Advice on (second) first telescope!

[benjii]

Hello all. I've been browsing these forums for a while, unregistered, so I figured it was time to jump in!

I have a dilemma, let me explain. I bought a Celestron Astromaster 114EQ, like many others I was frustrated on my first night, not being able to see anything; you all know the drill by now. Anyway, I didn't let it deter me and went out the next day to calibrate the finder, it wasn't great. I ended up using a blob of bluetac on the end and used one of the mounting bracket screws as a second point of reference.

After that, my mind was blown. I saw Jupiter the first time and just spent hours star gazing. It sounds a little stupid, but I really had no idea how much was up there, where ever you move the scope, there's always something in it!

Which leads me to my dilemma. I was kind of dipping my toes in the water with the 114eq as I wasn't sure if this was for me or not. I've now decided in the few days since I bought it, I want to see MORE!

So, I've heard a lot of good things about the Skyliner 200p and I'm not sure if that's the direction I should be going in. £300 is going to be my very upper limit budget, ideally I'd like it to be lower than that incase I need to get any lenses with it.

Any and all advice would be very welcome.

Thanks,

Ben

[rowan46]

Hi benji there is nothing comparable to the 200p in its price range spend the money and worry about the eyepieces later you can use a 35mm film canister to collimate or get this First Light Optics - Cheshire Collimating Eyepiece. I honestly feel if the 114 impressed you the 200 will blow you away it really is so much better

[RikM]

I agree, there is no comparison. The 200P is a fantastic scope and hold collimation really well. f/6 is quite forgiving on eyepieces. Plan to add a Rigel QuickFinder or Telrad 'red circle' finder next to the normal finderscope. They make it very easy to find things.

[benjii]

Thank you both for your input. I'll add some things to my wishlist then! As far as increasing my lense collection, at some point; what would be best, a 6mm(or something similar) or a 2x barlow?

[brantuk]

Well the focal length is 1200mm so a 6mm will give you 200x magnification (1200/6). This is probably the best you'll get out of average UK "Seeing" (ie atmospheric conditions).

But at f-5.91 it will want to be a reasonable quality eyepiece. A 2x barlow will double the magnification to 400x and allthough that's near the scopes practical limit, in reality you won't get the sky conditions to support that more than a couple of times per year.

You may find you want to gradually build a range of eyepieces with or without a barlow that gives you a 50x to 200x range of magnifications and a variation of narrow/wide fields of view.

[benjii]

I'm very new to this, so please forgive me if these questions sound stupid. However, are the atmospheric conditions any better over, say Devon, as opposed to more populated counties? I realise that when you get up that high, the UK is just a dot, just wondering if there's any difference in it at all.

Bearing what you said in mind, Brant; could someone suggest a half decent affordable 6mm lens? Thanks!