Tube assembly & first scope advice...

[doubleclix]

Hi all,

I'm looking at purchasing my first telescope, and have come across this one. It says "Tube assembly available separately". What does this mean? Do I receive the components for the scope separately? Or is the actual scope already built?

I mainly want to photograph the messier and caldwell objects, but I'm not fussed about Go-To (I want to find them myself).

Would this scope be ok? Or should I consider the 150PL?

I've seen a motor for this mount available here which I may consider later on.

If those questions weren't novice enough... Physically, how big are these scopes? I want to be able to pop them into the car easily and travel around with them, so minimal setup/pull fuss would be very useful! Plus, I'm still not convinced my partner is too chuffed about our living room having a scope there, so it would need to be put into the attic when not in use.

Finally (for now!), I see they come with a barlow and a mount for my DSLR, but I gather that the magnification is created by the eyepiece, so will the image not be magnified if I attach the camera to the mount? If the barlow is x2, and the focal length is 1200mm, will this equate to 2400mm?

Please bear in mind that I come from a photograph background, not an astronomy one, so I'm still getting used to all the differences.

If you read this far, say "Blue moon!" in any replies. Just kidding, any help would be greatly appreciated, and apologies for the long post!

Cheers,

Olly

[tbird]

The tube assemblies are packaged seperately to the tripod/mount, so you can buy the package in the link or mix and match scopes / mounts or update mount or scope later.

The tube will be complete but the mount / tripod will need some simple assembly.

[doubleclix]

Brilliant, thank you!

[tbird]

I have the the 150p, only for visual use, no imaging, and I'm really pleased with it.

It's my first scope and seemed really big at first, but once used to it, it's really a nice manageable size. I have a van so I don't have to fold the tripod, I just remove the OTA.

[Cornelius Varley]

"Tube assembly available separately" means that you purchase the telescope tube as an indivual item if you already have a suitable mount. The OTA "optical tube assembly" usually consists of the telescope, finder scope and mounting hardware (tube rings and dovetail bar). The telscope and mount shown in your link will arrive in two (large) boxes. One with the OTA and some small items and the other contains the mount, tripod and the rest of the items. The 150P OTA is about 750mm long and about 180mm in diameter. The telescope and mount should fit in the boot of a small car.

Magnification is the focal length of the telescope divided by the focal length of the eyepiece used.

If you attach the camera body directly to the telescopes's focuser the telescope then becomes the lens of the camera, so the 150P will became a 750mm focal length lens and the 150PL would be a 1200mm lens.

If you are planning to photograph deep sky objects you might want to consider a bigger mount than the EQ3-2. For visual work the mount will be fine but may not track accurately enough for imaging with the 150.

Peter

Adding a 2x barlow to the focuser doubles the focal length of the telescope.

[doubleclix]

Thank you very much Tbird and Peter. Some pretty novice questions which no doubt I'll look back on in shame, but we all have to start somewhere I guess