wich telescope to buy ???

[Neo_uk]

hi,

ive seemed to be going round in circles and confuse my self now ive been looking at that many telescopes reading that many reviews so i thought id join a forum and ask the people in the know.Now that said i am buying on a budget of about £500 could be flexible depends on the telescope i would like to use the telescope for deepsky objects as well as objects in our own solar system and i am quite keen on trying my at a bit of astro photoghraphy any suggestions..................please help lol

many thanks chris

[philsail1]

Hello Chris - and a warm welcome to Stargazers Lounge!

You've come to one of the best forums around! I joined earlier this year and have obtained some good, sound advice. Everyone is so helpful and genuinely want to see that you make the right choice, and get the best equipment.

Now, you have a budget of £500. Well that should get you a scope that will last you a long time - possibly for life!

But you would like to do some imaging too? Well I'm not into imaging with a webcam. All I do is a bit of "Afocal" work using my Canon A570IS digital camera, and a bracket to fit it to my scope. I have a Skywatcher 8" Newtonian (reflector), on an HEQ5 Equatorial mount that is motor driven - to enable the scope to "track" objects across the heavens after you have located the object/planet. The 8" Newtonian is a good all round scope which will give good views of the stars, and planets, and reasonably good views of "deep sky" objects such as galaxies and nebulae. The scope has a reasonably wide field of view. I also have a small 90mm Skywatcher Maksutov, which gives good crisp views of the planets and stars - but it has quite a restricted field of view. The small scope is my "Grab-and-go" scope, for popping outside for a quick view when I only have the odd half hour, or for when the skies look as if they're starting to cloud over! (which has been quite often this year).

What to recommend for you? It all depends on what you want from a scope. There are that many (as you know) good "starter" scopes, that I can understand you feeling spoilt for choice.

Some good scopes include:-

Celestron Nexstar 130SLT (Reflector) with "supatrak" for £269

Skywatcher 130Pm (Reflector) on a driven equatorial mount, for £155

Celestron Nexstar 102 (Refractor) with "supatrak" for £289

Skywatcher 150PL on a driven equatorial mount for £225

Skywatcher 102 Refractor (on an Altazimuth mount) (Undriven) for £209

I'm sure you will get some other good recommendations to add to the list. With the advice you receive, you will be able to ask more searching questions, and gradually "whittle" you choices down to one or two scopes.

Good luck!

Regards.

philsail1

[Neo_uk]

many thanks phil,

is it the skywatcher explorer200 you have ? as this is one of the telescopes i have considered if so have you got any photos you've taken with the asaid scope ?.

any way thanks for the suggestions i will look in to them and confuse myself a little more !

cheers chris

[philsail1]

Hi Chris,

Yes it is the Skywatcher Explorer 200 I have. Here are one or two photos of the Moon and Saturn I took with it. I've also included two pictures I took with my old Eplorer 130pm for comparison. I also own a small Skywatcher 90mm Maksutov, with which the bottom two photos were taken.

(click to enlarge)

(click to enlarge)

The bottom two were taken with my old Skywatcher Explorer 130P Newtonian.

(click to enlarge)

(click to enlarge)

Both Newts are good general purpose scopes, but because of their lower "f" numbers (focal length numbers) they will not take as sharp a photo as say a Maksutov would (Maks have longer focal lengths (typically "f12"). Both of the scopes I took the pictures with, were motor driven - to enable the scope to track the object (keep it in the viewfinder).

The photos below were taken with my 90mm Skywatcher Maksutov. I mounted it on my HEQ5 driven mount.

(click to enlarge)

(click to enlarge)

Hope these help a bit!

Regards,

philsail1

[Neo_uk]

thanks phil

thats the sort of thing i find very usefull being able to see what the view would be like through various types and sizes of telescope as f this and f that i find mind boggling at the moment.

nice photos by the way

chris.

