So I'm buying my first telescope and I need help.

[Amiti]

Hello, everyone. As you could guess from the title, I'm a novice in this area but I'm planning to deepen this hobby by purchasing a new telescope. And since it's my first, I'm completely inexperienced and so a help from you would really mean a lot to me.

My budget is 170 euro for now, unfortunately, which I don't think is a lot but I can't afford more at the moment. I'm mostly interested in DSOs and I'd also appreciate something suited for astrophotography (although I'm not sure if I can allow myself to be demanding given the small budget).

I've also researched a lot on other websites and certain stores and so far these models have been suggested to me:

• Skywatcher Skyhawk 1145P
  
• Skywatcher Heritage 130
  
• Celestron Powerseeker 114 EQ
  

I'd appreciate if you guys would please tell me your opinion about these scopes, or if you have some other suggestion, because I'm really lost and scared of making a wrong decision. Thank you a lot!

[rowan46]

none of those are going to be great for astrophotography, so I would give that aspect a miss for a while. That being said apparture is the most important thing for visual work so I would go for the heritage 130. It's the same optics as the 130p skywatcher and will give the best views It sees a little further than the other 2 and will give you a few more targets to hit it can never be adaped for deep space photography but to be frank neither can the other 2 as their mounts are not very good. welcome to sgl by the way.

[DOBBY]

Hi... & welcome to the forum

as Rowan says.. none are suitable for astrophotography of DSO's

First Light Optics - Skywatcher Explorer 130M is at the top end of your budget & the mount can be upgraded as & when you have the funds

[rory]

id also back the heritage , purely on the reviews forum members give it.

welcome to s.g.l

[ScubaMike]

For astrophotography, and DSO's at that, you will need an EQ mount.

Given your budget, you will not be able to afford a heavy duty mount, so will be looking at a smaller refractor.

I'd go for something like an st80 on a small EQ mount. At f5, its quite fast, and I have seen some very pleasing images with them.

Do you already have a camera? don't forget to include the price of an adapter if its a DSLR

[tjr]

+1 for the Heritage. Get the best aperture you can for visual use for the time being. Your budget is not going to get you doing serious astrophotography... it's very expensive.

[faulksy]

hi and welcome to sgl. as said non will work for astro photos, have you considered second hand try astro buy and sell

[Amiti]

Thank you all very much for feedback! Anyways, if I neglect astrophotography, do you think Skywatcher Skyhawk 1145P would be good for a start? I've found it at extremely appealing price and I saw some really positive reviews about it.

But I'll probably go with Heritage 130 as recommended by everyone, still I'd like to know your opinion on Skywatcher Skyhawk 1145P before making a final decision. Thank you all once again!

[rowan46]

the skywatcher 1145p is a nice enough scope it's fine for the moon it will show the rings on saturn, jupiter and it's moons, some double stars. open clusters. It's not great on globular clusters, galaxies, fainter messier targets. I find that with modern light pollution 5" is the minimum apparture for general use. Some say 6" back in the 60's when I first started reading about the subject 4" was considered adequate. Although I imagine a good 4" refractor will still be okay.

[Amiti]

the skywatcher 1145p is a nice enough scope it's fine for the moon it will show the rings on saturn, jupiter and it's moons, some double stars. open clusters. It's not great on globular clusters, galaxies, fainter messier targets. I find that with modern light pollution 5" is the minimum apparture for general use. Some say 6" back in the 60's when I first started reading about the subject 4" was considered adequate. Although I imagine a good 4" refractor will still be okay.

Thank you very much for the fast reply. Really appreciated!

By the way, any opinions on this one: Cenestron N 127/1000 Powerseeker 127 EQ:

Celestron Telescope N 127/1000 Powerseeker 127 EQ

Sorry, guys, for being such a pester. I'm just baffled by dobsonian vs equatorial thing, some tell me to start off with dobsonian, some with equatorial and that's where I get lost. But until I get to own one, it's not like I can know the difference.

