Beginner's tips: First scope picked up from seller

[ismangil]

Hi all,

I thought I'll say a bit here on why I've chosen this particular 'path', might be useful for others beginners.

I'm not truly a newbie, as I've been happily using my bins for the past 6 months or so, just to see what sort of observing I want. Went to local club, two star parties.

I've used Turn Left at Orion along with various binocular objects guide to learn star hopping.

So after this 'initiation' period, I've decided I'm a visual observer, with a light polluted backyard where I will do most of my observing.

After reading several further books (Backyard Astronomer's Guide highly recommended for a truly overall view), I settled on Rod Mollise's book Urban Astronomer's Guide as my main source of advice and inspiration (along with SGL forum of course!!), as it matches my situation.

Therefore I decided to go for large aperture with longish focal length, that can still be transported in my 5-door hatchback. While a Celestron C8 or C11 will fit this requirement, it will not fit the other requirement: budget! I am not yet ready to spend thousands of pounds.

So a reflector it is, more aperture for the money. I settled on 8"/200mm with f6/1200mm as a minimum and further wanted a Dobsonian so it's as grab and go as possible.

The obvious choice is Skywatcher Skyliner 200p, new at £270-ish seems to fit all the bill.

The not so obvious choice was me thinking maybe I can stretch the budget by buying used, so the rest of the cash can go to quality eyepieces.

So I began monitoring SGL For Sale (sadly now closed), UK Astro Buy Sell, and of course the controversial eBay. Tried Gumtree and a few others it wasn't worth it.

The difficulty with buying a big scope is you need to be fairly close to it, as I don't want to spend 6-8 hours round trip time and petrol just to pick up a scope as that defeats the purpose of saving cash in the first place. And it seems the market is clearly down South...

After missing out on several good Dobsonians that were too far, I started to be a bit more bold, and contacting the sellers if they travel at all, maybe for work or other and I can meet up if I buy their scope.

Result! Found an eBay auction for an Orion Optics UK 8" f6 on EQ5 pillar mount for £150 far away in Isle of Anglesey that the seller will be in Stockport a few days after the auction ends. Good for him too as I ended up being the only bidder.

The only downside is that this is not a Dobsonian... Strange I know I actually got a very sturdy EQ mount so the total price I think was good, but wanted a simpler one!

I am not advocating buying on eBay if you don't know what you're buying. There are too many people selling junk. I was able to narrow down my choice to a particular kind of scope, and have researched all the available brands and model. So I know what to look for, what to avoid and the realistic value.

This seller is particularly good, communicative, and OK for everything to go through eBay and PayPal so I have comeback if for example the goods are not there or not as described.

I'll post a first light report hopefully tonight as the forecast is clear. And now to find more eyepieces, as it only comes with a MA 25mm and Kellner 9mm. If you think settling on scope is hard, wait until you have to consider eyepieces, you can (and will probably do) spend more than your scope!

Thanks for all the help along the way, learning through here, books (as recommended from SGL of course), and various websites has been fun, and it's far from ending...

(Oh, have to update the sig )

Clear skies!

[heathenwoods]

Result! Nice one. As a trawler of the bizzarre bazaars of the internet I can only say well done!

[umadog]

Awesome!

[Astro Imp]

Hi Perry,

Well done, by taking your time and doing your research it looks like you have had an excellent result - excellent scope at a great price.

Look forward to your first light report.

Enjoy.