Portable but powerful scopes

[swedonator]

I'm in the market looking for a telescope that are portable but still powerful. I have find that there are some scopes, for example Celestron Omni XLT 127. The tube is only 28cm. Then we have the Skymax-102 EQ2, the price is not high, but some say it is powerful and have good optics.

What is your experience with small portable scopes? what do you have and what do you think about it? What would you buy if you had about 805,27£ (8000 SEK) to buy for?

[steve_bham]

Depends what you want to look at? Deep sky or planets.

A lot of people will recommend a dob, as they are good value for what u get.

I'm not a dob fan so you could go for a mak for planets. Or a ST Refractor for deepsky viewing.

[mrflib]

What do you mean by powerful? Is there anything in particular you want to be able to see? Do you want to image with it or strictly for observing?

If you want to image and you want it portable, for £800 you can get some beautiful 80mm triplet refractors and have change (the Altair Astro 80mm Triplet is fantastic). I take delivery of the 115mm version tomorrow.

[emadmoussa]

The Skywatcher StarTravel 102 or 120 will do a great job. Not perfect for planetary observations, but considering their wide field view they're fantastic for DSO.

[swedonator]

Depends what you want to look at? Deep sky or planets.

A lot of people will recommend a dob, as they are good value for what u get.

I'm not a dob fan so you could go for a mak for planets. Or a ST Refractor for deepsky viewing.

I do not have any room for a big clumsy dob :-P

I like to observe planets, but deep sky is always interesting, but planets I would say.

[swedonator]

What do you mean by powerful? Is there anything in particular you want to be able to see? Do you want to image with it or strictly for observing?

If you want to image and you want it portable, for £800 you can get some beautiful 80mm triplet refractors and have change (the Altair Astro 80mm Triplet is fantastic). I take delivery of the 115mm version tomorrow.

I would be great if I could use it for imaging, but it is not anything I would love to have right now. Are you talking about this when you say 80mm triplet refractors: http://www.altairastro.com/product.php?productid=16493

[mrflib]

If you want to view planets ... well, while small triplet refractors will offer you fantastic contrast, they are not ideal for planetary viewing. They don't have the punch to get up close and personal. The 480mm focal length with give you a brilliant field of view - easily framing Andromeda in a single frame.

Yes that's the one I was referring to - it's an excellent imaging scope that comes with a free interferogram. It appears to be a little more expensive than I remember, though.

[Moonshane]

if you are good at DIY, you have room for a 10/12" dob in a space about 375mm cubed with a little ingenuity.

[mrflib]

Perhaps check this Mak out for £700: http://www.altairastro.com/product.php?productid=16345&cat=272&page=1

Review in Astronomy Now here: http://www.altairastro.com/public/reviews/Altair-105-Rumak-Maksutov-Review-Astronomy-Now-Magazine-2010.pdf

[sparkyjon]

a 127 mak will be fine for what your thinking of, it's probably the most compact powerful scope..it does have a smaller field of view but is ok for planets..

not sure about your budget but you can buy this in an autotrak or goto form , which will help you in the future to do a bit of webcam imaging.. not so much with a dslr , although you can do loads of shorter exposures and stack them..

for all round you can't beat a newtonian reflector but they are not the most portable..

[Tiago]

I'll second the suggestion a 120mm f/5 refractor, owning one myself - brilliant widefield images of DSOs, decent but not great for planetary visual observing. Looking at open clusters through one of these is just awesome.

And don't let the Chromatic Aberration freak you out - I found out it was way less intrusive that I was led to believe - it's perfectly fine for visual, at least for me.

[emadmoussa]

I'll second the suggestion a 120mm f/5 refractor, owning one myself - brilliant widefield images of DSOs, decent but not great for planetary visual observing. Looking at open clusters through one of these is just awesome.

And don't let the Chromatic Aberration freak you out - I found out it was way less intrusive that I was led to believe - it's perfectly fine for visual, at least for me.

I second that. Chromatic aberration is over-exaggerated in the 120mm...plus, who needs perfect colors in deep sky objects anyway?!!

[cs1cjc]

All decent telescopes are powerful! The physics tells us that a 70mm scope not only gathers 100 times the light of the unaided eye but is also flexible in magnification. To get a further 10 fold increase in light grasp needs an aperture of over 200mm. Under a truly dark sky (which is not of course dark, but bright with objects!) you can appreciate just how much can be seen in even a modest instrument. Objects that can be a struggle some nights in rural Derbyshire can become easy with for example M1 showing detail, M101 detectable and M51 displaying both its cores.

Whenever practicable, I take my 70mm with me.

