialised filters cut down the transmitted light (often drastically) and only help with specialised targets, e.g. an OIII filter on emission nebulae.  I never found the cheap coloured filters much use for anything.

So, in short you want to image planets and view DSOs.

For planetary imaging you want aperture, preferably 8" or more. Same for viewing DSOs.

SCT telescopes are widely used for planetary imaging as they can provide the aperture in a compact package, and have lots of focal range to cope with accessories that add several cm. to the light path.

So ideally you want a SCT on a solid GoTo Altaz, or equatorial (at least RA driven), or a GoTo AltAz/EQ mount, plus a planetary video camera, and a small budget for other imaging accessories.  We are looking at a budget (new) substantially in excess of your 500 to 1000 pounds here, but it can be done if you buy used.

Of course you can spend less, e.g. an 8" Newtonian telescope on a RA driven equatorial mount could come within budget, but you would find this rig quite annoying to use, struggle to get it in focus with imaging accessories added to the optical path, and without GoTo struggle to find those faint DSOs. 

Or you can buy smaller (e.g. 127mm Mak) but the results will be proportionately less. 

If you buy the Vixen 1.6mm you will find that it gives you a large, blurred image and a very small field of view.  Ultra-high magnification is not useful magnification. A magnification of x1250 with this scope is, to put it politely, not a serious proposition.

I think you need to sit down and decide what you want to do, and then think about buying gear that does it.

The C8 SE is a fine visual scope outfit that will show you a lot. And it is quick to set up - you can carry the whole assembled  kit outside in one go. But if you try to do imaging with it you wil start to run into trouble.  The C8 OTA is well suited to planetary imaging, and you can accomplish this with the SE mount. But after a while you will start wishing for a more solid and better behaved mount...

I think that cancelling the X-xel LX 9mm eyepiece could be a mistake. I have one and it works well enough for looking at planets. (Ideally you want a range of several eyepieces, or a zoom). This scope is f10 so there is no need to buy exotic expensive eyepieces unless you have to have the best, and money is burning a hole in your pocket. An 8mm eyepiece is the shortest focal length that will see much use.

If you want to do imaging you will need another outfit dedicated to that task. And planetary and DSO imaging have different requirements. Expensive requirements, in both cases.

I keep my C8 SE indoors, fully assembled, with the tube horizontal. I suspect others do the same.   As a mechanical engineer I don't buy the 'stress on mirrors' theory.  No idea what the previous owners did, but it does not seem to have affected anything.

I suggest you don't detach the OTA from the mount. Since there is no grab handle on the SE version of the OTA, removing the OTA is a potentially dangerous activity (for the OTA and your wallet, not you). 

With the CPC800 (C8 variant) the OTA is placed corrector plate down for transport and storage. At least that's how mine came, in its original box and packing.

On 23/07/2020 at 11:00, Matt01 said:

A number of posts warned against an 8" Dob if you suffer from 'bad' light pollution.

Possibly the point being made here is that if the sky is dark and ablaze with stars it makes it a lot easier to find objects with a manual telescope (e.g. a Dobsonian), by star-hopping.

With a GoTo, the finding system is unaffected by light pollution so long as a few bright stars are visible and can be used for a star alignment.  Whether you will see any dim objects when you look through the eyepiece is another matter, just as with a Dobsonian mounted scope.

You will see many, many more galaxies from a dark skies site than from a town.

SCTs are the instrument of choice for planetary imaging, but I should have thought that using one for deep sky imaging would be a challenge.  Small APO refractors seem to be favoured. No doubt experienced DSO imagers will advise.  What I have read about wedges is that they are a problem area unless the outfit is permanently mounted, and that some users adopt wedges with enthusiasm then a while later give up and buy a German equatorial mount..  For what you hope to do, buying a German equatorial at the outset is clearly indicated. The Celestron SCTs are all available as OTAs or bundled with a German equatorial.

