Help with choosing a new telescope!

[Jeff Gardner]

I've been interested in stargazing for a few years now, but have limited my efforts to a very good pair of binoculars. That has been fun, but my wife suggested getting a telescope for a Christmas present. My one experience with a telescope (I don't have any friends with one) was looking through one the ranger had while we were camping. Frankly, I was a little disappointed. He was showing us a nebula (ring nebula, iirc) and it looked pretty much like a smudge. So I resigned myself to binoculars.

But now, I'm hearing I can see the rings of Saturn? Nebulae can look like more than smudges? That has me interested.

But where to begin? My wife picked out this one:

http://www.celestron.com/astronomy/celestron-nexstar-6se.html

I like the idea if Star finder to help me get the hang of things but maybe I could do without it and save some money? I like that it's somewhat portable because I like the possibility if taking it camping. Also, I want it to be small enough that I'll take it out a lot, but big enough to show some cool stuff. Also, photography is somewhat interesting to me someday and the mount included is not an equatorial mount. Is that an issue? We have very dark and clear skies usually--is it worth it to upgrade to the 8"? Is there another scope people prefer generally?

To sum up, if your budget is under $1000 (but the less the better), what would you choose?

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[Kirscovitch]

That scope wouldn't be all that big so taking it places shouldn't be a problem. You'll need the finder though. It would be hard to find anything without it. Think of it as a scope for a rifle.

Without the finder your initial alignment when you set up the scope will be way off and basically make the GOTO mount useless.

As far as seeing the rings of Saturn, yes you will most likely be able to see them. You will most likely get some good views of Jupiter as well. As far as galaxies and nebulae, don't expect Hubble images. 

Welcome to SGL!

[Schorhr]

Hello Jeff,

do you remember the size/aperture of his telescope?

Portability is allways a tricky one :-)

If you are into Deepsky, the only way is more aperture ;-)

http://clarkvision.com/visastro/m51-apert/

http://translate.google.com/translate?hl=&sl=de&tl=en&u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.binoviewer.at%2Fbeobachtungspraxis%2Fteleskopvergleich_deepsky.htm

The 6" will show a lot of things. Nebulae and galaxies will lack a bit of detail. Things like Orion nebula, ring nebula, dumbbell nebula and such will look nice though...

All nebulae and galaxies will be faint and gray, no color except a hint of color for a few objects in larger scopes.

Finding objects without goto is not too hard, especially with good printed maps or books and a Telrad finder. Tracking of planets, even at 200-300x is not hard with wide angle eyepieces.

If deepsky is not your main interest, a 6" mak will show nice views of the planets and the moon - if those are currently up in the sky. Right now it's a good time, but on other times of the year none or just one can be observed...

Keep in mind maksutov and the like have a big central obstruction, lowering the contrast a little more then other telescope types...

Also those type of telescopes need a long time to cool down and viewing larger objects is difficult due to the focal length. Depends a bit on if you can use 2" eyepieces and if they are iluminated with the secondary mirror.

Photography with the long focal length can be an issue. For the planets a webcam is ideal, capture minutes of video, pick the best frames, and stack them later.

with a DSLR you will just get small blurred dots ;-) For deepsky you will need a focal reducer and it's still not ideal.

Even with 600mm focal length starting imaging can be tedious. But you could attach the camera to the mount without the telescope and make beautiful wide field images. Up to 30 seconds the field rotation should be no big issue... Over 30 seconds you will need a wedge or EQ mount.

Even with 30-300mm focal length and <1 minute you can take amazing pictures, given that you have a lot of patience and want to deal with image processing.

http://www.j-baechli.ch/astrofotografie/Controller?action=GALLERY

Those where made on a barndoor, simpler types are easy to make,

http://www.astropix.com/BGDA/SAMPLE2/SAMPLE2.HTM & http://education.jlab.org/tracker/

I just started dabbling into video astronomy, a nice way too to see more with a smaller telescope- and color nebulae... Works on alt Az mounts as well.

Though it does not replace viewing through an eyepiece IMHO.

A 10" travel telescope or a 10" flextube could be a solution depending on what you still find portable.

http://ringohr.de/tmp6/sum1.jpg

http://ringohr.de/tmp6/sum2.jpg

(Sumerian Travel Telescope 10", currently not available AFAIK but there are similar ones)

Visually and regarding transport this is as good as it gets.

Setup time is a bit of an issue though. I got that one as I have no car at the moment and I could not even carry a classical 6" or 8" to the dark field. If your back yard is dark enough, that's another story... Though you'd need a big car if you want to take the telescope AND camping gear.

If it's just about storage size in the car, the skywatcher flextubes may be a cheaper choice ;-)

There are also goto dobsonians and flextube dobsonians. Lots of money still goes into the computer and motorization... And they weigh more. Sometimes those are an option though.

Trying to combine imaging and visual use almost allways results in some sort of compromise. A smaller goto imaging scope or camera setup and a larger dobsonian for visual use is almost always the best way.

Perhaps grab a copy of "making every photon count".

Regarding transportability again: A 8" or 10" dobsonian and a Heritage 130p for (camping) trips.

Also you can still buy a Nexstar SLT GoTo mount for the Heritage later if you really have trouble navigating the skies and want to dabble in imaging with a moderate focal length (I know the Heritage is not ideal but I do it too).

It's more idal for visual use though!

If imaging is a must, you could also go for

8" dobsonian + 130pds + NEQ3 (Goto) Mount.

