Complete newbie help with telescope

[Scott1]

Thanks for the help. Its a bit like a mine field picking out a telescope, I don't want anything too big as I know what im like if its too big ill never use it but want something to be easy to transport and relatively easy to use. im very indecisive

[Schorhr]

The Heritage will fit in a bigger backpack without the Base and with the Base in a large One (or a back carriage Frame). It is a good deal for it's price and will Show much more then the usual entry Level telescopes. Those are the two Main reasons I bought Mine even though I own a larger 10"/250mm telescope.

The larger 6"/150mm dobsonian with 1200mm focal length are great, but cost quite a Bit more and I'd go so far to say that you See more Details and deep sky objects in the smaller heritage130p out at a dark location then with a 6"/150mm from within a light poluted City, balcony, back yard.

It's amazing what my h130p Shows when I cary it out of town just a mile. And if I just want a quick glimpse of the moon or Saturn & Jupiter, it's Set up on my balcony table within a Minute, including collimation using a chesire/siighttube (but adjusting the mirror is Not allways neccessary, Plus possible with a Film can).

I Do own 3 and 4 inch telescopes, but they Show less on deepsky objects. With the h130p at a dark Site some brighter galaxies reveal their shape and even a Bit of detail, while they are either Not visible in the 4" mak or just faint blurry discs. The 4" mak costs more then the Heritage, but is slightly smaller, though needs a rigid camera tripod.

Overall the h130p is a good Starter scope that's much more fun then smaller ones, doesn't break the Bank either, and even later it's a great Handy second telescope.

Of course, as many telescopes, it has it's downsides. It's Löw to the ground, so without a sturdy table or Box a Löw collapsible tripod stool is ideal, and a foam pad to kneel/sit next to the telescope. Not everyone's idea of a great Time. A six or eight inch dobsonian are much nicer to view through. Standing or with a chair. But you need a bike trailor/Hänger or simply a dark back yard... Or a car.

The other downside of the 130p is it's focal Ratio. At f/5 the view through cheap eyepieces won't be Sharp over the entire field, but acceptable. I still use my erfle/uwa eyepieces as they Start at €30 and give nice wide angle views, amazing...

On a longer focal length telescope you will need a 2" focuser and more expensive 2" eyepieces to See the Same field.

So my reccomendation is a h130p, sooner or later two or three better eyepieces and a barlow for planets, some not-so expensive binoculars, red light, Star maps/Books, warm clothing, perhaps a cheap 30-40mm Plossl to See the Maximum field through the 1,25" focuser to help find objects in those light poluted cities. Otherwise a red dot Finder is better then a tiny Finder scope many entry Level telescopes have...

Later a eight or ten inch dobsonian could be an upgrade, or a cheap used Eq mount but photography with the heritage 130p is a Bit fiddly. But Not impossible.

If you Don't care about deepsky objects a Mak (maksutov) is great as they are compact and have a High focal length, so you achieve High magnification easily for planets, but widefield (andromeda, Open Star clusters) won't Fit in the view. PLUS they are a Bit more expensive and need a longer Time to cool.

Small refractors are also neat, but larger ones for deepsky get heavy and expensive. They have more contrast as there is no secondary mirror in their way, but at High magnification there will be color seans around objects, depending on the Type, focal length and so on.

So there's no perfect telescope. And every Type has their advantages.

As long as you avoid shaky cheap tripod mounts (usualy a good Eq mount costs at least as much as the telescope itself, so most entry Level bundles are usualy a compromise between stability and price or simply Bad),

short Newton telescopes with High focal lengths achieved by an internal barlow (hard to adjust/collimate, cheap ones have a poor mirror) and buying from shady Shops there's little you can Do wrong.

if unsure, ask here :-)

[Schorhr]

Sorry for even more typos then usual, still on my phone due to my broken Laptop battery...

What I forgot to adress is the whole eq-mount or az/dobsonian discussion.

Some find the Eq mount easier as you just turn a knob to keep Track of a Planet/object while observing, while others say az/dobsonian is simpler/intuitive because you can just move the telescopw up/down and left/right. Personaly I think it really does Not matter visually. Even over 200x magnification it is easy to Track a Planet as it moves / as the earth rotates.

An Eq mount will matter when taking (serious, longer exposure) pictures and is a field fo itself. None of the cheaper Eq mounts is really suited for that in the long Term, only if you mount a smaller telescope or the camera directly without a telescope.

GOTO is also great. But the Electronics itself cost a lot, leaving either a bundle with a higher price or a tiny telescope that can't Show Most of the programmed objects.

