Dr Strange

Your best overall bet would be, as stated above, the SeeStar. It is affordable and does quite well for its price point. If you find you are really into astro photography and will stick with it long term then you can think about spending quite a bit more. At its price the SeeStar can't be beat and does what setups 10 times more expensive can do. You can take the data (in FITS format) from the SeeStar and learn how to post process it to make it look better too.

Yes! Please resist the urge to get an auto focuser! AP/EAA is already complicated and difficult enough! This just adds more complexity and difficulty! In a few years if you really want to fiddle with a auto focuser and have worked out all the other gremlins as well as have gained a fair amount of experience then perhaps add a auto focuser. Also DON'T fall into the aperture trap! There will be an overwhelming desire at some point to increase the aperture of the scope you have. This is great until the novelty wears off and then it will just sit in the corner and gather dust because it is too heavy/bulky to deal with. There is a saying in the hobby: The best scope for you is the one you use. And it is very true. I would recommend, at most, the 8" SCT and pair it with a 80mm or 102mm APO refractor. The two are a powerful combination that gives you the tools you need to observe just about everything worth looking at out there. And won't break your back.

Actually not that much difference in weight. The 6SE tube is 8 lbs. The 8SE tube is 12 lbs.

tl;dr: Yes, if it is within budget get the 8" over the 6" because things will be brighter, show you more detail, and give you a better view. Yes, it absolutely can take advantage of a 82 degree FOV. Long Answer: Having used a 6" SCT and a 8" SCT, the difference is noticeable and gives you a Wow! but not a WOW! In general, my mistake saying a refractor instead of a reflector aside, to get a WOW! you need to go up 3" in aperture at a minimum for a reflector. So from the 6" to a 9.25" SCT or from a 8" to a 11" SCT. I started with a 8" SCT because, as I said, the difference between it and a 6" was noticeable and did give me a Wow! but where I really saw the WOW! was going from a 8" to an 11" SCT. To put in perspective and going back to 2013 when I was just starting out, Messier 13 (M13) the globular cluster was detectable in the 6" with a very puff of smoke type look to it. In the 8" it was a good amount brighter and individual stars were visible. This from a Bortle 8/9 yard. That is what initially sold me on the 8". Where I really saw the difference was going to a 11" SCT. It looked like someone spilled salt or sugar on a black table. Individual stars were very distinct and very visible. I am *NOT* trying to convince you to get a 11" SCT! I am just trying to illustrate to you the 2" vs. 3" difference. a 6" or 8" SCT is going to be the sweet spot for observing. Both are portable, both can go in your car and be driven to a dark(er) sky and both will perform very well for you as a beginner and even as an experienced hand. A 11" SCT is much heavier and larger than a 8" or a 6". People will go on about mounting it but from personal experience (I regularly did it and even Celestron technical support will say it) you can put a 11" Celestron SCT on a Celestron Advanced VX mount. It will work fine. If you are super annoyed by the minimal vibrations you will see when focusing then get a set of Celestron Vibration Suppression Pads. This is for visual use not astro photography! So if you have the budget and will be engaged in the hobby I would suggest keeping the StarSense, returning the 6", and buying the 8". You will see the difference. Regarding 82 degree eyepieces, yes they will perform well in either the 6" or the 8". I would also recommend getting a 2" diagonal for it too. That will maximize the flexibility for you in terms of eyepieces and open up the possibility of 2" eyepieces as well. For example in a 8" SCT a 14mm Explore Scientific (ES) 82 degree eyepiece will give you 0.56 degree field of view,. This compared to a stock 15mm 50 degree Celestron Plossl which only gives you .37 degree field of view. Go to a 30mm ES 82 degree and that goes to a 1.26 degree field of view which is pretty darn good in terms of wide field for a SCT. That said I do not recommend a 30mm ES eyepiece. Unless you also want a heavy bludgeon to beat someone or some animal about the face and head! The largest eyepiece I would recommend would be the 18mm one. So to have a good set of eyepieces I would say a 18mm, 14 or 11mm, and a 8.8 or 6.7mm 82 degree ones. But start with the 14 or 11mm one. If you want super wide field of views buy a ES 80mm APO FCD-1 refractor. It regularly goes on sale for $600 (and is on sale now) and can work with the SE mount. In it the 14mm gives you a 1.88 degree field of view. And a 30mm 82 degree eyepiece is regularly $500 but on sale is is $280 so for just a bit more you can get a completely new and complimentary to the reflector scope. Oh and that 80mm can be either used only on the SE mount or it can be mounted on top of the 8". In the case of the latter you will want those Vibration Suppression Pads I mentioned. Oh and the 80mm APO comes with a 2" diagonal that is pretty good too! So that saves you about $180 that you would have spent to buy it separately. Lastly I would get on the phone with the store you bought it from and request they don't charge you a restocking fee because you are moving to a 8" from the 6". The worst they can do is say "no". And if they do and you want to go to the 8" return it, bite the bullet and pay the fee, then buy the 8" from someone else who doesn't Mickey Mouse you with restocking fees. For example Astronomics or Woodland Hills Camera and Telescope would be an option. You will have to pay the NY sales tax at the end of the year on your personal return because I don't believe that Astronomics or Woodland Hills will charge you NY sales tax since they are both out of state... I am sure you are absolutely reeling right now at the expense! Overall Astronomy is expensive but compared to other hobbies it is actually not. Furthermore buy once and cry once instead of buying, returning, and buying something else. And I tell She Who Must Be Obeyed (my wife) that it keeps me out of the pubs (bars) which makes her quite happy!

