Skywatcher Heritage 130P or somthing just a little bit pricier?

[ianpwilliams]

Can anyone recommend accessories for the Heritage? I just watched a YouTube review of the Heritage (it is a lot bigger than I thought, which is a good thing!), and the guy was talking about a 2xBarlow lens, which looks like an essential purchase. But what else should I get, now that I know I'll be spending less on the scope? Could I get even better lenses for even better magnification? Should I get some filters straight away?

Also, can anyone recommend any books and/or web links on how I actually get started? I know that there is collimation to consider (although I don't know what that is), and of course, what I actually do when I get the scope (how do I operate it, how do I learn what I want to look at etc)?

[happy-kat]

I got for mine

Turn left at orion book

Baskituv mask

Collimation cap

Made a light shroud

32mm GSO eye piece

16mm maxvision

6mm but it is too much so hardly use it.

[ianpwilliams]

Also, before I completely abandon photography altogether for now, I have seen some people talking about photography using webcams, even with cheaper scopes (after stacking and image processing). Does replacing a DSLR with a webcam make photography any more achievable with starter scopes? If I did give photography a go, I would only be looking for basic pictures rather than anything special.

[happy-kat]

Webcam are used for planets and can be the moon as well.

Dslr not so good for planets and many are probably too heavy for the heritage. Mine is light so have used it on the moon.

[ianpwilliams]

So I would be looking at something like this (all from FLO apart from the book):

Scope    

Skywatcher Heritage 130p Flextube    £128.00

Books    

Turn Left at Orion    £19.54
    
Definite Accessories    

Skywatcher 2x Deluxe Achromatic 1.25" Barlow    £29.90
Baader Neodymium Filter (apparently gives lightpollution reduction, good moon filter, and good coloured planetary filter all in one)    £44.90
Rigel Aline Collimation Cap    £4.95

Possible Accessories    
    
Skywatcher SP Plossl Eyepiece (not sure what size, if 130P comes with 10mm and 25mm. Maybe 6.3mm if I want to try to see deep sky?)    £20.00
David Chandler Night Sky Planisphere (would this help at all?)    £16.00
AstroZap Baader Solar Filter (is the sun interesting to look at?)    £33.00

TOTAL- £296.29
 

[happy-kat]

I got my plannisphere from Amazon for about £8 and it is nice about LP record size, though have not got it out the draw for a while.

For the sun you may well need to blank the sides off, I have decided the Heritage is not the best of scopes for sun gazing even with correct filter due to the open design. Though I have not experiece to say whether it is a problem or not.

[ianpwilliams]

Yeah I'll give the sun filter a miss, because apart from anything I've realised that I'll need to buy a cheap plastic table and chair for the back yard, so the sun filter money can go on that instead.

[ianpwilliams]

Would people recommend the Baader Neodymium Filter?

And what size Skywatcher SP Plossl Eyepiece should I go for? Or should I just wait until later to buy this?

[happy-kat]

I would hold of getting any more eye pieces and if your budget is around £20 I would look to get a second hand one of better quality.

I use the 32mm instead of the 25mm now and the 16mm I have, conditions less often good enough for my 6mm. And if you get that Barlow 3mm it's going to be too much most of the time. My Barlow is a x1.6 so my 32 and 16 don't double up.

[AndyWB]

Would people recommend the Baader Neodymium Filter?

And what size Skywatcher SP Plossl Eyepiece should I go for? Or should I just wait until later to buy this?

Well, I'd recommend waiting before splashing out on accessories too much. Also, try to get to a shop if you can an see the sizes of things - I mean, the 200p isn't completely immobile, it's just not as portable; it's a standard trade off, portability vs capability. All the options mentioned are good, and it's about the biggest you'll use regularly - and not be afraid to load in the car and head out with.

Re: the Neodymium - I wouldn't bother in a hurry, to be honest. Wait and see what you think. I find my UHC filter much more useful - but only for emission nebulae.

Can't say about the Skywatcher Plossls - I went for BSTs, which are very popular around here. I would suggest 8mm being the most magnification you'll use often in the 130p - and my 30mm eyepieces is my most used. You don't expect it when you start, but a lower power, large field of view eyepiece is very useful. Planets and doubles are the only things that really need magnification. I do have a 5mm, and it does get used, but it isn't anywhere near as useful.

[ianpwilliams]

Yeah I might as well lay off the accessories for now, just get the telescope, book, and a garden table and chair.

Also, I don't have a car, so driving out to dark locations isn't possible for me. Which either means that portability is important as maybe I could take it on public transport if necessary, or I could go bigger (150P or 200p) and only use it in the back yard. Either way I really will need to tackle light pollution, possibly through filters, or through home made covers that people make, or both. How do you make those anyway?

[happy-kat]

This is my one here

I needed one to stop light from near by LED lamp hitting the secondary mirror directly, if I did not have that problem I would not have made it I don't think.

Filters only work on sodium light not the new LED ones I gather.

