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Skyprodigy / Goto Mounts... Advice please.


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Hi. I am looking at buying a new scope.

I am VERY limited for time. With a 60hour a week job and three kids, I do not have time for a full time hobby but i really want to do some of my own viewing but with as limited input and as much output as possible.

I go to my local astro club but I want my own scope that will go in the boot of the car that I can take out and set up easily and see whats out there without too much trouble or having to spend lots of time learning.

I know this sounds like lazyness but it really is time that limits me.

I have recently found the Celestron Skyprodigy 6inch which initially sounded like the absolute perfect option for me. I have since read a few negative comments on here about the auto align being a 'gimmick' and a waste of money but it seems it would allow me to drive out somewhere and get going straight away and have it find objects for me with its auto tour funtions, after it has auto aligned.

The other option would be the nexstar8 but I have had no experience with a goto before and do not know how to manually align and how long it takes and then how to find the objects.

Any advice would be greatly appreciated. Are the sky prodigy really no good? Or do you think they might actually have a use for people such as myself?

Thank you

Richard

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Hi Richard, the sky prodigy is aimed at those with no knowledge of the night sky who [removed word] to be able to flick a switch and have the telescope do all the alignment itself. For not much more effort and no more time the Celestron SE will do the same at a lessor cost. The SE series scopes have Celestron's Sky Align system which basically involves you pointing the telescope at any three bright stars (you don't even need to know which stars they are) and that's it the scope is aligned. There is a tour function which will take you on a tour of the visible objects at the time and date you observe. "Sky Prodigy" versus "Sky Align" - is the extra cost of the former really worth the negligible difference in effort? to me I'd rather pug the difference towards a bigger aperture scope or use Tge difference to get some useful accessories like some nice additional eyepieces etc.

Hope this helps.

Graham

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Yes you have a number of options including Sky Align where you point at any three bright stars or do an auto 3 star align where the scope will try to point at stars it selects and then asks you to precisely centre them or a manual 2 star align where you pick and point it at stars that you know. All systems work reasonably well.

Graham

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The SE series are very easy to align. It only takes a couple of minutes, and if you know the names of a few bright stars it is very quick and flexible. It is also likely more accurate than the SkyProdigy, because with the SE you can switch your alignment points through the evening for more accurate GOTO (obviously goto is more accurate closer to your alignment points).

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And what is your budget for accessories? You will need a few eyepieces (the SEs only come with one very usable 25mm plossl) but I would skip filters for now (except perhaps a moon filter).

For EPs, look at the starguider ed range - these will work well with any of the SE scopes. I would get two around 12mm and 8mm for planetary, lunar and double star viewing. If you have the money, you can add a 32mm plossl to get widest views possible in a 1.25" fitting. None of these eyepieces are very expensive and you can upgrade them and add to them down the road when you are more familiar withbyour scope.

I don't worry too much about dew in the depths of winter. This bedevils summer and autumn viewing, but I seem to get away without my home-made dew shield during the cold months.

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I'm going for the 8se.

Thanks for the help. Much appreciated. I will stick with just the 25mm for now but will have a look around for a good 12mm or 8mm and a barlow once I'm used to it. I would like a good quality eyepiece that will compliment the scope :)

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Congrats, the 8SE is a great scope! If you need any help once you get going, there are plenty of us here with SE scopes to (hopefully) figure it out :D

The 25mm included isn't a bad little eyepiece, so a good place to get started, but with a FOV of about 0.6 degrees its less than half of the FOV the 8SE is capable of. At the other end, 12mm is probably a good place to experiment, our weather being what it is :( but is possible to go further when the conditions allow.

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Ah... the 8SE. Then I would suggest a 12mm EP for planets and the 32mm EP to give you a wide enough field of view for many star clusters. The 32mm will also help finding things if the goto is a bit off, as it sometimes is.

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Another quickie...

If I were to order a lens would I be better with a 2inch or standard 1.25inch ? Also what power pack would you recommend please? :)

If you go for a 2" eyepiece you will need to replace the 90 degree diagonal with a 2" one as well. 2" eyepieces will show wider views than 1.25" inch ones so are generally only used in the longer focal lengths for low power viewing. For medium to high power viewing 1.25" eyepieces are fine.

I'd not rush into buying additional eyepieces though - there are more choices there than buying the scope !

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I agree with John.... get to grips with your new scope first, there's lots to see right out the box! Once you've got to grips with everything, you can start considering 2" diagonal and EPs to widen your view to catch objects such as the Double Cluster in one go... if your interests lay in that direction of course :)

Regarding power pack... I use the smaller Celestron one, but the maplin jump starter is often on sale at half the price. Functionally the same, a battery with 12v socket. Of course you could achieve the same with a car battery if you have one laying around :D You will need a power cable for such as this either way http://www.firstlightoptics.com/power/skytron-power-supply-cable-for-skywatcher-celestron-mounts.html

Alternatively if you're going to be observing from home and have a conveniently situated power socket, you could use a suitable mains adapter.

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Well the world didn't end so hopefully we will get some clear skies :)

One last question... How much do you need to spend on a moon filter roughly in order for it to be decent? Some seem to cheap to be good but a lot of them are also respected brands.

Richard

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I had my first go with my scope tonight. i haven't tried the goto yet but I took these by simply holding my iPhone camera upto the lens and taking the pics. I've played around with the brightness and contrast in photoshop and here are the results. They suffer a lot from glare which removed a lot of the detail. In fact most of the moon one is just a white washout. I am unsure wether a moon filter will solve this problem or whether its the iphone camera. Jupiter also looked much better when looking through the scope than the picture suggests. I could see the bands quite nicely but they do not appear on the photos.

Any comments would be appreciated.

Thanks

Richardpost-11768-135647561142_thumb.jpgpost-11768-135647561997_thumb.jpgpost-11768-135647563113_thumb.jpg

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