Advice please

[Rosebud]

I feel a bit silly having read through your forum as it has made me realise what complete and utter novices we are. My husband is approaching his 65 birthday and I would like to buy him a telescope. We live in East Yorkshire in the countryside so have no light pollution, we spend many nights sitting outside in winter and summer and do have some lovely clear nights, he often points out various stars and constellations to me and we have used our binoculars to get closer views. However, I thought it would be nice for him to get an even closer view, he is never going to have the time to pursue astronomy seriously but I would like to get him a telescope which will enhance his star gazing. I would be grateful if anyone could maybe tell me if I am wasting my money buying

Celestron Astromaster 70AZ Telescope or maybe Saxon 767AZ Astronomy Sky and Land Telescope with Barlow Lens.

Thanks for taking the time to read and possibly advise.

[nightfisher]

hi Rosebud, have a look at the skywatcher dobsonian telescopes, in particular the 150, might be a little more than your budget but a very good scope that will show a lot of the night sky jewels from your dark sky location

[Capricorn]

Hi, like many things the budget is highly relevant.

For a general scope I would suggest something in the 80mm diameter line and a refractor.

You would get a bigger scope if you chose a reflector but I suspect a refractor is more relevant.

Reflectors need a bit of regular maintainance afterwards and unless a person intends to get in enough to do it then I tend to suggest a refractor. People here will say that collimating a scope is no problem, it isn't, but it has to be done and if it is something that a person does not want to have to consider then esaier to avoid. It seems a bit "off" buying a person something that they have to maintain if they cannot really be bothered.

80mm seems to be a good all round size, although I have a 70mm (and 80 and 90)

Next come the mount.

If it is just point and look then Alt/Az is the easy one.

Equitorial is nice but a bit more convoluted, equally if he has the time then a short time spent learning one isn't going to be difficult.

Now the pain part, the most reasonable 80mm I know of is the AR80 from Opticstar.

That does not come with a mount.

Also they do 2 of them and I think the longer one is the better.

Your location says Yorkshire, are you near eitjer Rother Valley Optics

Rother Valley Optics Ltd

21 Station Road

Kiveton

Rotherham

S26 6QP

Telephone Numbers: 01909774521 / 01909774369

Or Green-Witch:

Green Witch North

Birstall,

West Yorkshire.

Somewhere south of Leeds I believe.

It would be worth a visit to either, simply because what we say may not be what hubby has in his mind.

Looked up the 2 mentioned and in general everything I have mentioned costs a fair bit more.

One I often suggest is the Skywatcher Evostar 90 on whatever mount, these are however in the £145 range.

Need budget expectations.

Will go look at options.

[Rosebud]

Thankyou nightfisher and Brown Dwarf I am slowly gathering the information I need to make a decision. My budget is limited sadly only up to £100 could maybe increase slightly. I just want to enhance his view better than the binoculars do and for him to be able to see more detail. He knows nothing about this it is a birthday present for his 65th.

We are in East Yorkshire.

[valleyman]

With the budget you have you could try this http://www.firstlightoptics.com/dobsonians/skywatcher-heritage-130p-flextube.html

Its a 130 dob simple to use, not expensive and it will give you some good views of our solar system.

[crazyjedi]

Both of the above suggestions are good advice. I would probably go with a Dob mounted 150 newt. Occasional domination isn't much trouble and. It will get you much closer to the stars and planets ;-)

[crazyjedi]

Sorry meant compilation not domination :-S

Sent from my phone which has annoying autocorrect function

[crazyjedi]

Aarrgh collimation. !!!!

[faulksy]

as said real the 150 dob from the site sponsor first light optics very light to move around and will give you great views

[JamesF]

If you have a table outdoors or can arrange something similar for it to rest on then I think I'd recommend the Heritage 130 as well. A refractor is perhaps the simplest possible option, but in terms of what you will be able to see you get an awful lot more for your money with a dobsonian-style telescope such as the Heritage 130 if you can stretch the budget that bit further.

If Rother Valley Optics are relatively easy to get to then I'd agree that they're well worth a visit. There's absolutely no substitute for actually seeing these things "in the flesh" to get an idea of what they're like. It may mean that it's not such a surprise, but it may give you the best chance of making the right choice.

Actually, my other objection to a small 70mm or 80mm refractor is that I'm not convinced that a decent pair of 15x70 binoculars on a tripod isn't a better choice.

James

[Ganymede12]

I have a Mercury 707. It's an 70mm refractor which gives some great views. It costs just £80 and a cheap digital camera held to the EP will give you some nice pictures. (Just see my gallery!)

http://www.opticalvision.co.uk/astronomical_telescopes/sky-watcher/refractors/mercury-707

It's dead easy to use.

[Rosebud]

Ha ha just realised my earlier error thanks Capricorn !!!!!!!

[Stargazer33]

Hi Rosebud,

I don't want to throw too much into the pot, but if cost is a real issue, have you considered the second hand market?

You could pick up a Skywatcher 90mm or better still a 102mm Skymax Maksutov/Cassegrain (basically a Newtonian telescope with a corrector lens on the front) for about £100. These are small and light and give really good images. My first scope was a 102mm MCT.

If your husband hasn't got a lot of time to devote to the hobby there is not much setting up with this scope. Just put outside and wait for the scope to get to ambient temperature (stops thermal currents in the optical tube assembly - OTA - from disturbing the image). You could even mount it on a camera tripod with a pan/tilt head to save on the mount.

Or, at a little over your budget is the Sky-Watcher Skyhawk-114 Catadioptric Newtonian Reflector Telescope at £115 from Wex Photographic.

It might be worth doing some surreptitious suggesting about telescopes and see what your husband says. He may give you a clue as to which type of scope to buy.

There now, I said I didn't want to throw too much into the pot and I've added another two or three options!

I'm sure what ever you decide, your husband will be thrilled and you will get to see some fantastic sights from your dark sky location.

Good luck.

Bryan

[Ganymede12]

Personally I think a Heritage 130P would be perfect for you-providing you have an outdoors table. You could just keep it neatly in a cupboard or on a shelf and you could just "Grab and Go".

[Stargazer33]

Oh dear, here's another one for the pot! I have just seen this on Amazon. Celestron-31042-Astromaster-114EQ.

It seems to get good reviews - 40 at 4 stars and above and only 10 at 3 stars or below. The two one star reviews seem to be as much about the fact that the delivery driver left one parcel in full view of the street all day until the person came home and the other one seems to be a lack of understanding about how to look through an eyepiece so you could probably discount them. As for parts missing, well...unfortunately mistakes do happen. I mean, look at the anomoly with the Hubble mirror!

[BrixtonAstronomer]

Another vote for the Heritage 130p. I have this and it's simple and very compact in terms of storage. And from your dark site you will see more detail than with a 80mm scope. You do have to do collimation - but for the most part this is just a matter of twiddling a few knobs on the back (although I find it hard to gauge whether I've got it exactly right or just approximately right).