DaveL59

oops double post, sorry 🙂 

15 minutes ago, Orange Smartie said:

I agree. It would be nice to have an article aimed at those starting out with a consensus view on what makes a good starter set up given ambition, budget, local light pollution conditions etc.

trouble is if you ask "what would you like to see" the answer is usually "everything" and that's simply impractical for a single scope in most people's budget let alone one that's in the starter bracket. Thing is there's lots of "what scope" threads some similar to others in circumstances but then what's available changes year on year as well so folks tend to ask, either because they're struggling to filter the info that's out there or because it seems easier to ask but then get a barrage of probably conflicting viewpoints that they again need to try and filter. Doesn't seem to be an easy answer so far, or we've not yet thought of it 🙂 

1 minute ago, SthBohemia said:

^^Eh? Why? Forget GOTO and all the modern bells and whistles that some come with. An EQ mounted scope on even a DIY jumble of shafts and pipes is simplicity itself to use as it is aligned to follow the stars!! Mark the meridian with 2 stakes driven into the ground, point scope at stake.. Done. Better still (for those who like digging and mixing concrete) drive a 6" rainwater down pipe into the ground, fill with concrete, and make a permanent pier for the concocted mish mash of shafts 🙂 

Since I'm visual only I just plop the thing out in the garden and get it roughly aimed North. Ok I have to make a tweak here and there if I was a bit out but generally works fine for me. Of course there's an app now to help you do better which I'll use if getting the GoTo out just to save any hassles with it finding stuff later.

8 minutes ago, Moonshane said:

I think most scopes these days give decent views per aperture. As for eyepieces, you may be surprised what little difference there is. Perhaps read https://stargazerslounge.com/topic/166265-cheap-vs-expensive/ which I wrote a rather shocking ten years ago! Not much has changed since then although I did sell the 13mm Ethos, preferring Delites now. The 26mm Nagler remains 😁

thanks, I'd not seen that before. None of mine are at that price level, mainly TAL plossl or Vixen NPL with a few vintage ortho's and a zoom. I feel no need for wide AFoV etc. tho I can see the benefit with a non-tracking mount perhaps. That said, my scopes are all 'slow' which is easier on the eyepiece 🙂 

2 minutes ago, Orange Smartie said:

I'd be very interested to see a thread based around the lines of "I bought a ...... and wish I hadn't because...." as I feel negative reviews are far more revealing than positive ones.

 

I bought a Nat Geo 76/300 tabletop "dob" and its terrible to use, likely much as the firstscopes of similar type. But then that's not a fair comparison point against something like the flextube 130 and I'd only bought it as it was £10 used, very local and at the time I was thinking of the grandkids. Quickly realised that it'd be useless for them tho even after tweaking things to make it smoother, just a totally impractical design IMHO.

1 minute ago, bosun21 said:

Another point is for a beginner an EQ mount can be a nightmare  to operate properly. They are counter intuitive and they have to learn how to polar align before they can view anything while using slo mo controls. 

can be, but the starsense ones are all alt-az and some GEM's can be operated alt-az too, just set the latitude to zero or 90 🙂 

That was pretty much the point I was trying to make. Of course that I prefer a frac lends others to think I'm more sided that way in option and it becomes a dob vs frac debate which wasn't the aim. It is true that I prefer a tube+lens vs a bucket+mirror aesthetically and I wonder how many look at a newt/dob and think "that's a telescope???" as on film/TV you usually see a frac lurking in the background but never a dob.

Was amusing to see it all start with huge dob, 200 this etc then it tailed to a probably more sensible folding 150/130. Likely easier to manage for a young family, after all kids take up crazy amounts of space with all their own stuff if memory serves. And three well I do remember how that was both as a kid and my own brood, barely room to swing a cat as it were! We're all of course assuming this will be a new hobby that will develop a lifetime interest for them but it may fade quickly just as easily, so a nice starter setup at reasonably low outlay seems a good way to start off esp in the economic climate we're now in.