[philsail1]

Thanks Chris - as you can see, there's not a lot of difference in the views you get with a 130mm mirror and a 200mm mirror, despite the 200mm gathering much, much more light. There is a common fact which affects the useable magnification of all telescopes, whatever size. This is the effects of Earth's atmosphere! With all ground based observatories, (i.e. ourselves in our own back gardens!) our level of clear skies is limited 99% of the time by local conditions - light pollution from street lamps, heat given off from other properties, and the prevailing weather on the night. Even on the clearest of nights we are generally limited to a useable magnification of around 300x. On the clearest of nights (and in particular if you live out in the country (or high up the side of a mountain!) you may, with a big scope get away with using higher magnifications of up to 500x.

So how does this affect the person wanting to choose a suitable scope? Well, it means that you can look for a scope which is not necessarily going to give you the biggest magnification, but one which will give you views of the very best quality.

On top of this, you have to look at your own personal needs and lifestyle. You need to ask yourself questions like:-

How much time do I have to take a scope outside, spend time (up to 10 or 20 mins) setting it up (and putting it away after an observing session!).

Do I have a suitably dark enough garden to set it up and view things without street lights, or the lights of other properties interfearing.

What do I want to see with my scope - do I mainly want to look at star fields and deep sky objects, or do I want to mainly view the Moon and planets? Do I want to use the scope to view things on land (don't forget that most astronomical scopes give an inverted or upside down view of what you're looking at).

Have I got room to store a big scope?

Will I want to take the scope with me on holiday, or to relatives or friends homes?

What if I really get into the hobby - can I afford to upgrade to a bigger scope? (you will notice, at the bottom of our replies, that 99% of us own not just one, but several scopes! which just shows that it is almost impossible to find one scope to satisfy ALL astronomical need!). In between, we have bought and sold many scopes before reaching the stage where we have a scope that meets "most" of our observing needs. The whole aim of trying to give newcomers help and guidance, is to enable you make a first time buy which will meet your needs for some time to come. It is rare that someone will buy just one scope and keep that scope for the rest of their lives!

There may be other questions which I may not have thought of, that you need to ask yourself.

Asking yourself these kind of questions will help you narrow down your choices of scope.

Generally, Reflecting telescopes take a little longer to set up that refractors. Also reflectors need a little ongoing maintenance such as occasionally "collimating" the mirror - this is a straightforward procedure, with a simple check you can make beforehand that will tell you if you need to do it or not, and most small reflectors often don't need re-collimating). Also Reflectors need "cool down" time (perhaps 30 mins for a 130mm scope, and up to an hour for a 250mm scope), to allow the main mirror to reach the same temperature as the outside air - to enable the scope give the clearest image. Sorry for complicating things there!

With a refractor (such as the Celestron Nexstar 102) you can simply take out, set up the mount to point to the Pole Star), and then view.

A "Maksutov" scope is essentially a reflector, with a lens at the front. This scope needs a cooling period, and occasional re-collimation, but will give you very sharp views of what you are viewing - and is a scope which can be used to view things on land.

That's all I will say for now - too much info may only make your choice even more difficult.

[Neo_uk]

thanks again phil,

so would i be better getting 2 scopes eg:skywatcher explorer 200 on heq5 mount and say a skywatcher 120

the reflector for deepsky work and the refractor for lunar / planetary work ???? (Ive got my eye on solar b's scope ) or are these 2 much of the same ? could the 120 be mounted on the 200 or is it too heavy for the heq5 mount ?

chris

[bmann]

Hi guys, I am brand new to astronomy, my wife surprised me with a Meade ETX 80 AT telescope. Had a little go with it last night (first clear night this week), but I am not sure what I should be seeing through the eyepiece.

For example should Altair look like a blue/green sparkling object. Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

Regards

Bob

[The Warthog]

Hi guys, I am brand new to astronomy, my wife surprised me with a Meade ETX 80 AT telescope. Had a little go with it last night (first clear night this week), but I am not sure what I should be seeing through the eyepiece.

For example should Altair look like a blue/green sparkling object. Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

Regards

Bob

bmann, I've started a new thread for your question, OK?

[philsail1]

Chris.