[rowan46]

I think this is what you mean

http://www.firstligh...exstar-6se.html

It's big enough to see most things, portable enough to pack away and hide in a small apartment and of course includes a mount. It will not be much good for deep space imaging but it will be fine with a webcam for plantetary imaging. It does have goto and tracking so keeping its relatively narrow field of view on an object will not not be too hard. It's probably the largest apparture and mount close to your budget. If you cannot stretch to that then this is probably the next best option

http://www.firstlightoptics.com/maksutov/skywatcher-skymax-127-synscan-az-goto.html

Not as powerful in that its apparture is smaller but otherwise has similar charecteristics to the nexstar

[michael.h.f.wilkinson]

The SCT design is great in terms of aperture vs portability, and the C8 OTA hits the sweet spot, at just 4.7kg for an 8" aperture. Mak design are heavier (a 6" Mak weighs as much as the C8). The C8 (or the 8SE if you want alt-az goto) is very good on planets, and for visual it is fine on DSOs (I have bagged over 600 with my C8 on its EQ mount). The only thing it does not do as well as a little frac is wide field (gets some bins for that). With an 2" visual back I can get about 1.34 deg true FOV max, vs 576 deg with the 80mm F/6, so M31 and NGC7000 and the like, the 80mm is better. On all other DSO targets and all planets the 80mm gets taken to the cleaners by the C8 (and that is an APM triplet, so no slouch). Only for DSO imaging does the slow focal ratio become a problem.

The 6SE or C6 are also very good scopes. Lighter than their Maksutov brethren.

[midnight_sky_watcher]

Hi,

I have 2 "grab and go" scopes. They are from Teleskop Service based in Germany. They are the 60mm quadruplet astrograph,brilliant for imaging and observing. And also the 80mm triplet apo astrograph, again great for imaging and observing, and they dont break your bank account. Hope this helps..

Grant.....

Cornwall.....

[michael.h.f.wilkinson]

Hi,

I have 2 "grab and go" scopes. They are from Teleskop Service based in Germany. They are the 60mm quadruplet astrograph,brilliant for imaging and observing. And also the 80mm triplet apo astrograph, again great for imaging and observing, and they dont break your bank account. Hope this helps..

Grant.....

Cornwall.....

The TS 80mm Triplet is probably the same design as my APM 80mm F/6. Very good value for money scope.

[mrflib]

Yes the TS scopes are basically the same as the Orion ED80T minus the carbon fibre. They are well reviewed, however I have read a couple of concerning reports on quality assurance and customer service. As with any company if you really look hard you'll find a bad report - but this put me off completely:

[michael.h.f.wilkinson]

I got it from APM, as I guessed Markus would be strict on quality control, as does not want his brand's reputation to be tarnished. I have had no problems with TS, I should add.

[E621Keith]

If you want a £800 scope that's portable and good at deep sky, a Celestron C6 SE is hard to beat. Optically it is much better than the 127 Mak.

The whole shipping box for mount and scope (ex. tripod) fits inside an IKEA shopping bag, so it's really portable.

[swedonator]

If you want a £800 scope that's portable and good at deep sky, a Celestron C6 SE is hard to beat. Optically it is much better than the 127 Mak.

The whole shipping box for mount and scope (ex. tripod) fits inside an IKEA shopping bag, so it's really portable.

Some say that you pay for the electronics more then the optics when it comes to Celestron C# SE.. but I have considered C6 SE :-)

[swedonator]

It is a bit to expensive for me, about 10 000 SEK (1006,59£).

[cantab]

I wonder if the view that "SCTs and Mak's have narrow fields of view" isn't just a bit exaggerated. Say the Skymax 127, that's got a 1500mm focal length, well the 12 inch Dob has the same focal length and I've not heard people complaining about tunnel vision on that. Obviously point it at a cluster or the Milky Way and the Dob will show a considerably richer starfield, but for general "fit stuff in the FOV" considerations they'll be the same (well, unless you put 2 inch EPs in the Dob).

[Marki]

If you want to view planets ... well, while small triplet refractors will offer you fantastic contrast, they are not ideal for planetary viewing. They don't have the punch to get up close and personal. The 480mm focal length with give you a brilliant field of view - easily framing Andromeda in a single frame.

Yes that's the one I was referring to - it's an excellent imaging scope that comes with a free interferogram. It appears to be a little more expensive than I remember, though.

I can get pretty close (for most seeing conditions) with my SW equinox 80mm ED apo. This doublet has a 500mm fl. I think you don't need an more expensive triplet if you will be mainly visual, plus loads of people get great results imaging with this sort of scope. The SW 80mm ed version has a slightly longer focal length, so might be easier to get higher mags, and is a fair bit cheaper than the equinox. I use mine with a 5mm orthoscopic for x100, and if seeing permits I can barlow with my TAL x2 to x200, or sometimes with my powermate to x250. Plenty good enough for most seeing conditions - had some great views of Jupiter (on the rare occassions the clouds cleared) at the end of last year. With the right mount, these sort of tubes make great "grab and go" scopes with surprising versatility. I usually have mine on an iOptron Minitower II which I was lucky enough to get 2nd hand.

As others have said though, for aperture within your budget, a 6SE or similar sized mak might be a good buy.

[Moonshane]

personally I normally aim for a min of 1 degree field in the scopes I have and this fits in all but the biggest objects. for those (2-3 objects) I just look in the 9x50 finder! you'd get that approx with a 32mm plossl and a 1.25" focuser. other people have different viewpoints but that satisfies me almost all of the time, especially in my light polluted skies. I think if I were living in pristine darkness I might want a wider field but in truth I quickly get 'bored' (not really the right word - maybe dissatisfied) with washed out wide star fields at home, near Manchester