Skywatcher Skyhawk 1145P

[claire19]

Hey

Just wondering if anyone can shine a little light.

I want to buy a telescope for my partners birthday and at the moment have two in mind the skywatcher 1145P or Celestron 114eq.

At the moment Im pushed more towards the skywatcher as it has the sky at night award however I cant seem to find much info about it nor reviews. Also Im not sure if you can use different lens or filters in it as you can with the celestron.

If any one could please let me know if they have used either scopes and what you would recomend it would be much appreciated.

Thanks

Claire

[Andyfx]

I have previously owned the Skyhawk 1145P and its the one you'd be better off buying due to the parabolic mirror. It's a lovely little scope with a nice wide field of view.

[claire19]

Thanks for such a quick reply

Can you tell me if the moon filter fits onto this and the barlow lenses and PC wires you can buy?

Thanks

[Cornelius Varley]

You can use other eyepieces and filters with the Skyhawk. The Skywatcher range seem to be better made than the Celestron versions, the Astromaster range tend to have a lot of plastic components in the telescope which are metal in the Skywatchers. The finderscope on the Astromasters is useless and cannot be easily changed, the finder on the Skywatcher uses a standard two hole base which will accept other types of finder or you can attach a small standard dovetail base to the telescope to accept a wider range of finders. The Celesrton 114EQ has a focal length of 1000mm but uses a lens built into the focuser to allow the tube to be shorter (the Skyhawk 114/1000 uses the same optics). These telescopes use a spherical primary mirror and tend to give a slightly less sharp image across the full diameter of the mirror compared to a parabolic mirror, the Skywatcher Skyhawk 114SP uses a parabolic mirror. If your funds allow it go for the Skywatcher 130P 130/650.

Peter

Peter

[Cornelius Varley]

Thanks for such a quick reply

Can you tell me if the moon filter fits onto this and the barlow lenses and PC wires you can buy?

Thanks

The small equatorial mounts cannot be controlled from a computer.

Peter

[claire19]

Thanks for your help.

I thought I had read somewhere that you could buy an RA clock drive (not sure if thats right) to fit onto the skywatcher, I had assumed this was one of the things that attached to the pc.

Sorry, as you may have guessed I dont know much about telescopes but over the past few weeks I have been trying my best to research as much as possible so I dont get my partner a rubbish gift.

[Cornelius Varley]

This is the RA drive for the EQ1 mount First Light Optics - RA Economy Motor Drive for EQ1

Peter

[claire19]

I have also found a Celestron Astromaster 70AZ which seems to have good reviews. Will you be able to see as much out of one of these :s

[Cornelius Varley]

You will see more with the 114/500. The aperture of telescope dictates how much light reaches the eyepiece, bigger apertures collect more light. The 114/500 can collect over 125% more light than the 70.

Peter

[claire19]

Thanks Peter

[Tribal-Wolf]

You can get a Celestron astromaster 130 EQ for around the same price as the 1145P, it has a larger mirror and it's parabolic. Amazon £129 inc del. Might be worth considering?

[claire19]

Thanks, Is this better than the skywatcher too? My budget was supposed to be £100 but I think I may have to go over a little.

[Tribal-Wolf]

It is a bigger aperture so it will be better for everything.

[vegaandarctures]

If you can up your budget a bit go for a 130mm sky-watcher. I would choose sky-watcher over celestron every time. The mounts have too many plastic parts and are very wobbly on those celestron astromasters plus as said before those red dot finders on them are dreadful. You will be much happier with a sky-watcher telescope. Good luck in your purchase

[claire19]

Unfortunatly I dont think I can afford the 130 unless I can find one second hand. I have looked on ebay but can only find brand new ones.

[claire19]

Sorry to be a pain but Im stuck again now.

I have found an advert for a second hand Sky watcher Explorer - 130 f/900 Newtonian Telescope however I dont understand what the person has wrote in the description.

He says:

The scope is in good collimation with symmetrical Airy rings and has had the eyepiece cap centre drilled to facilitate future adjustment.

This scope should really state f=900 not f/900, the f-stop for this scope is actually about f/6.9

I have no idea what this means nor do I know if its the same as a 130p as recomended earlier. If anyone can help I would be grateful.

Thanks in advance

[Tribal-Wolf]

No the 900 is the focal length and this means it is not the 130P, I think the 130P has a 650mm focal length. Someone with more knowledge might be able to explain better. You could do a lot worse than one of these as a first scope.

[vegaandarctures]

I have the sky watcher 130/900 and its excellent, it does well on all objects and there is no spherical distortion all the images are lovely and crisp If you can afford it I would go for it. I'm sure it wont let you down.