Boy is my face red! I meant REFLECTOR not REFRACTOR! Having owned a 6" refractor, you are right. It is quite large.

Very nice Francis! Do you use a EQ wedge or just use it in alt/az mode?

It actually does surprisingly well in a 8-9 zone. I live in one and for $500 it is very impressive! As noted see page 40. It will give you several examples.

Happy New Year! Frankly the SCT will be smaller in terms of size and more portable. With your criteria it is something to consider. The Newtonian will be easier to collimate and it will have a overall wider field of view which will be helpful on large objects but not helpful on small ones. Collimation of a SCT is done less often but is more involved. Over time with either you will get it down and can do it easily. Practice makes perfect. It will initially be difficult to see things. Especially from NYC and the corresponding light pollution. The secret to seeing more is to observe more. Observing is just like using any other muscle. The more you use it the stronger it will become. Same is true with your eyes. For example my city has about the same level of light pollution as NYC. When I started in the hobby I couldn't see the sword of Orion which is off his belt using my naked eye. That was in 2013. Now 10 years later I can see the sword and make out the actual Orion nebula with slightly averted vision. When I started observing I could barely detect Messier 81 and 82 galaxies using my 8" SCT from my backyard. Now I can easily see them using my 100mm refractor. My secret was using every possible opportunity I had to take my telescope outside and observe with it. My eyes, over time, got better at seeing things. To set expectations no matter how long you do this, unless you have a unusual mutation in your eye called tetrachromaticism or a very large telescope (about 22" or bigger in diameter), you will never see color in your telescopes except for the moon and the brighter planets like Saturn, Jupiter, and Mars. Nebulae will look like puffs of smoke and galaxies will be objects with a bright center and wisps of smoke around it. But you are seeing both and that in and of itself is pretty cool! Globular clusters will be small balls of stars. Open clusters are going to be dots of light. Carbon stars are going to be orange to red dots of light. And double stars will be two dots of light. In darker skies there will be more detail to those wisps and puffs of smoke and they will be brighter. There are many things to see out there and it really is amazing! Think about this... The light that leaves Messier 81 13 million years ago (it is 13 million and change light years from earth) and is only now hitting your eye. So you are looking at something that happened 13 million years ago! Something else you will want to do. Buy yourself a comfortable chair like a drummer's throne. It isn't for your rear end it is for your eyes. The more comfortable you are the more you will see.

