Skywatcher Heritage 130P or 114P

[AndyWB]

Well, someone is going to have to suggest it - it's virtually a standard answer - the book "Turn Left At Orion". It's short on colour - in fact, it's black and white - but it's clear, simple, and describes the best things to star with by season. Also, it focuses mostly on the northern hemisphere. Best of all, it has good diagrams that show you what you would expect to see - which is very useful when starting this hobby! I'd have no problem recommending it.

Most deep space objects don't change much year to year - but planets and asteroids move around a lot. The computer program Stellarium is free, and good for helping find stuff like the current locations of planets, comets, asteroids, etc. Magazines tend to describe where the planets are each month.

And another reason that you want to use low power on some deep space objects is that they're so large. The Andromeda Galaxy is huge! So is M45 (the Pleiades)! You want low magnification for them! As mentioned, magnification also makes things dimmer. That can be useful with the moon, which is quite bright, but it can make dim things disappear.

[AstroJon]

+1 for turn left at orion. Not much else to say really

I've also got the Philips Night Sky Atlas. It isn't as good as an observing aid but it is a better read if that makes sense and it does have some very nice lunar maps.

[Gonzo]

I bought an Heritage 130P recently, for the size and portability it's an excellent scope. For beginners or advanced users I would say.

I would however get some different eyepieces, I don't use the ones that came with the scope. I have some BST ones, they are not too heavy for this scope.

A DIY shroud is necessary I would say and maybe tweak the focuser as mine is a bit stiff to turn.

[happy-kat]

+1 TLaO

A planisphere is great for the visual placement of where the costilations are in relation to each other

[Charic]

doninwales.........beaten to the post here!

Thanks Charic for some more good advice/information :-)

That collimation document was interesting - there seems to be a lot more to the process that I had expected.  Fortunately it sounds like it shouldn't be needed often.

The Skyliner 150P you suggest 'does' look good.  However the 50% premium in cost is probably not warranted for his first scope.  If he gets in to it, then no doubt I would consider upgrading in future years :-)

Thanks also for the explanation of various terms.  My Physics A level is coming back to me.... :-)  The only bit that I wasn't sure about is why you would need lower power for DSO.  'Logically' I would have assumed that viewing more distant objects would require you to use as high a power as you could get (?)  In any case, I suspect much of the early stages will be studying the moon mainly, and probably some other planets :-)

The human eye cannot perform as well  at night, compared to other sensory devices.  One of the Brightest objects up there is M31 Andromeda Galaxy. Its so vast  and bright,  yet is spread across the sky, to almost being invisible,  the human eye just cannot detect it properly. Your telescope is clearly a great tool for high magnifications on the Moon and the planets, but these objects are quite honestly, bright enough to see with a telescope.

The telescopes function  for deep space objects (DSO's ) now becomes a different tool. it acts as a "light bucket?"The bigger the bucket (The Aperture) the more/greater the ammount of photons that can be collected. This allows you to capture and be able to see fainter objects, compared to the eyes alone without  optical assistance. Therefore to take in the expanse and to collect the photons, A telescope with a large / larger aperture,and a wide field, low power eyepiece does the job. 

[allotmenteer]

Hi - I bought a 130 about 4 weeks ago as an absolute beginner so obviously an expert by now! ;-)

I found Phillips Stargazing with a telescope' really useful as a beginner. I bought it for about £2.50 on Amazon or the like but made the mistake that it was an older version, an up to date edition would have been worth the extra fiver!

Cheers

Mark

[doninwales]

Thanks all.  I have now received the Heritage 130p.  And have bought the Orion book, and the 2014 edition of Phillips Stargazing.  Can't wait till Sunday when I can give them all to my son :-) 

And then, let the fun and new adventure begin..... ;-)

[Charic]

'Tidy'