Travel scope

[erasmus666]

I'm looking at buying a scope to keep in my car and use in conjunction with my Revelation 15 x 70 binoculars. Until I can afford an Orion Starblaster 62 I'm looking at a Celestron Travelscope 70 kit which Amazon have at present reduced to £50. Does anyone have any  advice about buying this scope or should I save my money and wait until I can afford the Orion?

Thanks

[NGC 1502]

I'm looking at buying a scope to keep in my car and use in conjunction with my Revelation 15 x 70 binoculars. Until I can afford an Orion Starblaster 62 I'm looking at a Celestron Travelscope 70 kit which Amazon have at present reduced to £50. Does anyone have any  advice about buying this scope or should I save my money and wait until I can afford the Orion?

Thanks

It's always tough to give advice, what suits one person may not suit another.

I'm the last one to put down basic kit, and I'm not putting down the Celestron 70 travelscope.  I have seen and viewed through one of those scopes, and used within its capabilities (low power / wide field) works quite well, and can show some nice sights.  

But your 15 x 70 binos are low power wide field also, so you have that viewing experience covered already.  If you are thinking of getting the Celestron 70, then upgrading it later, then the purchase of the Celestron will push the upgrade further away.

So for me, I'd stick with the 15 x 70s for the time being.  Used with care, a lot of good astronomy can be had.  A friend of mine lets me have back numbers of the Sky at Night magazine, in each issue is a great binocular observing guide, or you could get a binocular observing book.  Of course, there's loads of binocular guides online, including here on SGL. So that would be my upgrade for the moment, a binocular guide of some sort.  This won't be wasted either when you do get the upgrade scope.

But all this is my idea only, perhaps others may chip in with their thoughts 

Regards, Ed.

[NGC404]

If going for the travelscope-70 I would advise buying a more sturdy tripod.

The one included is fine for everyday use, but to unsteady for astro work. In particular if 

you want to attach a DSLR

[m37]

Like Ed says, I would stick with the bins. Tempting to get a scope I know but if anything the bins will be more pleasant for a similar view in my opinion.

Hth

Chris

[Stu_]

I have a travel scope 70 & since owning 15x70 bins, I haven't used it, as it has bad CA on bright objects & with the 25mm ep, it only gives 16x mag.

The bins are also more stable, on a standard photographic tripod, as the location of the 1/4 adaptor on the scope makes it front heavy.

It can be used with a SLR, but I think the CA will be too bad. A cheap 75-300 SLR lens is f5.6 @ 300mm.

It did get me back into astronomy, so it's not all bad :-)