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Hello & advice on scopes please

Ciren

By Ciren
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Ciren

Ciren

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Hi everyone - I've just joined & very new to both forums & stargazing & I wonder if you give me some advice on buying a scope please.

Its for my son (OK and its a great excuse for me too..). we have been looking at the Moon & Planets through binoculars & field scope but he's really keen & desperately wants a scope for his birthday.

He is particularly keen for me to try & get some pictures of the planets & then wants to explore some deep space objects. I have a decent digital SLR. Most viewing will be from home which is in the country with minimal light pollution but ideally it would be fairly portable.

I was considering the following:

skywatcher heritage 130P FLEXTUBE -advantage cheaper portable & easy to store but not sure if suitable for taking pictures

skywatcher 130p or 130p supatrak auto - these seem to have good reviews & the advantage of being able to track but I'm not sure if you can fit a camera?

then either the skyliner 150P or 200P Dobs - these seem to have built in camera adaptors but as they are Dobs wont track so I'm not sure if I could get decent photos of the planets (or do I only really need tracking for deep space objects). The latter is toward top end of my price budget but tempted because of the rave reviews if it is suitable for photos.

Presumably I may also need to budget for a T ring adaptor to fit camera to the scope, moon filter (? other filters red/blue & nebula)- would I also need a collimator?

grateful for any advice so that I can get best match of products against my budget.

thanks everyone - Nick

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paul schofield

paul schofield

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Hi Nick and welcome to SGL. Of the scopes you mention I have owned the 130p and the 200p dob. They are both excellent scopes. The 200p obviously will have greater light gathering power & show a lot more deep sky objects. Somebody else will be able to advise you on the photography side of things. I believe you can add a reasonably cheap motor to the 130p explorer but Im not sure the EQ2 mount would cope well for photography. Good luck with your choice. Do lots of research of scopes. All the scopes you mention the 200p is the winner, not so good for astro photography though.

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JamesM

JamesM

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Hi Nick & son and welcome to the forum.

If you and your son want to have a scope that will perform well on planets and deep sky objects (DSO's) such as galaxies and nebulae, you need to look no further than the Uk's best selling telescope, the Skywatcher 200P. Being a dobsonian newtonian, moving the scope is very intuitive because it sits on an alt-azimuth mount. The only drawback is that there is no tracking and will require nudging to keep the object in view. Fine if you are using low to medium magnification for DSO's but when naturally using higher magnification on planets, you will need to pay special attention as the objects will move very quickly, which for some proves distracting. The other scopes are fine and of course the supatrak is motorised which might prove more helpful than aperture if your son is very young.

Throughout your shortlist, you regularly question the scopes ability to perform astrophotography. Well none of them are suitable for imaging DSO's because as faint objects, you will need longer exposures, which in turn will require very accurate tracking which none of the above scopes have. The imaging you can do will be via a webcam of the solar system objects namely the moon and the planets. Here, the objects are so bright, they do not require any tracking as the exposures times required are so quick. Using a webcam is preferred because it is lighter (no balancing issues) but more importantly because you can take a vast number of 'frames' very quickly in order to help cancel out the turbulence of the earth's atmosphere which would make taking a one off exposure using a digital camera very difficult. When you have collected your short video of say the moon, you then examine all the frames and reject the out of focus one's leaving you with best one that you then stack on top of each other using free software called 'Registax' to create a final composite image with lots of detail. This method can be used on virtually any telescope and certainly on those that aren't motorised. The demands of a visual scope are different to those that are considered good for DSO work but if you limit your imaging aspirations to the solar system then you will have a lot more choice. Webcaming is the way to go.

Clear skies and enjoy the forum,

James

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badgerchap

badgerchap

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If this is for a kid, I would suggest the GOTO option - finding things can be time consuming and frustrating sometimes, and when I was a kid I got bored easily, and it wasn't until I was a good bit older that I had the patience to get to grips with star-hopping and equatorial mounts.

Having said that, kids always seem to be much better at things like that, so maybe not :hello2:

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Andy_E

Andy_E

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Hi Nick, and welcome to SGL. I'm with James on this one, the skyliner 200p will give the best views of the lot... though the 150p is hot on its tail. as for (basic) imaging, if its the moon and planets that are going to be of most interest, then a dobsonian should be fine. the brightness of these objects means you can get away with fairly fast (by astro-imaging standards) shutter speeds. Many people also use webcams for this type of imaging, which yield suprisingly good results. one thing worth mentioning is that the 200p is a heavy scope... I imagine you'll have to do most of the transporting. Hope this has been of some help, lets keep fingers crossed for some clear skies!

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Ciren

Ciren

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Thanks for the welcome & advice everyone- wow lots to learn, skys not the limit it seems. I suspected DSO photos would require deeper pockets than mine but great I don't need tracking for planets - plenty to play around with there by the sound of it. My son is 12 with much better eyes than me so & likes searching around so think I'll probably go for the 200p, could make me a bit unpopular with the wife though if its that big. cheers all.

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Quatermass

Quatermass

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Hi and welcome to the forums. The 200p is a fabulous telescope and also great for astrophotography as is the 150p if you have a read of my blog you can see what can be done with the 200p.

However its quite complicated learning astrophotography so I would suggest having a good read of the book making every photon count and learning all about it first. I would suggest the 150p on the eq5 with a dual axis motor kit would be a good set up for starters.

The mount is very important in astrophotography and if you can afford it the Heq5 would be better still. Take your time and also look into using a webcam for imaging.

Have fun.

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