£300 budget

[starchaser]

hello everyone

I live in london (south east) looking to buy first scope got a budget of £300.I have been looking

at meades,celestron,etc could someone point me in the right direction only have a small light polluted garden .i have been looking at the nexstar 130 slt, meade etx 80,please am i on the right tracks.

any information would be great thanks everyone

[Black Shuck]

Hi Starchaser,

You will get plenty of good advice on this forum.

Not sure what the more experienced forum members think but I think this an absolute bargain 2nd hand!!!

http://www.popastro.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=5332&sid=53e4d44b20404443371cf8304a691039

Bill£

[geppetto]

I would tend to go for the biggest aperture scope in the budget

as it will allow you to see more.

Large aperture and simple to use with some money left for bits and bobs

I would suggest this one to consider...

http://www.firstlightoptics.com/proddetail.php?prod=dobsky200

[garymcgrory]

I would second that recommendation, have had my 200 skyliner DOB for well over a year now, and along with ease of set up and large aperture, it is quite simply fantastic value for money- a great scope, I am biased of course but i would def. add this scope to your shortlist!

[FLO]

... got a budget of £300. I have been looking at meades,celestron,etc could someone point me in the right direction only have a small light polluted garden .i have been looking at the nexstar 130 slt, meade etx 80,please am i on the right tracks.

Are you sure you want GOTO. Its just that GOTO swallows a sizeable chunk of your budget which could otherwise be spent on a better scope. If you do want GOTO then I suggest you consider the Celestron Nexstar 4 SE. Its 4" aperture, long focal-length and contrasty Maksutov optics excel at the type of objects less effected by light pollution: Planets, lunar, clusters, brighter deep-sky objects and Solar NB: Viewing the Sun without a suitable solar filter will cause permanent eye damage! (Sorry, but I must be careful). It also has a much sturdier mount than the 130SLT or ETX80 and comes within your budget after SGL 10% discount.

If you can do without GOTO (you can, really) then I also second third Phil's recommendation to consider a Skywatcher Skyliner 200P. Its larger aperture will show considerably more and allow you to make full use of a light pollution reduction filter such as Baader's Neodymium. After SGL discount, the Skyliner 200P and a Revelation eyepiece set comes to within a fiver of your budget. Alternatively, if you stretch the budget slightly, the Skyliner 250PX has an even greater aperture 8)

Hope that helps.

[Black Shuck]

I knew you would get some cracking advice!! An 8" dobsonian for £240 and a 10" for £349 - WOW!! 8) As Steve has suggested include in your budget, additional eyepieces, filters, etc.

Do your research and weigh up your options and if you really serious about getting into the hobby (I assume you are new to scopes - like me) you won't go far wrong with this advice. Remember though that whilst these are relatively easy to set up they are big pieces of kit.

Whatever you decide - enjoy your new scope

Bill£

[nitram100]

Aperture, Aperture and more Aperture! forget the GOTO mate, get one of those skywatcher dobsonians from first light optics, i don't own one, but have looked through the 8 inch and it really surprised me how good the optics were for 240 quid. GET THE DOB

[John]

Another vote for an 8inch dobsonian here. I owned an 8 inch F6 dob for a while and it gave me great views of Saturn - at least as good as the 8inch Schmidt Cassegrain that I now have - it's just that the latter is more compact.

John

[themos]

I was tempted to blow more than £300 on a 6 inch Maksutov Newtonian with good optics. But then you need to spend as much again on a decent mount for it. I can see a Dobsonian in my near future, I already have a name for it, "Topsonion", (it's greek wordplay).

[Cloudgazer]

Hi Starchaser

I would also recommend the SkyWatcher Skyliner 200 dob.. I bought one recently as my first scope and I'm very happy with it.

There are a couple of things to bear in mind with this scope though:

1) It's by no means a small scope so if storage space is tight / you don't want your scope taking up much space then you may want to go for something more compact.

2) If you have a lot of local light pollution (street lights that shine in your eye's and can't be avoided / blocked) at your viewing location then you may find it hard to find anything but the brightest stars which makes star hopping very difficult. In this case goto would be a wise move IMHO.

If neither of the above are a major problem then the SkyWatcher Skyliner 200 dob would be the way to go.