Hey mate Happy belated Christmas and happy New Year! A 6" refractor is the minimum size aperture that you need to see things as a beginner. I too am in Bortle 8 skies. I used to own the 8SE. The 2" increase in size do make a difference in Bortle 8 skies but not significantly. You really need to go up 3 inches or more to see a very noticeable difference with a reflector (reflectors have mirrors in them. Refractors have lenses). That said the 6SE will do fine. Everything is going to be faint and fuzzy balls of cotton except for star clusters, the moon and planets anyway. Having said that aperture is going to be king so if you have the funds and think you will stick with it, then get the 8SE. It is not under mounted. There may be some vibrations when you focus by that can be easily mitigated with Vibration Suppression Pads. There are ones made by Celestron that work very well. The real key is going to be the StarSense (SS). It will make things easier to work with after you get it dialed in. The key will be dialing it in. First you are going to want to make sure the red dot finder (RDF) is lined up with the telescope as best as possible. Ideally pick something that is easily seen about 20 miles from you and line it up on that. It can be a tree or anything else. Start by putting it in the scope then adjusting the RDF so that it too lines up. Then you will have to run the SS for the first time. It will be way off. Do the calibration process. As a part of it find a bright star in your night sky, Capella is a good one this time of year and so is Betelgeuse, and move the mount so that it is in the RDF which is now aligned to the telescope. Then finish the calibration process. After that the SS will align the telescope for you. A tip on the SS. The Sky Tour is going to give you a bunch of stuff that is either not visible because of ground obstructions or is just not visible. Instead use the option where you can select objects to go to. NGC is the best choice. Go to www.tonightssky.com and develop a observing list. Put in your latitude and longitude as well as the starting time of your observing session and how many hours you are observing. Then select what you want to look at. Skip Asteroids, Star Groups, and Double Stars (on this one unless you really like looking at Doubles then skip it). Then print it out on a piece of paper. Keep it next to the telescope and use a red light on a head lamp to look at it. Then you can manually put in the NGC number and the scope will go to it. I use a music sheet stand and have a clip on LED light that I put red tape over. The clip holds the paper and the light illuminates it. Red because white will destroy your night vision. For a beginner go up to Magnitude 8.5. You will need to strain to see stuff that faint but visual astronomy is just like any other thing you do. The more you do it the more you will see. So do it as much as possible. Another very important thing is you want a comfortable chair to sit on. It isn't for your rear end. It is for your eyes. The more comfortable you are the more you will see. And for your 4 year old you will want to make sure to hold his hands when he looks through the eyepiece as well as possibly help him cover one eye. There is a automatic reflex for that age (and all the way up to adult) to grab the eyepiece or telescope to help steady themselves and you want to prevent that. Also since you are in New York state you will want to dress for the cold. Don't dress like you are going to be moving around. You aren't. You will be sitting and it can get cold quick. I am likely preaching to the choir here but I just thought I would add it. Some very nice eyepieces for that aperture or the 8" are the Explore Scientific 82 degree ones. I would recommend 14mm or 11mm and 8.8mm or 6.7 mm. The stock eyepiece that comes with the scope is fine for very large stuff but those two will give you much better magnification. The first one is for Deep Space Objects (DSO) and the second one is for planets in really good seeing. Speaking of planets the moon is waxing now but will change and looking at it is great fun. Also Jupiter and Saturn are up right now and excellent things to look at.

Steve Congratulations on joining the astronomy community! I would suggest the Explore Scientific 82 degree eyepiece line. For what you are looking for I would recommend the 14mm, 11mm, and either a 8.8 or 6.7mm eyepieces. That will give you the views you are looking for and will make you feel like you fell into the telescope and are swimming in space. I am not a fan of barlows. They cut down on the light gathered and that, to me, is a big negative. On the subject of imaging front I would strongly encourage you to hold off on that for at least 6 months if not a year. The reason for this is because AP (Astro Photography) is a very complex part of the hobby and a very expensive one. That hold off will let you know your night skies better, your equipment better, and give you more experience overall. Too many people (myself included) jump in to AP with both feet very early on and a good number exit the hobby in frustration because of it. I would suggest a cell phone adapter which will let you use your cell phone instead of a dedicated camera to capture images. But if you are dead set on the AP planetary route then the ASI 120 is a good affordable option. Once you get started in this you will find that at a minimum you will want to upgrade your focuser. Skywatcher makes a great telescope and the Explorer 200p is a good telescope. However in the case of most Newtonians the focuser tends to be the weak point in the chain and most people upgrade them. This can become expensive in the grand scheme of things so please be aware of that.

