Broadymike

I spose the difference is with a mak your focuser is coming from the rear of the OTA. So you only have the 2 finders coming from the side of the tube. The focuser on the newt also protruding from the side makes things a bit busier. What I may well do is buy something like the rigel and just offer it up and see how it works. If I feel there's enough space I can then get an erecting finderscope to compliment each other. I have to say that it didn't occur to me to use both.

Not the astromaster. I have the powerseeker basically has a longer focal length. Found it on fb marketplace for only £35 in perfect condition so was worth a punt. Especially as I'm unfortunately on a rather tight budget at the moment. Have to say that it's certainly an absolute bargain for what I paid. The finder that comes with it is an all plastic finderscope. I've seen better optics on the bottom of milk bottles lol. I'm quite tempted to go for the IR rather than RD. Looking into them the rigel quickfinder is looking top of the pile at present. I certainly like the idea of the different circles in the reticle being used to help with star hopping to find slightly more obscure targets.

Problem with that is I currently only have a 4.5" newt. Can't really justify the real estate on the OTA for a 2nd finder.

Thanks for your reply. If I go for a scope over and RD/IR, I had already decided that I would go for a RACI style one. I'd already worked out it would save my neck some strain over the course of the evening. Still quite tempted with the simplicity of an RD/IR. Like I say I, can't be sure if it's the terrible one that came with my scope that is colouring my opinion on finderscopes. I know what I'm like l, so over time I'm sure that I will end up with both. Just nice to get some different opinions from those with more experience than myself.

Hi all The next thing in my list to upgrade is my finderscope. The one that came with my scope is barely functional. I just wondered what people's opinions are when choosing between red dot and finderscopes. I'm still quite new to astronomy and am slowly getting there with locating some harder to find things. I have been struggling a bit with the finderscope that I have. Could it be the quality of it making it much harder to use, or maybe I would get on better with a red dot? As I understand it an RD is simple to use but the magnification of a finderscooe can help with locating some of the harder to find objects. Please correct me if I'm wrong there lol. Thanks in advance Mike

Yeah it's just the other side of the island from where I am so easy to get to. They seem to do the same as what I did last night. Use the topography (cliffs etc) to block out as much light pollution as possible and have half the sky over the open sea which does make for better seeing conditions than just a couple of miles inland. Will be interesting to meet some new people with more experience. Looking forward to it.

Ah I've got the powerseeker not the astromaster. Mine has a longer focal length of 900mm. Plus it's the older model (silver not black) hence the 5x24 rather than RDF. I can live with what I have for now as I can't really afford to be spending out any more, certainly this month anyway. But it's just added to my shopping list. So far my priorities are new finder, a 32mm EP and either a Cheshire or laser collimator. Luckily the people I bought the scope from their neighbour runs the local astronomy club so they got him to check it over and collimate it before they sold it to me. Also they passed on my number and I'm going to the club for the first time next week lol.

Thanks. It's all very well just listing a load of objects and magnifications etc, but I think it's nice to add some extra details to get a feel for the experience. I'll certainly try to keep reporting on my nights. Fingers crossed 🤞 tonight may be another good night where I am.

It's not an RDF, if anything that would be much better. It's a really bad plastic 5x24 finderscope. It's just about usable but I will be replacing it at some point.

Hi all Last week I picked up my first ever reflector. Celestron 114eq. I know it's not the best scope but it was a bargain lol. Already had some better plossl eyepieces etc. It's worked out to be an ok starting point for next to no money. Last night was the first proper clear skies I've had to test it out. I've also never used an eq mount before although I did know the theory of how they work. So off I went down to the beach (just across the road) so I could use the cliffs to block out the street lights of the town. Setting up on the prom at the base of the cliff was no major issue even in the dark while my eyes were still adjusting. Had the latitude already roughly set on the mount positioned it approximately north. Amazingly when I looked in the finderscope the North star was just on the edge of the view. Tiny adjustments and I was all set. For the first hour or so I was just moving between some of the brighter stars just so I could get used to locating and finding things. The next thing I'm replacing will be the finderscope. It's just about usable but not great at all. After a little practice I turned my attention to my first planned target of the night. M31 now I know its an easy thing to find but for me it was the first time I'd actually properly looked for it, or any other fuzzy for that matter. After looking at stellarium earlier in the evening I knew approximately where it should be. After maybe 4 or 5 min I had found it. With an f/8 scope at 37x I knew wasn't going to be an amazing view like you see in magazines etc but I was happy with a good image of the galactic centre and the faint hint of the spiral arms. Next I turned to Saturn, ramped up the magnification up to 112.5x. This seemed to be the best trade off between clarity and size. Could happily see the rings and I believe possibly the Cassini division was visible at times although the seeing wasn't the best that low in the sky. To finish off my night I went for the other obvious target of Jupiter. By this time I had got used to the mount and found with ease. Staying at the same magnification as jupiter I could easily see the galilean moons and was just starting to make out some faint bands. At this point a security van decided to drive along the prom with its head lights on full beam aimed straight at me. Completely ruined my night vision. I looked at the time and realised it was gone 3am so was about time to pack up anyway. So all in all I had a great time last night.