Cheers

Scott

[starchaser]

THANKS FOR ADVICE GUYS

I DO HAVE LITTLE SPACE IN MY FLAT AND 2 NIPPERS SO STORAGE IS A PROBLEM

THE NEXSTAR LOOKS A GREAT SCOPE PLUS PORTABILITY COMES INTO IT AND SOLAR VIEWING

AND IMAGING IS CALLING ME. THANKS EVERYONE AND I WILL PONDER SOME MORE :?

[tenbyfifty]

i have been looking at the nexstar 130 slt, meade etx 80,please am i on the right tracks.

I am borrowing a meade etx90 at the moment and though good optically it won't show you much deep sky stuff in light polluted skies. Take the advice given and get an 8" scope of some description.

Hey the 10" dobbo is only £349 on FLO. Don't forget this scope could always be eq mounted later on.

It could even be goto mounted but rather expensive methinks.

[Helen]

If room is an issue, I'd suggest you see the scope (or similar) before buying as they all look quite small in the pictures! (I still remember my mother's face when my first 6inch +EQ mount arrived at our 2-bed house! - just as well she loved me!)

Helen

[Andrew*]

To be honest, I can't see you getting much more portable than a dob. Any scope on a tripod mount, even if the OTA is tiny, will likely use up more space than a newt on a dobsonian mount. Even if you remove the leg stabiliser (or whatever you call it - usually an accessory tray between the legs) and fold up the tripod (extra bother, resulting in less portability), it will take up pretty much the same space as the dob

They are very compact and easy to move for the aperture you get.

If the SW 200 dob (which I would also recommend) is too big, go for a 6" dob, and use the extra cash for some nice EPs and accessories.

Andrew

[mand]

Sorry to but-in, but if starchaser is a beginner- like myself- how will he find things to look at like dso etc with a dob? They don't have setting circles do they?

Mand

[GazOC]

You'll need to buy a book/ starmap or some software that shows you where objects are located and then you try to find them yourself.

[tenbyfifty]

Sorry to but-in, but if starchaser is a beginner- like myself- how will he find things to look at like dso etc with a dob? They don't have setting circles do they?

Mand

the thing is you're going to spend so much time learning to use an eq mount and then so much time setting it up every time you want to use it - if you spend the same amount of time learning the sky you might find life a bit easier in the long run. I'm not entirely convinced an eq mount is encouraging for beginners but if you are going to get one do it over the summer when its not unpleasant to spend long periods outdoors at night.

also have you seen these new celestron refractors on this site:

for £59 i don't suppose you can wrong but go for more aperture if u can afford it.

http://www.celestron.uk.com/catalogues/browse_categories.asp?CatalogueID=272&CategoryID=4154

[proflight2000]

Id still be convinced with the larger apeture, like almost anyone who buys a small scope, 4" and under for arguments sake, the biggest thing they wish about a week later is that they would like more apeture. A good size apeture will give the buzz needed to keep going, where as a small scope may after a few weeks either end up in the cupboard or best of all force you out there to buy bigger, best to buy a bit bigger in the first instance easier to sell on as well.

As for setting circles (rings) yep are very nice, but they are a learning kerb in their own right, someone said to me a while ago, "i have been star watching for 30 years, i dont need things like rings as I have taught myself where everything is" to be fair, a copy of starry night and a good plastic compass will tell you in an easier fashion.

[Phil73805]

Hi Starchaser, having recently gone through this decision I thought I'd share some of that experience. I tried a 4" apochromatic refractor mounted on an HEQ5 and while my budget was greater than yours I have returned the 'scope to the vendor and ordered a 10" Dobsonian. Unless you are planning to get into Astrophotography in a big way it has to be said that for visual observing apeture is king! With a budget of £300 you want as much of that money as possible to go into the telescope itself (and therefore the optics) and less going into a complex mount with or without GOTO. This necessitates a reflector.

In my experience an equatorial mount is nowhere near as instinctive for a beginner to use as an altitude/azimuth Dobsonian mount. You will be surprised how much easier it is to find DSO's with alt/az vs. equatorial mounts.

It must also be noted that in this fair country of ours the weather, fickle mistress (the polite version ) that she is, will often only allow for an hours snatched observing when a break in the ever present orange cloud presents itself. If you are spending most of that time setting up a heavy equatorial mount, levelling it, polar aligning it, mounting the tube etc. chances are that by the time you are ready it's cloudy again! Not to mention the panicked repacking when the rain starts and your pride and joy is half an hours wrestling away from being put back into its protective box/case/bag

Best of luck and clear skies!

Phil