MathewRimmington

I had this problem in the summer when I ordered a SkyWatcher 200p. I just had to be patient, placed the order in August, it arrived in October. It was worth the wait though. On a related note, it looks like prices have gone up. I don’t remember my scope being £400!?

Thanks for the info everyone, it is much appreciated. I'd not heard of the Turn Left at Orion book until now, have added it to the wish list

Yeah, you're absolutely right. Mine is a standard and the label on the side does say FL is 1200mm. Not really sure where I got 1000mm from, but it does mean my numbers were wrong and magnification is higher even with the Barlow x2. Thank-you

Hi, Following on from some great advice here a few months back I bought a Dobsonion Skywatcher 200p and I've been having a great time viewing the night sky using the supplied eyepieces. I feel like I've developed a feel for what the standard eyepieces can and can't do now, and am ready to upgrade. To start me off, I have ordered a Celestron 93230 8mm to 24mm which should hopefully arrive next week. I've read some mixed reviews about the eyepiece, specifically when using it at the max/min of the zoom range. But my thinking was that to start with, an eyepiece which is pretty much a 4 in 1 for a beginner like me is probably fine, and it'll save me continuously swapping pieces in the dark. If I find after some experimenting that I'm struggling with viewing at 10mm zoom or less I'll happily buy another dedicated eyepiece. In addition to the eyepiece, I'd like to get a Barlow lens but I can't decide which one. My gut feeling from the research I've done is that I should just buy a x2 as that'll pretty much see me to 8mm/2, so 250x magnification on my scope. I live in the Cheshire countryside and it's fairly dark, but I'm guessing I won't be able to do much with more than 250x magnification. To give you context on darkness, I've seen the milky way very faintly here once this winter but it's generally not visible. The avant-garde idea I've had is to buy a x3 Barlow lens instead. That would see me get down to 8mm/3, which is pretty much 375x magnification (give or take a few decimal places). I know that realistically 375x is too much, but the zoom eyepiece with a Barlow x3 would give me flexibility to get further than 250x magnification should I be able to use it, e.g. if I zoomed to 11mm/3 I'd be getting 272x magnification. When I think about it mathematically, I feel like the x3 should do everything the x2 should do and more, but something is telling me that it's not as straight forward as I want to believe. Any thoughts, experiences or advice will be gratefully received. Thanks, Mat

Hi guys, At the risk of re-igniting this discussion, I thought I'd share that my 200P has finally arrived. Only been able to use it once, but so far I'm blown away by the views. Managed to get a good look at Saturn, never seen it in so much detail before. Mat

Thanks very much for the links

Thanks again folks I ended up ordering a Skywatcher 200p Dobsonian. It might take a while to arrive though, but this was never going to be an impulse purchase so I'm happy to wait a little. I noticed that budget was mentioned a few times above. I had quite a conundrum with the budget to be honest. I could have stretched it further to a 250px, but then I wouldn't have been too comfortable buying extra goodies like eye pieces. When it came to decision time, there were a few things drawing me to the 200p over the 250px. But the budget was probably my main factor in deciding to go with the 200p. And at least this way I've got some spare cash to play with for extras. Very excited about it.

Hi guys, Thanks very much for all of your help. Reading the replies has given me some clarity over what I'm actually trying to achieve. I think that the goto mount and photography idea is going to take a back seat, at least for a few years anyway. So for now I think I'm pretty much settled on either the Skyliner 200p or 250px 😀 Very excited. Mat

Hi all, Thanks very much for the thought provoking replies. I had totally not considered the config time for using a wifi mount, or that the mounts I've found so far would have issues with long exposure shots with not being equatorial. I'm feeling more convinced that I should go back to my initial requirement of buying a better scope without tracking, for this purchase at least. One other thing that occurred to me whilst looking at the more portable scopes, I had thought that it'd pretty good to take my scope on my travels. Like if I went camping to Kielder, or somewhere darker than Cheshire where I live. Is there a more portable scope with a robust mount anyone can recommend which would still deliver on good views, but be carry-able on a short hike away from a campsite? Thanks again. Mat

Hi, I'm thinking of treating myself to a new telescope and would be very grateful if someone could help me settle the debate I'm having with myself. The question I can't seem to answer is whether to get a pretty decent telescope with a decent mount, or go for the wifi option and get a lesser scope/mount but have the goto and tracking functionality. The scope I have now isn't great; the mount isn't very solid and it's hard to focus on something without the scope moving and losing sight of what ever object I'm trying to look at. So I'm very keen to make sure that as a minimum I get a decent mount which isn't as susceptible to moving. Something I would also like is the ability to take decent photos of the planets and objects in space, although this is more of an aspiration than a requirement. With a budget of around £300 to £400 I had thought about getting something like a Sky-watcher Skyliner 200p. I feel like this would deliver on the decent scope and decent mount requirement, but not so much on taking photos. I always had in mind that to get a decent mount with goto/tracking that I'd be looking at paying upwards of £1000. But whilst searching I found a Sky-Watcher az-gti mount, which feels massively exciting as it's well within my price range. So, now what I'm wondering is whether to get either the Skywatcher Skymax 102 AZ-GTi or the Skywatcher Startravel 102 AZ-GTe and be able to use wifi and hopefully get some slightly better shots. I wouldn't say that I'm new to astronomy, but I'd definitely class myself as a beginner. I've got an SLR camera already and whilst I'd love to get some decent photos, I'm doubtful that anything in my price range would work with the weight of an SLR camera. As a sort of hybrid solution I thought I could use my GoPro on night mode/30 second exposure so that I'd at least be tracking objects for 30 seconds while the camera does its stuff. If anyone has any advice I'd be very grateful. Thanks, Mat