new scope

[craigdsmith]

I have decided to upgrade my scope. I have a celestron astromaster 114eq and I am looking towards a skywatcher explorer 150. Any one recommend this or other scopes. Budget around 250 mark or a little higher. Thanks

[nightfisher]

Are you planning to use the original celestron mount with a 150, if you are purely visual rather than trying any imaging, i would think about a dobsonian

[umadog]

You would notice a much bigger difference if you went with a 200 mm compared to a 150 mm. With a Dob you could do that and stay in budget.

[craigdsmith]

More visual at the moment with the celestron only being 4.5mm struggling seeing much detail with Jupiter even with barlow. More interested in deep space where the aperture at the moment only lets you see so much. Will be looking into doing some imaging in the future. Thanks for the replies.

[CodnorPaul]

200p dobsonian would be your best bet - it will give you a decent aperture for visual only at this stage, keep you going for a few years.  Then if you decide to do AP you have the option to buy a mount and put the OTA onto it (an NEQ6 would hold that well for AP)

[ChrisSJ]

Hi,

If your looking for a scope to do visual observing, then I would recommend the 200 dob. For the money the Explorer 150p is let down by its poor EQ3-2 mount which can introduce a fair bit of vibration and wobble when (manual) tracking. People do try and cure this by adding weight; sand in legs, lead weights, and weights hung from mount head, but this just makes it all too clumsy and difficult to carry.

Chris

[ronl]

Bigger is better, 200p Dobsonion is a good size for the money,

and great views too.