Anyways, hopefully she'll read all those responses in the thread and ask more before dropping a wedge n some light gathering kit. For sure we'll be happy to help spend the cash, hopefully on the best fit for them rather than ourselves 😉 

2 minutes ago, PeterStudz said:

Hi Dave,

I’ve been meaning to post more. Using PushTo in PSAlign Pro was one topic, but often struggle to find time. I also find it hard to write things down!

Young kids is also a good one too. What I have learnt and works for us, is to make the session an event. One recent example is my daughter inviting a friend over for a sleep-over. Her friend saying she was interested in looking through the telescope.

Alice and her friend camped in the garden. It was summer so no issues with the cold. I got them up at about 2am, although they hadn’t gone to sleep as they were too excited. Not really excited about the astronomy but excited about the sleep-over, camping etc. We viewed the moon, Saturn, Jupiter, a couple of star cluster and the ring nebula (only DSO that stood out in the moon light). There was also a shadow transit of Io which was fun. Oh and the GRS. Kids love seeing that. Plus they saw a few shooting stars. In between I made them hot chocolate and toasted marsh mellows. As the sun came we saw a fox with its cubs and heard the dawn chorus. Alice’s friend had never heard the dawn chorus. After that they finally went to bed.

It didn’t end there as when they woke up we did a little solar. At the time there were some big and beautiful sunspots. I find that kids like looking at sunspots. Often more than DSO which require some skill, patience, eyes use to the dark etc. The whole  event was finished off with a cooked brunch in the garden. 

The whole thing literally took me 3 days to recover from  But see what I mean by an “event”.

haha yeah I hear you re the late nights. Used to be no prob to work 36 hours when needed and just carry on with life, these days one very late night and I'm done for a few days, ain't age great 😞 And for the moment I don't even have to worry about work but that's likely to change soon if this new job gets the green light and I'll have less time to be outside late.

Get what you mean re kids too, easily distracted and friends over trumps just about everything but sounds like it was a great time for all. These days with the kit available its so much easier to get them interested and involved than it was when I was a kid, or my daughter even tho when she was little time would've been the killer as I was travelling around the country a lot.

3 minutes ago, Mr Spock said:

There was no such thing when I started - no such thing as the internet either. It didn't dampen my enthusiasm or stop me finding things. For many years all I had was a copy of Norton's Star Atlas. 

Appreciate that so learning the hard way was the only way, kudos to all who did/have. For me its always been an area of interest but not passionately so tho I've always been looking at the stars, probably more the easy constellations if I'm honest and I've learned of more of what's up there to see since being on here. It was after moving to this place and doing a lot of binocular overhauls, using the stars as a test that my interest re-sparked and so the quest for a scope. Trouble is the sky got lighter and travel/job tiring so that just added to the difficulty/inertia to not bother. Hence the GoTo and Starsense have been great as I just ask and they provide. Lazy I know, c'est la vie 😉 

Throwing a cat amongst the pigeons, how about this one?

Tal 1, Newtonion telescope, 110mm (4.3”), Motor Driven EQ Mount + Eyepieces. | eBay

A fair distance away perhaps but well inside your budget tho it could bid higher. These are very solid scopes and as it has a motor drive it'll track the star once you've located it, making sharing the eyepiece nice and simple as the scope will keep the target in view as the next person steps up.

13 minutes ago, PeterStudz said:

I have been reading this thread with “interest ” and wasn’t going to reply but this amused me. 

I’ve only been into astronomy for 18 months partly because my then 10 yr old daughter showed great interest. But one thing I/we did regret was NOT getting a Dob in the first place. We now fortunately have one and have never looked back. And we’ve never had any of the problems mentioned above! Now, we are in Bortle 7 and if we have to we can find anything in a few moments using the PushTo feature of PSAlign Pro - it’s an iPhone app that costs a few quid. At the moment I don’t have a lot of spare cash so have appreciated the value a Dob gives.

As for tracking I made and EQ platform for under £50.