14 minutes ago, Dan Petzen said:

I would really like to get to a point where I can do deep sky imaging from my desktop in my house (or, if possible, from my van). My plan is to build a little structure/platform for the telescope, so that I can set it up, align it, and then control it remotely (wired or wireless depending on what's available).

That seems like a technologically challenging project.  But some members here have done that sort of thing.

The 'all rounder' telescope does not really exist, except in a very loose sense.  Either of these would serve as a general purpose scope, but the Skymax 127 (a Maksutov, I assume) has a much longer focal length and a narrower field of view.  Which is fine for looking at planets, double stars and small DSO's.  The other one will be more demanding of eyepiece choice because of the faster focal ratio, but will score if you want to look at wide star clusters.  Your choice.

Does the outfit you are thinking of buying look essentially the same as this?  I have no idea what the mount is, but it looks like a serious mount, and that upside-down eyepiece tray is the same as on my Synta-made Celestron and Sky-watcher kits.

Value - try offering 66% of the cost of a new 6" Newtonian OTA?

The scope will be better than a 130p if it's in good order.  If the scope and mirrors look clean apart from a bit of dust and nothing looks battered, it should be OK.

I would not have a Eq-2 mount as a gift, having owned a EQ-2 clone in the past.  The mount in the photo should be better, even if it only works as a manual push mount.

Are you going to inspect the scope in person, or buy online?

For a newbie, buying a used scope carries risks, as it may turn out to need some 'sorting out' which will cause difficulties if you have little idea how a perfectly functioning scope would be set up.  Because of sheer lack of familiarity, some people struggle to get brand new scopes working.

The setting circles on your Eq-2 are largely ornamental, and their main purpose is to increase sales.  When setting circles were a serious item, before GoTo superseded them, they were much bigger.  If you persevere with the setting circles, you will be able to get items into the field of view of your finder, but don't expect much more.

If you want to find the M57 Ring nebula, it is almost between two stars that can be seen with the naked eye, and these stars will show up in an optical finder.

I can't answer your question, but there have been cases of people taking a 40 year old C8 off its patently obsolete fork mount and mounting it on a new GoTo mount.

All the "Nexstar 6" will have the same optical tube assembly (OTA).

The C6 SE can be regarded as the base model - it has a reasonably sturdy mount (also used with the C8) with no frills.

The SkyProdigy is a model we don't have in the UK. It looks lke it incorporates the Starsense system (q.v.) available here as a £300 accessory. As you say, the mount looks like the relatively flimsy SLT.

The Evolution has a better quality mount with better internal gearing and the differences you have noted. Altogether a nice piece of kit, if you can afford it.

Just to confuse you further, there are wifi and SLT models on flimsy mounts, and an AVX version on a good equatorial mount (mainly useful for advanced astro imagers).

The latitude and longitude, so far as I recollect, should be in degrees and minutes (seconds) W and then degrees and minutes (seconds) N, with any leading zeroes entered.  It's safer to use the nearest city for now. Since the mount offers a nearest city option you can judge that the setting is not critical, but it is preferable to use an exact value.  Everything has to be entered in the correct format and right values otherwise the alignment will fail.  I assume you are on daylight saving time.

The Skyalign is intended for novices who cannot identify two or three bright alignment stars.  It will work with any three bright objects, but if they are not bright enough to be on the alignment list, the alignment will fail. If you can locate and name two bright stars, (e.g. Vega and Arcturus) then use the two-star auto align. (generally thought to be an equally accurate method).

Note that you can align on one named star ((one star align), but this will not be accurate unless the mount is perfectly levelled with a spirit level (not the bubble level built into the mount).  You can also use Solar System Align and align the mount on a planet, e.g. Jupiter.

I hope this helps. The Nexstar alt-azimuth GoTo is one of the more straightforward systems to use once you have learnt the sequence of operations (doing exactly what it says in the manual and on the screen.)

That's up to you. A 5" SCT is big enough to give you interesting views of a variety of objects.  It will show some galaxies if you can get to a dark skies site.