Build a small dobsonian rockerbox to take the 130pds as travel telscope... or gt the SLT/Synscan ALtAz Goto Mount and you also have a nice travel telescope that can even be used for short eposure imaging.

//Edit: NEQ3 388+ 8"Dob 279+ 130pds165 - more expensive then I have thought, costs more then the 6se. Oh well, was just a random idea anyway ;-)

How dark are your skies? Is the milky way visible?

Can you se M31, M33 with your naked eye?

[rowan46]

welcome to sgl the nexstar 6se is a nice scope and will show you a fair bit nothing like Hubble  but you will get the rings of saturn, the moons of jupiter and cloud bands, the mount is good for planetary imaging with a webcam but its not ideal for long exposure deep space photography. Its not accurate enough and its the wrong type of mount. It makes a fairly portable package but this is no backpack scope. with scope mount and tripod you are talking close to 50lbs add in a power supply and you are not going to want to take it far from your campsite. Which sort of defeats the object of taking it camping because campsites have all those lights on at night unless you go somewhere wild. Still i wouldn't mind a gift of a nexstar 6se

[Jeff Gardner]

Thanks for the replies. A few answers, although I'm maybe more confused about a few things too.

No, I don't know the aperture of the telescope the ranger had. I didn't know enough to ask at the time.

Regarding my skies, I can sometimes see the milky way. Usually not though. I don't know about m31 or m33. I've never tried. Milky way is very visible where we go camping though.

As far as imaging goes, I mostly just want a way to record what I saw. I don't see myself spending hours processing images. I don't have a nice dslr either. Can I just take a video or pic of the eyepiece?

The link I provided says the weight is 33 lbs. Am I missing something?

I'm getting more confused! I wish I had a buddy with a scope to mess around with...

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[Schorhr]

Hi,

yeah, it's a bit much all at once, I appologize for rambling :-)

If the milky way is visible occasionally, that's at least fine for backyard observations of the brighter deep sky objects :-)

If you just want to record what you saw, you may want to consider sketching or making wide field images and later add information and zoom in, perhaps sprinkle with Nasa-Images and/or sketches.

See the images in this (german) blog post http://taunus-astronomie.blogspot.de/2013/11/bb-vom-2425112013.html as an example. Though this will require a good camera that can do longer exposures.

The only things you can take snap shots of with a pocket camera are

-the moon

-planets (will be blurry, you'll at least need a camera holder and still process imagess)

-perhaps brighter objects such as the orion nebula as faint smudge

-star constellations without telescope

Imaging is far more complex then point&shoot. Cameras are sensetive if they expose multiple seconds. This requires accurate tracking, a stable mount (so hand-hold won't work for anything but moon, perhaps planets)...

The only type of camera that's capable to take snapshots without tracking and is about as sensitive as your eye are modified CCTV cams (~40-50gbp or 100gbp ready-to-use).

These where done without tracking, only integrating a short time.

130/650mm ring nebula http://www.ringohr.de/tmp6/RingNebel_3.png

Just on a regular stationary camera tripod, http://ringohr.de/tmp6/cs-pd1-ef-mounted_.jpg

Orion nebula 50mm camera lens http://ringohr.de/tmp6/orionlong.png

Plejads 50mm camera lens http://ringohr.de/tmp6/plejaden1.png

Would work if you'd piggy-back such a setup on a dobsonian as well.

Just a few experiments due to lack of time and clear skies.

With tracking, and under dark skies, those cameras are neat

They have more noise and lower resolution then DSLR cameras, but you can watch the universe nearly in real time and in techni-color ;-)

As the cameras usually only integrate images for 5-20 seconds you can get away with a AltAz Goto mount, no EQ.

As you only want to document what you have seen I'd recommend you ignore imaging for now-

If you want to SEE deep-sky objects with details, go with 8" or up, else you will probably get disapointed. In 5 or 6" galaxies will be faint smudges in the sky, you will be abl to make out different shapes (long, oval, round) but you usually wont see spiral structures or dust lanes or anything like that, only in a few.

As everything will be black and white drawings represent best what you can expect to see.

You can find drawings of many objects with different appertures @ http://deepskypedia.com/wiki/DeepSkyPedia .

Perhaps you have a observation group, observatory in your area?

Before spending so much money it would be a good idea to meet people and perhaps look through their telescope.

[rowan46]

I may have exaggerated the weight slightly I had a nexstar 5 and by the time you have included the powertank and all the assorted bits it was getting on for 40 odd pounds.  I have tried photography on a nexstar and other than lunar and planetary it doesn't lend itself to quick snaps. There is equipment you can use to  make it better for photography but it adds a fair bit of cost for fairly mediocre returns.

One way of recording is to take up sketching its a good way of improving your observing skills and gives a truer representation of what you have seen. sketching what you see in the eyepiece doesn't require you to be Turner and with a bit of practice some very interesting pics can be got its also a lot cheaper. Have a look at the sketching foum and see if any of it floats your boat

[NGC 1502]

Hi Jeff.  It's all very confusing at first. I know how hard it is to resist the urge to buy a telescope, but I'd hold off until you are more certain of what to get. Don't know exactly where you are, but as you mention $1000 perhaps the US.  That money opens up a wide choice.

You mention being confused and wanting a buddy with a scope..............

So how about contacting or joining an astronomy club ?  Most are happy to help, and the advice will trump any adverts you'll see.  Talking to owners of equipment and perhaps seeing their kit up close, and even better looking through it could save a lot of disappointment.

Regards, Ed.