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what to choose as a total beginner

peetwah

By peetwah
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peetwah

peetwah

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Posted

Hi all

My wife and I have always had a fascination for the night sky, now retired we are taking the plunge for a telescope, it can be a little daunting. I've done a little homework and I think a Skywatcher ST80 or a Skymax 90 may suit us as we are limited for space, it will have to be stored in a shed and brought out onto the patio or lawn for use, also they fit our budget of £150ish. Initially we would be interested in lunar and the planets and an easy scope to operate, another factor is I'm slightly disabled (stroke) so only about 50% strenghth on left side, will I be able to operate most things with right hand? Any advice would be appreciated, computers are also a new thing for me, so this is another learning curve, so please bear with me. Cheers

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Welrod50

Welrod50

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Hello peetwah and welcome to SGL :)

A good sensible Q to start with, although I personally cannot advise as I don't own either 'scope. I'm sure someone will chip in. Just out of interest, what do you plan on doing? Planets, Moon, bright star/double star etc or deeper space objects such as galaxies and clusters etc? Or do you want to do a mixture of both and just get started? Storing it in the shed outdoors, particularly over winter will also dictate what you go for.

Just to get you going....

A small refractor will be good for the moon and planets, but usually gather less light in general so are not so good for deep space objects, unless they are the brighter ones. The M42 galaxy in Orion's sword will be viewable through one of those. A Newtonian reflector will generally give less 'reach' but will gather a little more light than the equivalent refractor. These can be a good starting point, although a starter may be a little bigger than a refractor. Finally, the Maksutov/Cassegrain types can be quite small, but engineered in such a way as they give lots of reach and sharpness, and are better for planets and moon, but tend to be less effective at DSO's as they gather less light than the others.

Of course, there are regular exceptions to what I've noted here - based mainly on budget. But this is a reasonable starting point of view. I hope I haven't told you stuff you already really know :) I'm trying to just be as helpful as I can. There are some very knowledgeable folks here and everyone is very kind and happy to help out. I'm sure you will get other viewpoints. The best telescope to buy though for you, is one that does not cost the earth and that will be portable enough to be used easily and whenever you wish. Otherwise, it will be an ornament ;)

Keep us updated on the choice!

Good luck and clear skies....

Scott.

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glowjet

glowjet

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Hi Peetwah welcome to SGL to you and your Wife, both the scopes you have mentioned have positive reviews, but the Mak has the slight advantage with the larger aperture at 90mm. At the end of the day, budget, what you can handle, and what you want to see, will all have a bearing on your choice. There is one thing for sure though, either scope will reveal views of the heavens you can never expect to see with the naked eye and will, no doubt, be a rewarding experience for the both of you :)

John.

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malc-c

malc-c

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Welcome to SGL.

If you want something small, compact, but will give you the best "bang for buck" then have a look at the 130P Flextube

Skywatcher_Heritage_130P.jpg

http://www.firstlightoptics.com/dobsonians/skywatcher-heritage-130p-flextube.html At £135 its within your budget, has the advantages of having a larger aperture than the other two scopes, and can is easy to use with one hand. Have a read of the reviews on FLO's website, they are very encouraging.

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camoscato

camoscato

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Hi and welcome,

I'm still pretty new to astronomy (started in July 2012), so take that into account when I say I'd recommend the Skywatcher Evostar 90 as a good beginner scope that fits your budget. I keep mine on it's mount in the garage, and have no trouble bringing it out into the garden to use. It gives me amazing views of the Moon, and I've also gotten good views of Saturn (saw the rings) and Jupiter (with several moons around it). I added a Telrad, and that's made it pretty easy to find deep space objects (DSOs), as well.

Again, I'm new, and this is the only telescope I've ever used, so one of the ones you've mentioned might be a better choice. I only commented because I've got beginner experience with the Evostar 90, and it fits your budget. Whatever you choose, enjoy!

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Rustmonkey

Rustmonkey

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I have the ST80 which I use as both a quick grab and go and as a Guidescope. Brilliant little scope that will give you hours of fun.

That said, they tend to come with an EQ1 mount which is pretty budget minded. Ppl will tell you it's a bad mount but if you make a few tweaks and tighten it up properly is actually quite stable for a cheap, light mount. As for polar aligning....forget it with this setup.....just point the front leg in the general direction of Polaris and your away.