[rowan46]

the difference between dobsonion and eq is the mount. to be frank the mounts supplied with most scope packages are usually just adequate until you get to the more expensive packages. The mount on this one is the equivalent of the eq1 which most people will tell you is not great the scope also has a spherical mirror and barlow focusser which makes it more difficult to collimate (keep the mirrors aligned) I would not recommend this scope. Both skywatchers are better than this.

As to mounts an eq mount is essential for deep space photography which is why you have been seeing them mentioned in your research but the proviso is that it must be a good one. At your price point there isn't an eq mount that can do the job. That being said for visual work an eq mount isn't essential just a steady one is needed a dobsonion does the job admirably with the added benefit of it being cheap therefore enabling more of the cost of the scope to go into the optics which after all is what the scope is all about.

Hope this helps.

Don't worry about the questions we love chatting about equipment it's why we have so many forums.

[Marki]

Hi Amiti

Welcome to the Lounge! Well, choosing your first 'scope can be really tricky , so many choices so much advice that seems to conflict! it might be worth you going to a telescope shop if you have one near you, or to an astonomy society, and get a feel for the sizes and how things work. There is nothing like a bit of "hands-on" knowldege to help in your decision, especially if your budget is limited.

Anyway, good luck with your choice! And whatever, you'll be sure to have some great times getting to explore our universe!

[Amiti]

Thank you all!

the difference between dobsonion and eq is the mount. to be frank the mounts supplied with most scope packages are usually just adequate until you get to the more expensive packages. The mount on this one is the equivalent of the eq1 which most people will tell you is not great the scope also has a spherical mirror and barlow focusser which makes it more difficult to collimate (keep the mirrors aligned) I would not recommend this scope. Both skywatchers are better than this.

As to mounts an eq mount is essential for deep space photography which is why you have been seeing them mentioned in your research but the proviso is that it must be a good one. At your price point there isn't an eq mount that can do the job. That being said for visual work an eq mount isn't essential just a steady one is needed a dobsonion does the job admirably with the added benefit of it being cheap therefore enabling more of the cost of the scope to go into the optics which after all is what the scope is all about.

Hope this helps.

Don't worry about the questions we love chatting about equipment it's why we have so many forums.

Understood. Thank you so much for your time and clarifying things. I'm quite aware that with my current budget I can't let myself have big expectations, but I want to use it to get the most of it, so all the little details you guys offered are quite precious to me. Thank you once again!

[Albenn]

I chose the Heritage 130P for my first scope and have not regretted it. It really is a great little scope and the added advantage is that it takes up very little space when being stored.

I found this review on another forum which gives a very good review of this scope Sky-Watcher 130 F/5 Heritage Dob - Astronomy Forums | Telescope Forums & Reviews | Astronomy Community this article, along with the help and advice of others on SGL, helped me decide. In fact the scope picked itself as it ticked all the boxes I was looking for. If it helps, I have not seen a bad report of this scope. Some people have had issues with the helical 'twist' focuser being loose, but I have not had any problem at all with mine.

The supplied eyepieces are better than I had been led to believe, with the 25mm being a little better than the 10mm, but both give good views even when using them with my TAL 2x Barlow.

The Dobsonian mount is very stable and it is not that difficult to track objects when found. Okay, it takes a little practice to get used to at first, but it soon becomes second nature.

Don't be put off by it's 'toy like' appearance as I nearly was. It is definitely not a toy.

Hope this helps.

[Amiti]

I chose the Heritage 130P for my first scope and have not regretted it. It really is a great little scope and the added advantage is that it takes up very little space when being stored.

I found this review on another forum which gives a very good review of this scope Sky-Watcher 130 F/5 Heritage Dob - Astronomy Forums | Telescope Forums & Reviews | Astronomy Community this article, along with the help and advice of others on SGL, helped me decide. In fact the scope picked itself as it ticked all the boxes I was looking for. If it helps, I have not seen a bad report of this scope. Some people have had issues with the helical 'twist' focuser being loose, but I have not had any problem at all with mine.

The supplied eyepieces are better than I had been led to believe, with the 25mm being a little better than the 10mm, but both give good views even when using them with my TAL 2x Barlow.

The Dobsonian mount is very stable and it is not that difficult to track objects when found. Okay, it takes a little practice to get used to at first, but it soon becomes second nature.