Glad it worked for you Peter. Thing is on the thread that got me to start this one there's no mention of apps or anything else to assist a newb to find targets quickly. If anything like I was a couple years back when I started and you didn't know, you read about star hopping and then try and fail tho my skies have gone from a reasonably velvet black 5 years ago to light grey so that doesn't help much. Starsense makes it far simpler and when I pass this little LT70 to my daughter who is in S London where skies are worse she might actually be able to use it and show the grandkids stuff, being she's never done astronomy before she'd have no chance otherwise I expect.

There's also the option of SkEye that does similar to starsense but without the camera so less accurate but still useful but I didn't find those or figure them out till I'd already gotten a SynScan GoTo EQ5. For me working odd hours back then and being tired I wanted something easier than struggling and wasting already limited time trying to find something that I knew was up there, roughly, but  not finding it etc.

Perhaps worth posting your experience on that "what scope" thread as it is at least relevant experience of similar circumstances (young kids) 🙂 

17 minutes ago, cajen2 said:

And this doesn't happen with entry-level fracs? (Particularly those with EQ mounts...) 🤣

didn't say it wouldn't, my post to the what scope thread was they'd have budget for a NexYZ phone holder too so they could use a phone to the eyepiece and all be able to see together and might even tease a bit more depth from the fainter objects as EEVA does. Sure you could to that with a dob too, not that anyone suggested it as the responses more forcused on "get a dob" than anything else.

2 minutes ago, Mr Spock said:

I don't know who said that or how you reached that conclusion, but, the mirror on the Dob gives significantly better images than an achro refractor can muster. 

I don't disagree that a large mirror will give great images, at least compared to a smaller achro that'd be in a similar price bracket. I find my 4-inch TAL100RS gives at least as good views as my TAL-1 or Skywatcher 130 but OK they aren't 8-inch dobs so am I comparing apples with apples etc. But with these I can see over the fence without raising the tripod too much, a dob wouldn't no matter how big the mirror.

Reason I made that comment tho is I always hear the dob brigade cite how those are much better because of the lower cost mount so all the money is focused on getting you the best optics. Clearly not entirely correct, well in my view anyway. For someone new and asking for guidance they'll not know the difference and given the usual large number saying dob and a couple that might say something else I guess they'd end up with a dob as anyone else is pretty much drowned out under the sound of the stampede. Now some may get on fine with a dob, others will abandon the hobby because they don't or end up trying to find something else that better suits their circumstances at of course a loss financially to them so walking away might be the easier choice for them too.

I'm just asking the question "Why" as we aren't really giving a balanced response in many cases and sometimes it doesn't seem as if we've taken all the background info into account. Kids get bored easily as most of us know, but so do adults. Heck I quickly gave up trying to manually navigate as with light skies it was a chore and wasted time, hence I got a GoTo and also Starsense, so much easier and kept me aboard with the option to look at other stuff when the planets aren't about to view. Sure Turn left at Orion is good but still doesn't find you the target in 5 seconds. Those who've been doing this a long time and easily skip and hop between targets maybe forget how frustrating it can be for a beginner and how easily folks would then give up, again my opinion as sorry if I misjudge those who do consider that aspect.

To be honest a lot of the time I pass by the "what scope" questions as I know it'd be pointless to offer my 2 cents with the way those threads usually go, but as kids were mentioned in this one I thought it worth suggesting the starsense option as its for the young family that she asked.

I just wonder how long little 10YO jimmy will remain interested after waiting for mum & dad to try find something and then the elders getting their look with of course the fiddling to regain/retain target, then after say 20 mins of waiting about he gets a look and oh, in 2 seconds its gone and we go round again. 

2 minutes ago, Mr Spock said:

The eyepieces shipped with a scope are irrelevant in most cases. Mine are still in the box. They are thrown in to get people started. You are buying a scope, not the eyepieces (which may cost more than the scope in some cases).

It's like complaining about the free cd's shipped with a cd player. It's never music you're going to listen too...

being devil's advocate then... so the money isn't spent on giving you the best optics? 