The GEM ( German Equatorial mount) could be a bit fiddle for one handed use so maybe an Alt/ Az mount might be better. I have mounted mine onto my Manfrotto camera tripod before for ease of use. This setup is also ultralight and easy to pack away.

The flex tube 130 looks like a great little scope which can be placed on a steady table or surface and can easily be moved around with one hand. It will give you better views for your money and is a doodle to use as well as being quite compact.

there are several options open to you. Recommendations will abound but ultimately it's a decision for you to make. For ease of setup, best bang for your buck and something relatively compact......you may be better off with the Flextube. Only minor issue is that with it being a Newtonian you may have to collimate it from time to time but that's not really a drama.

enjoy which ever road you go down and welcome to both here and to a great hobby.

PS: beware of Aperture Fever......it kinda sneaks up on ya. ;)

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JamesM

JamesM

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Hi and welcome to the forum.

Well you've already made one good decision and that was to come here for some impartial advice. Of the two choices you offer us, I would go for the Skymax 90 as it won't show any false colour around bright objects such as planets and the moon. When I say false colour what I mean is something called chromatic aberration (CA) and it's where the red and blue elements of light (that form part of the total spectrum we see as white light) have not been brought together to a sharp focusing point by the scope's optics. This can be seen as a type of colour fringing on the edge of objects where there is a high contrast of light and dark between an object and its background. If you have the time, you might want to check out this website as it illustrates this phenomena in a little more detail. Now the truth is many people in astronomy don't find this minor distortion objectionable and of course where the object being viewed is faint, such as with many deep sky objects where the brightness/background contrast is not so marked, the CA won't be detectable at any noticeable level. There is also another slight consequence of CA and that is the ability to obtain very sharp focus because there will always be elements of the target's light spectrum that will remain out of focus. This phenomena is more acute in refractors that are particularly short or where only two lenses are used to control the light path. Chromatic aberration is only generated by light travelling through glass such as an objective lens and does not exist where light is reflected by glass as in the case of a mirror. The Skymax being a type of reflecting scope (Maksutov - which has a corrector lens at its front) will not show any CA and is an excellent performer on planets and the moon and its design permits greater magnification, although that in itself will also produce a narrower field of view say compared with your other choice the ST80. I would certainly recommend that either of those choices are placed on a proper astronomy mount (equatorial or altazimuth) rather than a photographic style tripod as the best viewing you can obtain is directly above or nearby and those tripods are limited in their vertical travel.

There are many different design of telescope out there which perform in slightly different ways and have different strengths and weakness. Malc-c's suggestion above is a Dobsonian type scope and represents a design that is the best value for money. It has a larger aperture which is able to catch more light which translates into being able to obtain more detail. Unlike your two choices above, you will need to collimate this scope at some point which is straightforward to do but requires a Cheshire eyepiece (£30) to do it. This scope has a lot more aperture and will certainly be easier to set up and pack away given your physical limitations and would be more appropriate to have if DSO's are on your menu. Being a reflecting type of scope, it will of course show you an inverted and back to front image whereas as either of your choices above will show a view that is the right way up and which permits their use to include viewing terrestrial objects too.

So in total of the two choices given, the Skymax would be my choice but if you want to also look at deep sky objects then the 130P Flexitube is the way to go. Hope that helps.

Clear skies and enjoy the forum.

James

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rwilkey

rwilkey

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Hi Mr & Mrs Peetwah, welcome to SGL. I have also had a stroke and partially disabled down the left side, I have a large (for me) reflector, which I bought and used frequently before my stroke, but after the stroke I can only manage my C100ED-R with relative ease, so one of the telescopes you have suggested you should be able to handle. I find the 100 is the biggest someone in our physical condition can handle alone, my scope is not too long either with a focal length of 900mm, making an f/9 ratio, truly great for the things you want to see, the Moon and the planets, I also love double stars, but can still view deep sky objects (DSO's) if i want to. You should be able to do most things with the right hand, I find when i am mounting the telescope on the tripod I have to wrap my left arm around it as my left hand is all bunched up, but doable, you just get round it and fumble around, esp. in the dark. As a choice of scope I would choose the refractor, quicker cooling times and it doesn't dew up so easily; you can correct CA (chromatic abberations with the use of a simple filter, either a fringe killer or a semi-apo filter - bit expensive I am afraid) however, thry it first and see how you get on, and good luck with your new journey into this amazing world!

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