[AndyWB]

Filters can only get you so far, but I've seen a surprising amount from within a town. 

I wrote about making a light shroud for a 130p here: http://stargazerslounge.com/topic/188929-thoughts-on-a-heritage-130p-light-shroud/ 

[ianpwilliams]

Wow they both look really impressive, more professional than I would have expected. So much so that I imagine I would struggle to make either one that well.

I did wonder if the openness of the Heritage when extended might exacerbate any light pollution problem, which makes me consider the 150P or 200P again. There is a streetlight around 15feet away, which I just know is going to cause problems.

Also, I'm in a second floor flat, so whatever scope I buy would have to be transported up and down four flights of stairs, which may be tough with the 150P or 200P, unless I left it in the passage behind the stairs, in which case I would have to trust my neighbours to leave it alone. Could the 150P and 200P be carried up and down stairs?

Also, does anyone know of any resources which compare images seen through the likes of the Heritage, 150P, 200P etc? I know that visual and photo are very different, but it would be nice to have a rough idea of how they compare.

[GuillermoBarrancos]

Wow they both look really impressive, more professional than I would have expected. So much so that I imagine I would struggle to make either one that well.

I did wonder if the openness of the Heritage when extended might exacerbate any light pollution problem, which makes me consider the 150P or 200P again. There is a streetlight around 15feet away, which I just know is going to cause problems.

Also, I'm in a second floor flat, so whatever scope I buy would have to be transported up and down four flights of stairs, which may be tough with the 150P or 200P, unless I left it in the passage behind the stairs, in which case I would have to trust my neighbours to leave it alone. Could the 150P and 200P be carried up and down stairs?

Also, does anyone know of any resources which compare images seen through the likes of the Heritage, 150P, 200P etc? I know that visual and photo are very different, but it would be nice to have a rough idea of how they compare.

I don´t think you have much trouble lifting the 200P dobsonian, as you can transport in two parts. (Scope OTA and the dobsonian base).

From 250PX and upwards and it starts to become really heavy and a chore to move up and down the stairs all the time. So I think the 200P is a nice limit.

[happy-kat]

Yes there is a great resource that shows image sizes and stellarium also will with the occular plugin. Not on pc so don't have the web link.

The scope you can move easy will be the one you use. If storage is an issue have you thought about a refractor with a tripod like an evostar 90 on a altaz3 tripod. As no table and chair needed.

The heritage is nice as it is fairly small and can be carried in one hand for shortish lengths as hard edged on fingers.

You could not take a 200p on foot to a different observing site, though does member [removed word] Disaster take his 150p to his local park on foot?

[happy-kat]

Member dick_dangerous

[Mattscar]

Theres not much I can add to this, as it seems most of the good points have been said already. I'll just say that Im extremley please with my 130P on a motorised AZ mount, however go for whatever suits you best and being as your going for Skywatcher you can't really go wrong

Matt

[ianpwilliams]

I found the website (through this forum), where you can "emulate" various telescopes. I know that it doesn't allow for weather and other factors, but I still found it useful for comparison purposes.

So I selected Jupiter for the 130P with the 10mm eyepiece (I chose from the "Skywatcher Super" range, because that seemed to be the only one with 10mm and 25mm, which is what the 130P comes with)  and a 2x Barlow, and then the same thing again with the Skyliner 150P/200P, and there is quite a difference (images from the website attached). Is that a reasonable comparison and/or representation do you think?

I also noticed that the 150P produced exactly the same result as the 200P, and then I noticed that the specs are actually the same in terms of magnification, and the differences are to do with power and light gathering, so does that mean that 200P would give the same views, but maybe better quality?

Also, what really confused me about that website, was when I started to look at objects from Messiah and Caldwell with the 130P selected. For example, with the 130P selected, no Barlow, and 10mm eyepiece, I selected Caldwell C5, and got the attached image! Now I may not know much about this subject, but I do know that there is no way I could anything like that with the 130P, or anything similar. So I wonder why it is that all the Messiah and Caldwell objects look more like Hubble standard rather than 130P standard?

[Mattscar]

Those kind of emulators are always good to give an overview, but can be misleading sometimes. With my 130p Jupiter is (I think) slightly bigger than the image displayed above and certainly with more detail on the surface of the planet. However, you are correct that you would not get a view of C5 like that unless you are at an extremely dark sky site. The emulator is showing you how big the object will be through the EP in a perfect world. In reality, unless conditions are amazing, it wouldnt quite be like that. They all look hubble standard on the emulators as they use full colour pictures to display objects. In reality space is seen mainly in a (beautiful still) greyscale no matter what scope you have.

Check out the sketching section on here and see if you can find anyone with a similar scope who sketches as then youll get a much better idea what can be seen.

Also, please dont think Im trying to put you off any of the scopes, they are all great and will be more than satisfying, its just about managing expectations is all

Matt

[ianpwilliams]

To be honest, when I first started to look into this, my expectations were definitely too high. Then I saw some of the images caught using the likes of the 130P like Jupiter (which is very small regardless of what scope you have) and I my expectations plummeted. And now I'm a bit confused.