Just a bigger mirror 😉

3 minutes ago, cajen2 said:

I think you're missing an obvious point. A cheapish 102 doublet might be comparable in price to a cheapish 8" dob, but that's only taking into account the cost of the OTA. Once you add a diagonal, a finder, a reasonable mount and tripod, there's a considerable difference in price. So recommending a dob at a particular price break makes more sense.

didn't think I was missing the point at all but to each his own. Sure if you're going to ship an OTA with a decent mount and tripod so folk can compare it to an ultra stable dob, say, but lets face it starter scopes are provided with the basics rather than an HEQ6 or similar. Fact is they work, ok a bit wobbly as shipped but some simple DIY can make them a lot better and not cost a fortune to do. They're also lighter and easier to move out and set up etc so I'd still say... why...

17 minutes ago, cajen2 said:

Complaining about the low quality of EPs supplied with a scope is ridiculous. Yes, they are often of poor quality and will be replaced by better glass. But many scopes come with no EPs or perhaps just one, so new EPs must be bought anyway. The supplied stuff will give a beginner something to look through until he's learnt something about the sky and what he's most interested in, thus having a better chance of buying EPs that he needs.

As to storage / carrying difficulties with large dobs, there's no reason why they should be large. A Heritage Flextube 130/150p will give you a healthy aperture and views for the price and is easy to store, carry and set up. Compare a 6" refractor with an adequate mount and tripod. I know which I'd rather shift around!

So let's not make this another tedious frac v. dob thread and agree that both have advantages and drawbacks.

Fair enough but I'm not in the mindset of frac vs dob with this one, more the why is it if "the money is spent on giving you the best optics" are duff eyepieces shipped. I very much doubt that it costs more to make an 8-inch mirror than a 4-inch doublet lens with automated manufacturing these days so that argument seems wrong to me.

There's also the ease of use esp when sharing with others, young children in particular as well as angle of view to the sky, after all not everyone has low fences or horizons. Its just very noticeable that every time the "what scope" question comes up there's lots of "a big dob" and sometimes doesn't take into account other information provided such as young kids etc. And the comment on better optics is always used to sway the theme. The folding scopes seem OK so long as you've something to plonk it on, I don't have a table out in the garden tho many likely do but probably not in the ideal place to observe from.

It all just made me want to ask... Why?

yes for me also there's the small garden with fences, so I'd miss getting much of a view of the planets until they were almost at the oak tree where tripod mounted I can see much lower and so get more time to view them. The light pollution here (these days skies are grey rather than black) I'd likely not find any dim objects without the go-to or starsense, let alone see many of them.

Whenever someone asks for a scope recommendation, the majority of  responses are dob and almost always a big one. Now I do get that with a mirror in a bucket you get no chromatic aberration, parabolic mirrors give sharper images than spherical and in fact I do have a couple reflectors in the collection I have so I've aware that they're actually pretty good. Better than the TAL100RS refractor, meh I enjoy the views that scope gives me just as much and also the LT70AZ that is smaller, lightweight and a nice and easy rig to just plop into the garden and play. As for CA, well neither refractor show that much to my eyes or maybe is just that I'm using better eyepieces (tho nothing like the mid-top end ones) so perhaps it doesn't get compounded further?

The argument that's always made tho is how a dob is far better because its on a cheap but stable mount so all the money is spent on giving you the best optics. Yet they're still shipped with a middling 20/25mm and a vaguely mediocre 10mm and if lucky an average performing barlow. So to me the argument about the money and better optics makes little real sense as you're still going to need to go spend lots more on better eyepieces. The only gain I can see is you get a larger aperture vs say a refractor in the same price point which may not be as well mounted as it could be but would work ok. 

To me a huge dob isn't an attractive option, storage, lugging it and the poking and prodding to keep it on target is very inelegant compared to SloMo controls that you can just tweak easily, likewise fitting an RA motor if you have an EQ mount to let the mount track for you making for much more relaxed viewing. The bottom end Alt-AZ gear that starter scopes have lack some of that refinement of course so that's where pennies were cut in building but even so to me they are more natural to use. I have to say had I gone and got a big dob to start with I'd probably have given up on this passtime long ago 🙂 

Shame TAL aren't manufacturing any more as at least with their gear you got a quality set of mirrors, albeit lower end were spherical, a solid mount with SloMo controls and eyepieces and barlow that were actually very usable, at least the examples I have are to me. Not to mention a finder scope that is optically excellent too.