As you will learn a Bit about the night sky anyway, goto is nice but Not needed. More aperture is key. Whatt use is a 70mm GOTO Telescope that only Shows a few objects, when a 130mm telescope will Show more Stars in Star clusters, the shape of m81/m82 and Details in m51 even in mediocre conditions...

Even without Star Charts and with a az/dobsonian mount many objects are so easy to find after a Bit of practice with the telescope and the Freewäre stellarium... The Ring nebula between the bottom Stars of lyra, the hercules Star Cluster, m81/82 you'll find by imagining a diagonal through the big dipper, orion nebula is hard to miss when iþ's up and you looked at some of the constellations in stellarium, and the planets are One of the brightest objects, many mistake them with the North Star.

Searching is half the fun. Start with easy stuff, get to Know your telescope, try what Details you can Spot after getting used to swap your eyepieces at night and when your eyes adapted to the darkness...

[jonathan]

Skywatcher Explorer 130 wins for me, it is currently available at a discount from First Light Optics making it virtually the same price as the Skyhawk 114 on Amazon, comes with EQ2 rather than EQ1, and it is slightly faster so your high power views will be better.

With any of these scopes you should budget for a 1.25" moon filter, it will enable you to enjoy viewing the moon without getting pink blobs in your vision.

[swamp thing]

Hi Scott

I would second the suggestion to look up your local astro society.

Join up with them, go along to a few observing sessions, and have a look through a few different scopes.

You can't beat hands on experience IMO

[Schorhr]

How does the eq2 perform with the 130, I found even the astro 3 critical, with the 130/650. With the 125/900 it was really not usable. What good does eq tracking do when the mount shakes badly at high magnifications? The dobsonian mounts are rigid, and especially with a uwa (wide angle eyepiece) the planet stay in the view long enough at 200x.

[faulksy]

hi scott as said go to your local astro party you will find them in the south wales group best pm ing matthew he organizes them, sure they wont mind you poping along. you say that picking a telescope is a mine field, wait till you get the bug and start picking eye pieces

[fondofchips]

+1 for seeking out your local astro club, sorted out a lot of questions for me & made choice of first scope easy.

[Moodtastic]

I recently bought my first proper scope - the Skywatcher Explorer 130p, it came with an EQ2.

I think it has a smaller focal length of 600mm than the Explorer 130 with 900mm.

Mount wise EQs are simple to use, if you get one there are some good 5min videos on youtube on how to set them up and use them. Collimation again is simple with some good guides and videos around.

The EQ2 I have found is an ok mount for the relatively light weight 130p (with my very limited experience so far). I have not noticed to much shaking however it is probably at its limit with this scope. I think to do any photography with the 130p an EQ3-2 would be advisable.

Even this small scope and EQ2 is fairly heavy and definitely needs a car to travel any distance.

[Schorhr]

How much does the 130/600 (or is it 650 as well) weigh? I allways hesitate recomending the combo with an eq2 after my experience with the astro3. Especially when magnifying 200 or 260x on planets. With 80-100x I found it okey.

Deepsky Brothers (german) rate the lighter 114/900 with 3-4 (german school grades, 1=best, 6=worst/F)

http://deepsky-brothers.de/SinnvKombiTEL_Monti.htm

114/500 gets rated with a 2-3.

As the other combinations are rated close to my experiences with other telescopes and mounts I find the ratings rather reliable.

[Moodtastic]

How much does the 130/600 (or is it 650 as well) weigh? I allways hesitate recomending the combo with an eq2 after my experience with the astro3. Especially when magnifying 200 or 260x on planets. With 80-100x I found it okey.

Deepsky Brothers (german) rate the lighter 114/900 with 3-4 (german school grades, 1=best, 6=worst/F)

http://deepsky-broth...biTEL_Monti.htm

114/500 gets rated with a 2-3.

As the other combinations are rated close to my experiences with other telescopes and mounts I find the ratings rather reliable.

It is 650mm my mistake.

According to the product spec the tube weighs 3.6kg, the mount is rated for upto 4.1kg.

Since I got it last week the seeing has not been great, but I did get Saturn to x173 for a bit (a 7.5mm EP with 2x Barlow) no problem.

[Schorhr]

Oh okey, I was unsure if there is yet another version of the 130mm telescopes :-)

Tube weight is about the same then as the 125/900 and the Heritage 130/650.

I have no EQ2 but the Skylux (Astro3) is rated for heavier telescopes, and I found the shaking/vibrating irritating compared to the stable dobsonian mount.

