So these are the choices

[Rogue Leader]

Hello,

Complete noob here. I have been teaching myself to find objects around the sky with some books and my Bresser binos. I have decided to take the plunge and get a scope and have decided on a skywatcher. So the tricky part, not knowing which part of astronomy is really going to appeal to me and wanting to have a bit of a go at everything do I get...

the 1145PM starting cheaply so I can move on after 12 months or so and get more specialised if i need to

the 130PM a little more expensive, larger aperture, RA driven and a better mount or

the 150P a little more expensive again, more aperture, no RA drive but a significantly better mount (my research leads me to believe)

Shopping around I can get the most expensive of them for around £200 and I know that in the scheme of things this is probably not a massive amount but everyone has to start somewhere.

Opinions greatly welcomed and suggestions to other scopes I may have overlooked.

Thanks in advance

Mike.

[Whippy]

Welcome to SGL Mike .

You might have heard this elsewhere but 'aparture is king'. Essentially the bigger the scope, the more you are going to see and reflectors certainly are the cheapest per inch of aperture. My first scope was a 6" reflector similar to the 150P and it's a good all rounder which will show you loads of objects. The only thing I would say is don't budget just for the scope, try and factor in some money for some accessories like maybe a couple more eyepieces (or an eyepiece set), and such like.

Whatever you choose, I'm sure you'll have plenty of fun with it!

Tony..

[Kenny_10_Bellys]

Go for the aperture, there's no subtitute. GoTo is nice to have, but no good to you if you're not going to see much detail when you find what you were looking for. What looks like a grey patch of nebulosity in a 4" looks like a brilliant star cluster in an 8".

[Rogue Leader]

Thanks for the help I have taken the plunge and gone for the 130PM from first light optics, well to be fair the wife looked them all over and said just get that one now!

Thanks again for the replies

[Grant]

Congratulations! The 130PM is a great first scope - I know alot of people on the forum started with that one and got a lot of pleasure from it!

Fingers crossed you get some clear skies to use it!

[Whippy]

I'd second what Grant said, congrats . Let us how you get on with it!

Tony..

[Naz]

Good choice for the first scope Mike, i believe some of the "old hands" on here use them as second scopes.

So when you want to move on and upgrade, you can always keep the 130. i have seen some cracking images taken through the 130, you wont be disappointed.

naz

[John]

Hi Mike,

I think you (and your wife !) have made a very good choice. Ade Ashford, who reviews scopes for major magazines, highly reccommends that scope in this review:

http://www.opticalvision.co.uk/documents/75.PDF

I hope the clouds stay away so that you can really get to know it.

John

[lunator]

Mike

The 130 is a good choice.

Look forward to reading your 1st light report

Cheers

Ian

[Rogue Leader]

Just a quick update, my scope arrived first thing on Tuesday morning and I could not be happier with it, many thanks to the folks at FLO. After setting it all up and thinking what have I done its bigger than I thought, I stuck my head out of the door to find lots of cloud.

Not to worry a nice clear day today, took the scope outside at 6 when i got home from work and aligned the finderscope, sun goes down and clouds roll in. So I spent a couple of hours practicing my polar alignment, setting circles and swearing at the clouds.

Apologies to anyone else in the area it appears its all my fault for buying a new scope.

Mike.

[aderyn]

I'd better share the blame - same thing here - newbie, new scope, clouds.....!

and it was so sunny this afternoon....

Louise