I have a reasonable idea of what I will see when it comes to planets (i.e. generally very small, but hopefully with some nice detail in good conditions), and obviously some great views of the moon (why can't they all be that close?), but when it comes to star clusters and nebulae etc, the only pictures I had seen showed images where the nebulae was so small that it was more like a smudge, and you could just about make out the shape of it IF you were lucky. And then there's that picture of C5, which like you say is totally unrealistic. But it now makes me wonder if I've lowered my expectations of nebulae more than I should have, because the pictures I previously saw weren't even comparable to that picture, so I wonder if it might be somewhere in between "a smudge" and the picture above (no doubt closer to the smudge, but still), and so that gives me hope that I should be able to see some very interesting sights!

I did have a quick look at the gallery, but I couldn't see a sketch section. I'll have another look.

The other thing I keep thinking about (and keep banging on about, sorry), is the astrophotography issue. I'm well aware that doing astrophotography to a decent standard is hugely expensive, but is there really no scope (pardon the pun) for astrophotography "on the cheap", with a webcam rather than a DSLR to avoid the weight issue or something, even just to take basic snaps? I even hear about people literally taking a photo through the eyepiece. I suspect that once I start stargazing I will no doubt be quite geeky about it i.e. I will want to keep a record of what I've seen (in a trainspotting kind of way), and obviously a visual record would be more interesting to refer to (and maybe even improve on), rather than a written one. But I know that the issue tends to be with the mount, so maybe it really is out, however basic you want to go.

And while I'm talking about astrophotography, does anyone here subscribe with telescope.org? I've noted that for £3/month you can submit requests for their very powerful telescope in Europe to take images of whatever you want, and some of the examples are really amazing. At first I wondered (and so asked on the forums) what would be the point if the image would only end up being like the ones in their galleries anyway, but they told me about how you can customize the image with filters and after effects etc to give them individuality. So I'm considering giving that a go, at least for a month to see how it goes, the idea being that I can look at some things with my own scope at a distance, and then get some great images of those same objects but much closer and in much more detail. So does anyone else here subscribe to telescope.org, and if so, what are your experiences with them?

And going back to the light pollution issue, is the Heritage more prone to light pollution than other scopes because of the lack of tube when it's extended? Because I think I would struggle to make a cover to the standard that I've seen here, so if it was then I wonder if the 150P or the 200P would be the better option if only for that reason.

[happy-kat]

If you feel an imaging pull then maybe get a versatile tube now say 130pds but on a cheaper mount and later if the bug bites get a proper imaging mount as they can be pricey even second hand. Anyway what do I know I am new to all this but I do recall the agony of choosing.

With my heritage I have done afocal (my camera didn't get this very good) and prime on the moon which was better. I have a web cam but waiting for the moon again to try it out.

I made a shroud as I had a street light shining directly onto the secondary mirror. I could have been out of card board.

For example the ring nebula is a very small grey smudge and with averted vision I can make out roughly the shape. But I know the Hubble image so I can relate one with the other and that is fine. With my DSLR I do intend to make a barn door mount so I can do longer exposures of cluster type objects (no telescope). I felt for me a bigger heavier scope just was not going to get used even if it showed me more.

[ianpwilliams]

I had a word with a guy in a camera/telescope shop in town, and he was recommending the Skywatcher Explorer 130P. Then when I mentioned photography he spoke about how you can buy a motor for that scope. So then I looked on FLO, and saw that they have one with a motor already included:

http://www.firstlightoptics.com/reflectors/skywatcher-explorer-130m.html

So then I thought, if I bought that, then maybe I could buy a camera adaptor, and something like a Panasonic Lumix preowned, maybe something like these:

http://www.firstlightoptics.com/adaptors/flo-125-inch-t-mount-camera-adapter.html

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Panasonic-Lumix-G1-Compact-System/dp/B001KJQZ1S/ref=sr_1_3?s=photo&ie=UTF8&qid=1394122465&sr=1-3&keywords=panasonic+lumix

They would allow me to take photos wouldn't they? Maybe not the best photos ever, but still photos?

[ianpwilliams]

Or there's the Skywatcher Explorer 200P on an EQ-5 mount...a big investment, but surely decent pictures, albeit with a lot of learning first...

http://www.firstlightoptics.com/reflectors/skywatcher-explorer-200p-eq5.html

[happy-kat]

I think best to search that telescope and which cameras people have used, sometimes reaching focus is difficult and knowing up from what works and how helps make the right choice. Gosh price looks attractive it is the same as the 130p-ds tube only!

There was this post.

http://stargazerslounge.com/topic/81202-panasonic-lumix-g1-connection-to-sky-watcher/?fromsearch=1

This scope has a spherical mirror rather than parabolic though what this means in the real world I don't know.

If me I see how much a canon 400d goes for second hand as there is good communication between laptops to canon cameras. I think this one has live view, or at least research and compare noise figures. :-)