Skywatcher Evostar 120mm f.8.3 Refractor

[Ed]

Hi there, not sure if I've missed the boat on this one, but just in case...

I'm looking to buy a first telescope for my Dad for Christmas. He's been talking about getting into astronomy for years and whilst I've started the research, naturally there's a lot to take onboard. So I was wondering whether you could tell me what one can reasonably expect to see with the Skywatcher Evostar 120. I guess that I'm trying to balance between finding something that can give better views than a pair of binonculars, but that isn't too great a price that should he shelve his desires, it hasn't been a waste of money.

All the best,

Ed

[albatross]

Ed,

Briefly, I bought the Evostar 120 as my first scope last March and found it to be a very nice first instrument with no major problems, but, as I live rather close to Cardiff in very light polluted skies, I have already sold it on to buy a Skyliner 300P and the the price difference[new] was £345 to £470, i.e. £125. The difference between the two scopes was definitely worth the extra cash. The generally accepted view is that refractors are better for planetary work but reflectors are better for DSO`s as they have a greater given aperture per £ spent and therefore collect more light.

As to what you actually see is as long as a piece of string, so to speak, I could see M81 and M82 in Ursa Major but I couldn`t see M65 or M66 in Leo no matter how hard I tried! The Crab Nebula M1 really was a very faint and indistinct fuzzy patch. The 300P is definitely better, but still not the Keck!

I have to say that I would personally now have a reflector first, but, I sure others will offer their opinion which is likely to be more experienced than mine.

They are both quite heavy to move around.

Albatross

[Cloudwatcher]

For less than a tenner more you could buy your dad a Skymax127 on a motorized tracking mount. A more compact piece of kit than the Evostar 120 that can be comfortably used for terrestrial viewing as well as astro work. The 'T' threaded rear of the Mak makes it dead easy to use for photography so if your Father has an SLR camera all he will need is the appropriate 'T" ring for his make of camera and 'Bingo' he has a 1500mm telphoto lens to use in addition to a very good telescope.

That said,the best you could do for your dad would be to get him what he wants rather than what we here on the Forum thing he aught to have. It is Christmas after all!

Cheers

CW