A couple things come to mind... First, you are buying a modified DSLR. Yes, it can still work for terrestrial imaging but I believe you will need to get a IR filter since a astro DSLR is modified to pull the IR filter out. Second the DSLR will be noisy. This can be helped with dark frames for the hot pixels but a CMOS astro camera will have less of this problem mostly because it is cooled. Cooled is always better. Lastly I believe you can do "lucky imaging" with a CMOS astro camera. I am not sure if this can be done as efficiently or effectively with a DSLR.

EC means encoders. Don't believe the hype surrounding the iOptrion encoders. They are rubbish. There is a reason why the 10 Micron and Astro Physics mounts with encoders cost so much. The actual encoders are high quality and the software is well done. iOption has been trying for literally years to solve the SDE* problem that is very bad in the encoders they use. At short focal lengths the mount does fairly well and the problem is masked but at longer focal lengths the high frequency harmonic that occurs because of the SDE corrections attempted leads to potato stars in the images. In addition, when last I checked, you cannot turn off the encoders to stop this problem from happening. In addition the mounts can be hit or miss in terms of mechanical quality. You may be lucky and get a good one, or you may draw the short straw in the a***hole lottery and get a rubbish one... * https://www.linearmotiontips.com/what-is-sub-divisional-error-sde-in-linear-encoders/

Right. Trying to image with a SE mount with a wedge is going to lead to you making rude hand gestures and shouting very bad words at the mount... EQ is the way to go. It is what you need to do decent imaging. It moves in sync with the way the earth and sky move so you don't get star trails (streaks instead of points of light). Unfortunately there might be a backlog because of production delays. For the 6SE and frankly anything up to a 130mm refractor or 203mm SCT for imaging the Celestron Advanced VX, Skywatcher EQ5 or the Skywatcher AZ-EQ5 are excellent options. FLO currently has all three in stock so I would jump on one if you can. EQ isn't that much more difficult to use than Alt/Az. Once you get the hang of it, it is easy. https://www.firstlightoptics.com/equatorial-astronomy-mounts/skywatcher-heq5-pro-synscan.html Alternatively if you want alt/az for visual (which is much more comfortable) and EQ for imaging then for a few quid more you can get the Skywatcher AZ-EQ5. It does both modes. I will be picking one up soon. FLO also has it in stock. https://www.firstlightoptics.com/equatorial-astronomy-mounts/skywatcher-az-eq5-gt-geq-alt-az-mount.html The polar alignment is not difficult once you get the hang of it. It just takes a bit of practice. And the GOTO alignment is easy as well. A very nice feature of the Skywatcher line of mounts is that you can get EQMOD software for them. This makes mount control very easy. http://eq-mod.sourceforge.net/