The two scopes you mention (200mm Reflector and 120 Refractor) are both good scopes in their own right, but I personally think they are a bit too close in their capabilities to be bought together - there would be a substantial "overlap" in their performance. The two scopes could be mounted on the HEQ5 mount, but you would be at it's limit - and you would have a substantially increased set up time.

Do you need two scopes! Another aspect I have not mentioned is perhaps to buy a reasonably big scope, and a good pair of binoculars? The binoculars would give you splendid bright and wide field views of the stars, and the scope could give you the magnification for the planets (and double stars, clusters, nebulae and galaxies).

In this case my personal choice for a start up kit would be a Skywatcher 127 Maksutov on the "supatrak" mount (at £289 - you may qualify for a 10% discount from First Light Optics), and a pair of 7x50 or 8x40 or 10x50 binoculars. (7x50 would give you the brightest views). The 127mm mak would give you very sharp views of the planets, with a good range of magnifications (up to 300 + in good seeing conditions), and this scope would be easier to set up than an equatorially mounted scope.

This is only my choice though.

You may hear the term "aperture is King" mentioned on the forum when people give you advice. Well in terms of purely light gathering it is. But you have to think of the other factors I mentioned earlier. Big scopes take a lot more time to set up, they are usually more awkward to use, for not a great deal of difference in views (look at my photos above 90mm to 200mm is a big difference in size of mirror, but the smaller Mak gave bette views, and could be set up in minutes). There is another saying "The scope you use most is the best scope!" This is also true, as you can have the biggest scope you could buy, but find that you use a small scope much more. The small scope would therefore be the better scope! (I use my small 90mm Mak much more than the 200mm Newtonian).

Unless you are now more sure of what you want, I would re submit your request for help (as a new topic), perhaps mentioning the scopes you like, and wait for some more advice. (It may be better to get several differing (or complementary) opinions before committing yourself to spending!)

Hope this helps - feel free to ask any more questions!

Regards,

philsail1

[Kaptain Klevtsov]

thanks again phil,

so would i be better getting 2 scopes eg:skywatcher explorer 200 on heq5 mount and say a skywatcher 120

the reflector for deepsky work and the refractor for lunar / planetary work ???? (Ive got my eye on solar b's scope ) or are these 2 much of the same ? could the 120 be mounted on the 200 or is it too heavy for the heq5 mount ?

chris

The two 'scopes are identical in focal length so the field of view would be the same in both when using the same eyepiece, so there's little point in having both. The 200mm reflector will gather a lot more light though, and weighs about the same as the 120mm one. The 200mm is fatter, but the 120mm is longer.

I would second your choice of the 200mm reflector on the HEQ5 mount, thats about as good as you can get and I use that setup a lot.

BTW, if you intend to do imaging, you can search Stargazrs by 'scope type for images.

Kaptain Klevtsov

[AlexG]

Hi Chris

It's always the same. You look at all the websites, try to take in all the technical stuff and have to answer the question 'what do you want to see most, solar system or deep sky?" before you have even started.

Have you thought about going to a star party, or looking up your local astronomy club or society and then going along for an observing meeting? Everyone brings along their telescopes, you can examine them and, clouds permitting, have a look through them too. I think you will find the people are ALMOST as friendly and helpful as the folk in this forum!

I went along to a club meeting about 8 miles from where I live and got to look through about ten to twelve telescopes of all kinds - some of them within my budget and some really expensive impressive equipment that I would never get to look through otherwise.

If you are lucky someone will have exactly the telescope you were thinking of buying, or something similar, and you can have a squint through it AND figure out the boring stuff like how long does it take to set up, where would I put it and would it fit in the back of my car.

You don't have to join - if you phone ahead or email they usually let you turn up for a couple of meetings for free or just for a couple of quid towards the hire of the hall if they don't have their own premises. I learnt more in PRACTICAL terms in two evenings than I did reading books or looking at websites, even this great forum.

You might not get all the answers, but you might figure out what you do want to see or more importantly what you don't. Plus someone might have a second hand rig they are selling and you will probably go out for a few beers after, which SGL sadly can't match!

The BBC website has a list of Astronomy clubs and societies and there are other lists on the web too.