The 6" (C6 SE) will do everything better, but will be a bit bulkier and heavier. It has a bigger mount, the same as used with the C8 SE.

The Nexstar GoTo system is relatively easy to use.

1 hour ago, lw2689 said:

I see you have the star sense also, I’m looking to buy that also. Is it worth it?

That's up to you to decide.  It does  save much of the faff of doing a star align, and you can fetch out accessories while the Starsense is doing its thing.  I use it as part of a carry out, quick deploy setup.  Some people have had problems with the SS, others love it.

I recommend the ASI224MC.  It's good for planets and small DSOs, or EEVA.

If cash is short, try the ASI120MC-S (3.0 USB) but it's more of an entry level camera.

I have a CPC800 and at my pensionable age I would not want to be handling a heavier scope.  A CPC1100 would be great in a permanent location, I should think. 

Depending what you want it for, you could have a C11 on another kind of mount, which would enable you to shift it in two or three more manageable lumps.

Nice image of Mars.

3 minutes ago, Arlington1 said:

One thing I would like answered for sure. How accurate does the location need to be? If I select Brighton, when I am in hastings (30 miles away) is that going to put things well out or make little difference?

My experience is that it's not critical and that picking any town within 30 miles will get it working.  Of course it's best to get it exactly right by entering the lat/long numbers.  (On the other hand, selecting the nearest town will avoid gross newbie data-entry errors that point to the wrong continent 😦.)   The lat/long format is indeed confusing, being quoted in various formats not necessarily matching the Nexstar format.

Polaris should work as an alignment star for an alt-azimuth Goto mount. I have used it. I am surprised it does not come up on your alignment list. (it wouldn't if you enter a southern latitude by mistake).

The three-object Skyalign is liable to fail if one of the objects chosen is not on the alignment list. (Too faint, etc).

Your lat and long look about right for Hastings. It is not super critical.

I always use two star auto align.  The three star (Skyalign) is not thought to be any more accurate but can be used even if you can't name the 3 objects.

One star align is not accurate enough unless the tripod is levelled with great accuracy - greater than you can achieve with the built-in bubble level.

You could use a Solar System align and align on Jupiter.

If the system is working properly, objects should land within the field of your 25mm eyepiece.

3 minutes ago, Jiggy 67 said:

Geoff, if you’re breaking your neck using your polar scope this is a god send:

https://www.firstlightoptics.com/adapters/astro-essentials-right-angled-eyepiece-for-polar-scopes.html

Thanks. It costs more than the polariscope did, though.

5 hours ago, Redworminator said:

My budget is £300 so don't think I could get the other ones by the look of it. Out of interest how tall are you? You say it was too tall but I'm 6ft 4 so that may suit me

If you fully extend the tripod legs and point the scope at the zenith, you will need a step-up to reach the eyepiece at about 7 ft off the ground. This outfit is big...

or with the legs retracted, board fences get in the way of low objects.

I recently acquired Synscan as an upgrade. I don't quite understand why you are trying to align the mount using a laptop, Stellarium, etc.  Doing it via the handset would be simpler.  The polarscope in my EQ5 is a bit of a pain in the neck to use, but usable provided Polaris is within the FOV of the device.  With the scope in the Home position, Polaris should be visible in the finder and maybe main scope, for a rough alignment.  The later versions of the Synscan firmware have a feature whereby you can go back after a two or three star align and fine tune the polar alignment - you get some numbers on the handset screen and you are supposed to mechanically adjust the altitude and azimuth on the mount.  I did it once...

My impression is that if you use this feature the alignment ought to be accurate enough for AP. Not that I have tried AP with it.

I used to have a 200mm f5 Newtonian on a manual EQ5 mount and I didn't like it. It was too tall, the eyepiece got into awkward positions and it was hard to find anything with it. With just a straight-thru finder it was almost impossible to find anything near the zenith.

If you want a dob there are different brands e.g Bresser.  If you can spend more, get a used C8 SE, or the bargain C8 Evolution in the For Sale section here.