Welcome to SGL! Time for me to put in my (inflation adjusted) £0.07... A couple of things... First and foremost the more you observe, even from your garden, the more details you will see. Observing is like any other activity. The more you do it the better you will get at it and your eyes are no different. When I started in the hobby I could barely make out details on things like Andromeda and Hercules Globular. As I kept plugging away more and more details showed up. Now, even from my near city center light polluted skies, I can see details I couldn't see when I started. Including on Orion. Before the nebulosity was very faint and I was lucky to catch the A-C stars. Now it is very distinct and I can easily see the A-D stars and many times the E star as well as a detailed amount of nebulosity on good nights. Second, make sure you have a comfortable chair. This isn't for your rear end it is for your eyes. The more comfortable you are the more you will see. Third, there is no way around it. Petrol to take you to a dark(er) sky is the best investment you can make. The darker the sky the more you can see. Even a modest change in light pollution makes a big difference. For example going from my Bortle 8/9 home garden skies to a Bortle 6/7 site on the outskirts of the city make a very noticeable difference. While somewhat bulky and awkward to carry your scope and accessories can ride with you on public transportation if need be so this is one option. The other is put it in the boot and off you go. Look for a local club you can join. Many times they will have scheduled dark sky nights where the club gathers at a certain location. It can be a nice outing. If there is a She Who Must Be Obeyed in the picture I have found that if I pack a simple but pleasing dinner basket, a blanket to sit on, some pleasing music softly playing on the phone, and a bottle of wine it changes from "Oh Lord! You are going out to do that stupid thing you like to do in the dark! AGAIN!" to a "date night under the stars" where she shares the experience with me. Lastly, in answer to your question, there are some objects where a filter will help. That would be a OIII filter used on nebula. I have tried both UHC and OIII and OIII works better. This was also found by a gentleman on Cloudy Nights website who did a test of various filters. On galaxies and clusters (open and globular) a light pollution or OIII/UHC filter will actually dim the object down because certain bands of light will not get through. So if you are going to invest in a filter OIII would be it. Don't bother with colour filters are a waste of time and money. Even on the planets. And I don't like a moon filter. It tends to degrade the image in my opinion. I like to view the moon in all her light. Of course she can be a harsh mistress (boldly pinched from Robert Heinlein's The Moon is a Harsh Mistress book title) and if the light bothers you then one is warranted but I would rather be moon blind for a few seconds in one eye and see her in all her glory than diminish her. Also consider double star observing and carbon star observing. This can easily be done from your garden and it is quite fun. Or pick up a solar white light filter for the front of your telescope and take a (safe) look at the sun. A nice atlas of doubles is the Cambridge Double Star Atlas. FLO has it. https://www.firstlightoptics.com/books/the-cambridge-double-star-atlas-2nd-edition.html

Congratulations on your purchase! By the way this hobby will seem expensive BUT compared to other hobbies it is actually quite cheap. As I explain to She Who Must Be Obeyed it is rather cheap and best of all it keeps me out of the pubs so it is money well spent. I have a few recommendations to make your experience much better. First and foremost a comfortable adjustable chair is critical! It isn't for your rear end it is for your eyes. If you are comfortably seated you will see more. Second, do yourself and your neck a favor and replace the findersope that comes with it. Get a right angle corrected image finder (RACI). It makes life much easier when star hopping! Add a Telrad to the scope. This will also make star hopping much easier! Get yourself a red colored lamp. For me I use an adjustable music stand with lip, a flexible LED light that I covered with red colored tape. That way my star atlas and other things are lit but I am not injuring my night vision. And lastly get a good star atlas. This will be your road map to the sky. Interstellarum Deep Sky Atlas is the gold standard for this but is a bit pricy. It will be a buy once cry once purchase though. Another nice option is the Night Sky Observer's Guide. It is 3 volumes. It breaks things out by season. You will want 1,2 and 4. Lastly a method you find things is to take your smartphone, load something like Sky Safari or Luminos on it, put the phone so the back faces the sky, select target an object so it gives you directions on how to get to the object and move the scope in conjunction with the phone so you can get in the ball park of the object you want to see. Links for what I mentioned above: https://www.firstlightoptics.com/astronomy-observing-chairs/berlebach-charon-observers-chair.html https://www.firstlightoptics.com/finders/stellalyra-8x50-right-angled-correct-image-raci-finder-scope-with-bracket.html https://www.firstlightoptics.com/finders/telrad-finder-astronomy.html https://www.firstlightoptics.com/books/interstellarum-deep-sky-atlas-desk-edition.html https://www.firstlightoptics.com/books/the-night-sky-observers-guide-volumes-1-2-3-and-4-book.html