Beginner help finding a good go to scope

[Elborba]

I'm looking for a go to scope that isn't too difficult to use for a beginner. My budget is upwards of a few thousand. I'm not looking to do any photography.

Also, I just moved to the countryside and was hoping to leave the telescope on my porch, as I gather they can be quite heavy. Are there any telescopes that fit the bill that can be left outside?

[baggywrinkle]

The Celestron Nexstar series are good. The 6" is very easy to move if required, the 8" too. When not in use I guess you could cover it.

I had the older 6SE and it was a great wee scope, I found I could move the whole thing from indoors to out fully assembled.

[chris_suffolk]

Got a Nexstar 130, which I'm very pleased with, but not quite in the 'few thousand' bracket. Wish I had that kind of cash

[Astro_Baby]

Its got to be a Celestron Nexstar or a CPC or a Meade LX with a few thou and wanting ease of use.  I'd be disinclined to leave it on a porch though - stuff does get nicked even in the countryside and a few thou of telescope is just asking for it to be nicked. Where do you live by the way

Bear in mind though that WHATEVER scope you buy you will need a few bobs worth of extras.  Heated dew shield if you go for any SCT based scope like a Nexstar, CPC or Meade, eyepieces and power supply for the scope.  Bear in mind eyepieces alone can eat up cash very fast as anyone will attest to.

If you could be a bit more precise on budget it would help a few thou to me means anything under ten grand to someone else it might mean less than 3k but more than 2k and theres a world of difference about what you can buy.

For simplicity it has to be a fork mounted SCT - it doesn't get simpler than that if you want GoTo (which is also a must for simplicities sake)

[Elborba]

Thanks for the tips!

I'm thinking more something around 3k. How hard is it to wheel these things in and out. I see some of them weigh hundreds of pounds once the mount is included. Is the consensus then nextstar?

[Astro_Baby]

With 3 grand to spend on just the scope I would probably choose between either the CPC 1100 Basic of the CPC 800 Edge HD.  All things considered for me, and assuming no issues with weight would go for the CPC Basic 1100 because aperture is king.  But you, who is new to this lark, should take a look at one in the flesh because some of this kit is very large and also very heavy.  Its tough to gauge hust how bulky some of this kit is from looking at it on a webpage.

If I had my own usable back garden an 11" scope would not present that much of a problem but for me having to lug anything I buy down endless flights of stairs I would probably go no larger than the CPC 9.25 - and to be frank even an 8" scope presents handling difficulties for me.  Telescopes form the worst things to carry - normally people can handle fragile, bulky or heavy on their own or any combination of the two but when you thrown in all three it makes any object hard to handle and when you chuck in odd shaped as well it just adds to head aches.

How hard are they to lug about ?  Its too subjective - for me I don't like skinned knuckles and I have an iffy back for a younger fitter person maybe it wouldn't present much problem to take an even larger scope down stairs BUT there is a well proven maxim in astronomy that the best scope is one you will use.  ie a small Nexstar 6SE that you use a lot will see a lot more of the sky than an 11" scope which you cant ever be bothered to lug about will ever get to see.

I have seen plenty of people come into the hobby and buy some huge telescope and then get fed up with it quite quick because the hassle of lugging some monster tube about with them wears them down.

Hope thats of some help in your calculations - I would earnestly advise a visit to an astro shop to get a feel for size and weight - a few years back I got all geared up to buy a Meade Lightbridge 16".  It looked not that heavy and I thought 'well its mostly air anyway and it all comes to pieces for transport'  I got to the shop and was just about ready to open the purse when I thought I would check how heavy it was - the mirror box on it was more than I could physically drag - let alone lift !!! so thats a kind of cautionary tale and exactly why you should check out this stuff in a shop.

[alanjgreen]

CPC1100 is big but not difficult to carry as it has well placed carry handles.

The only issue is the "lift" up off the floor, to get around this with mine, I purchased a second celestron CPC tripod which I leave up in the garage, I now never have to do the "lift"

It is no problem to lift it couple of inches off one tripod then wonder down the garden path and place it down onto the "waiting" second tripod.

I had a CPC800 before this one and there is a world of difference in "what" you can see in the DSO category between 8 inch and 11 inch apeture - apeture is king!

Alan

[Elborba]

What if I bump up the price to 4K and looked at the CGEM 1100 HD. As an amateur, would I notice the difference in picture afforded by edgeHD? Similarly is there any advantage to the CGEM mount over the CPC mount that I would use?

[Astro_Baby]

If you ever want to do imaging the CGEM will be better because for imaging you need an equatorial mount. For easy peasey set up the CPC wpuld probably be better. Eq mounts take a bit of getting used to....nit impossible or even hard but more aggro than some wnt to take on.

Imaging is apt to be an expensive past time and its outside my field of know how so I wont comment further other than to say its not just a case of putting a canera on the back and happy snapping.

I would always caution a Beginner not to spend too much unless you have money to burn on their first scope. I have seen too many come into the hobby, blow lots of cash on a mega scope and then be underwhelmed by the views and pack it in and probably take a hefty loss on the gear. Remember as well as the scooe you will need other stuff like power, eyepieces etc etc.

An SCt makes the eyepieces a little less expensive as its long focal length will mean most stuff will work well but just the same people get the bug for stuff like Pentax and Televue and then you can easily spend what you spent on the scope in eyepieces.

My own eyepiece collection is worth almost double the price of all three of my telescopes combined.

[Owmuchonomy]

If I put myself in your shoes with that sort of budget I would steer clear of trying to get a 'catch all' scope. In my humble opinion such a beast doesn't exist. Your budget enables you to pick more than one scope to do a superb visual job on various Astronomical targets rather than a mediocre job on all of them. Try and analyse where your main visual target interests lie and work backwards from there using an online FOV calculator to try out different scopes and EP combinations. The IOS app Sky Safari can do this for you for example. Now if you wish to image, which you don't, then that's a totally different matter. Good luck.

[Elborba]

Thanks! Definitely not getting a CGEM mount. Had no idea about all these accessories.

Does it not come with an eyepiece and if not any suggestions on a good starter eyepiece?

Do I need to worry about power? I'm only using this from my back porch so it should be plugged in at all times.

Anything else I need to buy?