Thoughts?

...heads off to grab the popcorn and pull up a chair now 😉 

I think one critical factor that's being overlooked is the kids. If you don't know your way around the stars then much frustration and boredom for the kids will likely follow and they lose interest. Planets are much easier to pick out of course and the moon is hard to miss so any manual scope may be fine while they enjoy the easy stuff giving you time to learn more about navigating around to the other interesting stuff. But for a quick get you going and keeping them engaged some form of navigation aid can be a boon. Sure you'll compromise some on the scope (optics, accessories etc) going that route but not all that much in reality but you keep the younger ones more engaged and perhaps in time you get a better scope and the kids can keep using the starter one as they expand their interest as well as getting to share the wow views from the bigger better thing...

The central dot or the wee one to the edge of it?

First would be the secondary, other maybe internal reflection somewhere?

36 minutes ago, Mandy D said:

It would be "Astrodomme" in the feminine! 🤣

Yes of course, apologies Mistress

😄 

5 hours ago, cathal said:

Dave,

Thanks so much for your responses !

The problem was fixed by uninstalling and reinstalling the app , which I really should have thought of sooner, but how and ever.

Next I need to try and fix the red dot optic which worked for a whole hour before giving up the ghost 🙂

All the best,

C

Ahh those batteries can be 50-50 in gear shipped to you, at least they're not expensive. Do remember to turn it off when not needing to use it to save the battery life and double-check when putting it all away. I left one on all night once and hadn't realised, of course new battery required next time out 😞 

Great news tho on the app, hopefully will be plain sailing from here...

22 minutes ago, Gem85 said:

Thank you all for your opinions and recommendations. I have a family of 3 children the youngest are 10. My budget is £200-£300 really for our 1st scope!  At the moment we love just watching what is moving in the sky, watching the stars and last night I had a great view of Jupiter from my garden but gutted we haven’t go a telescope yet to take a closer look 😕 

 

At that level you're looking more in the starter scope category, FLo have a number on their site that may suit. While the LT70AZ starsense isn't the most stable (wobbles a bit) it actually gives very reasonable views and can be improved with a bit of DIY, I've posted what I did to mine on here somewhere, a search would find that if you go this route. It cost me I think £179 and FLO list it for the same price:

Celestron StarSense Explorer LT 70 AZ Refractor Telescope | First Light Optics

I would tho say that you should get a better diagonal and eyepieces as the ones it comes with aren't all that, but as a starter setup it'd work as-is. You get the benefit of the smartphone app to guide you to target and if you have a second phone you could add the Celestron NexYZ phone carrier to the eyepiece and you'd all get to see the view together. At least at this starting price you'll have some budget to do that with. A simple zoom eyepiece like the SVBony 7-21mm with say a Celestron prism diagonal would be a good step up when ready.

Celestron 90° Prism Diagonal | First Light Optics

Svbony SV135 Telescope Eyepiece Zoom, 1.25inch 7-21mm Zoom Eyepiece, FMC 6 Element 4 Group Telescope Lens, Telescope Accessory for Astronomic Telescopes: Amazon.co.uk: Electronics & Photo

Bear in mind tho that this small refractor won't really cut it for faint DSO's but with kids I expect there'd be more interest in the planets and moon at the start. My LT70 is destined to go to my daughter and younger grandkids  once they've moved house, I'll miss it for sure as its so light and easy to just pop out in the garden and play that it currently gets more use than my other bigger scopes do 😄 

There is also an LT80 version if you can find that available it may be a slightly better option in terms of aperture, same mount wobbles tho I expect.

StarSense Explorer LT 80AZ | Celestron

I'd not leave batteries or electronics where they'll get heated up if it can be helped but the scopes and mounts are in the conservatory that does get pretty warm, as in >40C and they've been fine over the past couple years. Binos and camera lenses, ideally not cook them and it helps to stand or lay them on their side depending on where grease may seep from onto optics/iris blades. Mine are all in the living room which hasn't got above 28c so far.