Hi all. Totally was rude and didn't introduce myself before asking questions lol. Well I live on the south east coast of England. Its a beautiful part of the world to live. I have always been interested in all things space related. One of my first memories was of watching the first space shuttle launch as a kid. For some reason my interest has been rekindled the past couple of years. A couple of months ago a friend gave me a cheap 70mm refractor they had lying around. I bought some cheap plossl eyepieces and had a few nights out and got some reasonable views of the moon and planets. Unfortunately the scope wasn't really up to much more than that but by this point I was hooked. I already had some 10x50 binoculars so I was using these as well. Money is a bit tight at the moment due to covid killing half my income (I'm a musician) so have been just window shopping for when things pick up. Then a few days ago on fb marketplace I found a celestron 114eq for the bargain price of £35. It is basically in brand new condition, only been out of the box twice they said and I can definitely believe them lol. OK it's not the scope I would have chosen but at that price I couldn't really say no. I know it has its drawbacks but I already at least had some better eyepieces to get that issue sorted. Managed now to get it out twice. The first night wasn't a great night. Was a lot of patchy cloud around. I basically used the evening as a test night to make sure that everything worked. Then last night was out until 3am. Got some nice views of jupiter, Saturn and M31. So all in all totally hooked and loving my new pastime. Clear skies and good times!

I get what you mean about sand and optics. I spose I never really explained it that well. At the bottom of the steps/slope to the beach there is promenade with beach huts that's about 30ft wide and is raised up a few feet from the actual beach. Yes there is a bit of sand around but I wouldn't go down there if it was windy enough for that to cause a problem. What's quite good where I am is that depending on which beach I go to I can also get quite good northerly views about 2 min away and also to the south but that's a whole 15 min drive lol. There's always somewhere by the sea where you can avoid all the downsides like sand lol.

Thanks for your replies. Luckily it only takes me about 2 min to walk down to the beach so for me it's a no brainer to go down there if I'm observing in that direction. As far as salty spray etc shouldn't need to worry too much about that this time of year as the sea is quite calm and there's nothing in the air. To be honest if it got to the point of being an issue the conditions wouldn't be good for getting the scope out anyway. Either too windy for the scope or miserable for me lol. Managed to get my new scope out for a quick test last night before the clouds came in and was really happy with the results so far. The forecast is looking hopeful for a nice clear night on Sat. If that is the case I think I'll be down the beach for a late one so I can pick up jupiter and Saturn. Nice and handy that they are in the east lol. I feel for me at the moment they are nice objects to get a good judgement of the scope.

Thanks. Pretty much sums up what I thought might be the case. Have to say that up until last night the previous 3 nights I managed to get some great views of Saturn and jupiter. They are obviously in the east at the moment and I do have more problems certainly finding naked eye objects to the west. That was with the small 70mm refractor that I have. Unfortunately it clouded over last night which was a real bummer as I acquired a 114mm f8 reflector yesterday from fb marketplace for a bite your hand off bargain. Wasnt planning on upgrading yet but couldn't really turn it down for £35. It isn't ideally what I'd like but it's a very cheap step up from what I already had and may well make for a more portable rig in the future.