Don't be put off by it's 'toy like' appearance as I nearly was. It is definitely not a toy.

Hope this helps.

Amazing! I thank you so much for this, Albenn. It's really encouraging to read something like this; after all, it's my first telescope so I'm glad that with my current budget, I can actually get something decent, and of course, reviews from the people who own it themselves is the best help I could hope to get.

Don't be put off by it's 'toy like' appearance as I nearly was. It is definitely not a toy.

This. Hahah. When I first saw it two months ago, I was like: wait, is this a microscope? Oh god. Then I actually took some time to research and it turned out to have the best reviews for the money I can offer. But hey, I guess we were all beginners at some point in our lives so please forgive me, haha.

[Albenn]

Glad you found both my comments and link helpful.

[Amiti]

Guys, I have one last question! I'm 90% sure I'd go for Heritage 130, but I accidentally stumbled upon this one:

Skywatcher Telescope AC 90/900 EvoStar EQ-2: http://www.astroshop.eu/skywatcher-telescope-ac-90-900-evostar-eq-2/p,5002#tab_bar_1_select

In the specification section, it's written it can do astrophotography and that tempts me a bit. So, what do you think about this one? I found it on another website for 140 euros.

[rowan46]

https://www.teleskop-express.de/shop/product_info.php/language/en/info/p3949_Skywatcher-Evostar-80-auf-EQ2---Einsteiger-Teleskop-80-900mm.html

You could try imaging the moon with it but at 80mm and f11 it's not going to be much good for anything but moon, planets and double stars also the mount will not be steady enough to to take much more than a webcam. If you are going to use a webcam on a scope it might as well be a heritage, at least you will have some resolution to play with

[Amiti]

https://www.teleskop-express.de/shop/product_info.php/language/en/info/p3949_Skywatcher-Evostar-80-auf-EQ2---Einsteiger-Teleskop-80-900mm.html

You could try imaging the moon with it but at 80mm and f11 it's not going to be much good for anything but moon, planets and double stars also the mount will not be steady enough to to take much more than a webcam. If you are going to use a webcam on a scope it might as well be a heritage, at least you will have some resolution to play with

I supposed it'd be something like that. Thanks! Tomorrow I'm making my final decision and I'll probably go for Heritage 130P.

[Naemeth]

I would go for the Heritage . It's very good value and a brilliant starter, it's light too .

[Chris]

The Heritage 130p will give you good optics for the money, and if you want to get started with Astrophotography as said above you can use a webcam with it to image the Moon and planets. There are some really cheap CMOS chip webcams available, and all you have to do is remove the lens from the webcam and connect a 32mm piece of tube to the webcam so it can connect to the scope (in the same way an eye piece would be connected). Then you can download some free software: Sharpcap for recording the images and Registax for stacking the images, when you record with a webcam you are filming the objects at say 15 frames a second and you can stack these individual frames, many hundreds of them, and this can bring out a lot more detail. The 130p seems like a good bet I can't think of anything that will better it for the price and what you want to use it for:)

[Gary70]

I saw this on our very own forum, perhaps give you an idea what could be done.

Not exactly the same scope but close enough maybe?

http://stargazerslounge.com/imaging-sketches-unconventional/140472-very-proud-phone-pic.html

[Naemeth]

Gary70, that is the same scope . You can still get pretty good images from it.

[Tribal-Wolf]

I owned a 1145P and found the little scope quite nice, with crisp images and nice focuser and very easy to collimate too. Mine was a goto version and the mount was a little shaky so not great for AP but I did get a couple of nice webcam shots. The one thing I would fit is a SW auto focuser as when you touch it they shake for a while and my shaky hands meant I was forever checking focus lol

[Amiti]

Guys, I bought Skywatcher Heritage 130P! What's more, it had an amazing price! It should be shipped within 7 days, I literally can't wait! Thanks to everyone who contributed in any way! You all guys were a huge help! I'm a university student by the way and I rarely have free time but my lessons and exam sessions fortunately end soon, so I'm looking forward to becoming an actually active member of your community because this place is that amazing and there are so many things to learn from you guys. Thanks again.