Here pictures/animations of the h130p on the Astro3. The camera adds to the weight, though should behave similar to a longer telescope. So I thought...

http://www.ringohr.de/tmp5/schwenk1.gif

LiveView on Canon 450d, similar to medium magnification, shakes only slightly, very well usable

http://www.ringohr.de/tmp5/astro3h130p450dSchwenk2zoom.gif

10x livefiew, similar to high magnification, shaking is getting irritating.

Especially when nudging the setup,

http://www.ringohr.de/tmp5/Astro3h130p450p10xLiveViewHit.gif

And that's on the Astro3...

But to it's defense, without mounted camera it's not quite as bad.

[jonathan]

It's typical for the mount to be at its limit with the supplied scope, if you want to reduce or eliminate any vibrations at higher magnification then you could easily spend double on the mount as you do on the scope.

My favourite mount at the moment is the Celestron Omni CG-4 (probably available under a couple of different names, same hardware but different badge, it is very similar to the EQ3-2 but comes with thicker tripod legs). This mount costs about £220, it is a good manual mount that can very easily be upgraded to motorised for automatic tracking at a cost of about £95. So, that would make it £220 or £315 for the mount. As the original poster specified around the £100 mark I didn't suggest this, at that price the options are either a very small but well mounted telescope, or a trade-off between a bigger scope and a mount that will have some vibration at high magnification.

[Butchless1]

130 will give you the greater aperture, which will help if you get hooked and start to suffer from aperture fever, still I would consider a pair of binoculars as an option, I'm happy with my 15x70 bins and find for a quick win around the sky they spend more time being used than either my reflector or mak due to ease of grab/setup

[AlexB67]

From that it would appear you have decided on the mounting system, if that is what you are after all good. The only thing I would add as you have not particularly mentioned why, not that you should, if you feel happy with that choice , but a DOB with the same optics will cost less comparing the explorer with the Heritage. It depends what you want from it.

I was very much in your position a few months ago and was actually very close to buying the explorer but went for a DOB mount in the end, and I have no regrets for visual use at all, which is what I was after in any case. I can't say I would have regretted the explorer, I don't know not having one There are pros/cons for both systems. It is worth thinking about carefully and see what others will add to that debate.

[Scott1]

Hi Thanks. Sorry to sound a complete stupid what is a DOB Mount?

[AlexB67]

Hi Thanks. Sorry to sound a complete stupid what is a DOB Mount?

Sorry, when I wrote my previous post I missed a whole page of discussion, still rereading it perhaps my comment was not out of place anyway. DOB mount = Dobsonian mount, a simple way to control and move a scope in altitude and azimuth, but has no fine control mechanism. Very easy to use, but fine tracking is not an option as for example with fine controls on an EQ mount.

FLO, a highly recommended site here http://www.firstlightoptics.com/skywatcher.html on that page splits them up by mounting type for sky-watcher scopes, that should make it clear I hope.

[Scott1]

Firstly I would like to thank everyone who has replied your help has been great and my learning curve the last few days has grown very steeply. After answering a few questions like, What do I want to see? Budget? And how will I move it I have got a few answers. I really like the idea of looking at planets and possible stars mainly because its what I know (of sorts) im setting my budget at 100-150 but it is flexible. I really want the scope to be transportable and not to heavy or a pain to set up because I know what im like if its too much hassle ill never use it, I also want it to be maintenance free as ill have enough to learn about the sky without the pressure of having to re set the optics and such.

I have looked at the sky watcher Explorer 130 and like it but this looks a bit big to take out and set up, its not something you could carry locally without the aid of transport.

Jonathan on here has been very kind and helped me a lot with information and pointed the Skywatcher Startravel 80 (EQ1) I like the look of this as its small and looks easy to transport the other which I was pointed to was Skywatcher Startravel 102 (EQ1) so my other question is which of these if any would people go for?

A work collegue who bought a telescope recently but has never used it offered me Celestron 21061 Astromaster 70AZ Refractor Telescope to which I haven’t got a clue about any ideas the reviews look good but is it something to go for or go for a skywatcher?

Thanks again

Scott

[Schorhr]

Eq1 is horrible for anything large enough to be satisfying.

The heritage 130p gathers much more light as it quadruples with diameter, and resolution for star clusters and planets is abbot doubled compared to a 70mm aperture telescope. And it is both compact and lighter then most other setups.

Not that 60-100mm can't be fun, but it will somewhat limit you to planets, moon and few bright deep sly objects, while a larger aperture will be fun for years, and you can still put it on a decent eq mount or just get a used eq2, astro or eq3.