I've had a good look around and I think that for now just getting a 32mm is the way to go. Bearing in mind that with the supplied eyepieces with the scope I now have, 25mm, 20mm, 10mm, 6mm and a useless 4mm. Add to that the decent 2x barlow and a 3x barlow that's a cheap plastic affair that came with the scope, so I don't hold much hope for it being any good. I don't think I really need to worry about a zoom lens as I probably won't need to use all the eyepieces I have now. I'm still new to the hobby but have still managed to keep the costs right down. Got given a 70mm reflector a few weeks ago. Bought some eyepieces from fb marketplace for £20 a couple of weeks ago. Which I might add greatly improved the quality of the views I am seeing. Then yesterday on fb marketplace found the 114eq which I still can't believe they only wanted £35 for lol. So all told has cost me £55 so far and I'm completely hooked.

Hi all. I live in a bit of a strange place as far as light pollution goes. Apparently the town I live in is a 5 on the bortle scale. I live on the coast though and my house is literally 50 yards at most from the sea. I have uninterrupted views across the English channel so to the east the only light pollution I get is a very very faint glow from France 30 odd miles away. Unfortunately there is also a well lit road between my place and the cliff. 😒Although if I make a bit of effort I can nip down to the beach and have 80ft cliffs behind me for blocking out a lot of the light from the actual town. Basically within any reasonable travelling distance I'm mostly always going to be surrounded by towns within a few miles causing some light pollution if I go inland. If I stick to the coast the worse case scenario is it could only come from 50% of the surrounding area. Does this mean that certainly observing eastwards I can consider it a darker sky? I'm not really sure on the science of how light pollution works as far as using telescopes goes. Is it a directional thing so keeping it behind you is good, or an ambient over all light level at your location? I know this may seem a bit of a rookie question but thats exactly what I am really. Very new but super enthusiastic. So thanks in advance for any info you may be able to help me with. Clear skies and good times! 🤩

The tripod idea is because to get decent dark skies I have to travel so would be far more easy than a dobson. Although dobson would be nice for when I am in the garden fighting with the light pollution. Certainly for now I'm not worried about super steady mounts for astrophotography. I'm purely just using the scope for observations, so a little wait for things to settle is an inconvenience that I can live with. To be fair this certainly wouldn't have been the scope I would have chosen if I was buying new. Ideally more aperture and a more stable mount would have been great. Was looking at skywatcher 130p type thing. When I found this for only £35 though, I thought I couldn't really go wrong. Worst case scenario I should be able to get my money back, possibly a decent 2nd scope for the future. I've also had an idea which would mean that I would want at least 3 or 4 scopes in the future. I go to a Lot of folk festivals around the country. Once I've got a bit more experience under my belt doing some stargazing workshops. It's something that I think folkies would be interested in, plus can use it to promote dark skies. Oh and would get me a free ticket to the festival. On a selfish note there are a few festivals that would be perfect as they are basically in proper dark sky areas so would get a bonus plus all the campsites are generally in dark fields so would never be too bad.

Thanks for your replies guys. Pretty much confirmed what I was thinking. I knew that I had a fairly good range with the eyepieces o already have. It's a 114/900 OTA so I'll look into getting a 32mm plossl to max out the FOV. Totally agree with the eye relief on the 6mm plossl I have. It's is just about at the limit of practical use. That may well be another that I will replace fairly soon too. Unfortunately I don't live somewhere that I can have my tripod set up permanently. If I did I'd probably go the whole hog and put it a post for the mount. But I can guarantee that I can make a decent tripod with far less wobble than the supplied one.

Hi all I'm still very new to the astronomy game. A couple of months ago was given a very basic 70mm refractor which has been quite good fun and good enough to get me started. Looked on fb marketplace today and low and behold I'm now the owner of a celestron 114eq. Basically brand new in the box for £35. Only been out of the box twice. I have read that the eyepieces supplied are terrible quality but with upgraded eyepieces the optics are at least passable. I already have some cheap but surprisingly OK plossls. 25mm, 10mm and 6mm and a 2x barlow. What I'm looking for is any advice on any extra eyepieces that will increase my range. For example are the zoom eyepieces worth looking at? Is getting say a 32mm with a wide FOV worth it for observing andromeda and similar faint fuzzies? Also any recommendations in general are much appreciated. One thing I do know is that the eq mount that comes with the telescope is not really up to the job of supporting the longer 900mm tube. My plan for that is eventually make a dobsonian mount for it and in the meantime will knock up a really nice sturdy tripod from timber, rather than the lightweight aluminium affair supplied. I'm a carpenter by trade so nice and simple to do. Hope I haven't bored anyone to death. Thanks in advance for any replies. Hoping for a nice summer of clear skies. Mike