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Greetings from New Mexico, USA

PyxisPup

By PyxisPup
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PyxisPup

PyxisPup

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Hello! 

Glad to have found the forums. 

My son is graduating from High School and much to my delight, he asked for a telescope as a gift .  We've been star gazers for many years, and living in a mostly dark sky, rural area, it's time to graduate from binoculars.

I'm also a photography buff, so this endeavor to find the right telescope and features is going to be great fun.    I'll be reading and researching, along with asking for advice from all of you during the process.

At present, I'm considering a Celestron 5 or 6 SE but open to suggestions. 

Best wishes and clear skies!

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Pleiades M45

Pleiades M45

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Hello! 

Glad to have found the forums. 

My son is graduating from High School and much to my delight, he asked for a telescope as a gift .  We've been star gazers for many years, and living in a mostly dark sky, rural area, it's time to graduate from binoculars.

I'm also a photography buff, so this endeavor to find the right telescope and features is going to be great fun.    I'll be reading and researching, along with asking for advice from all of you during the process.

At present, I'm considering a Celestron 5 or 6 SE but open to suggestions. 

Best wishes and clear skies!

Welcome, I am new to this forum myself.

However I am not very fond of astrophotography so I can't give you any input.

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JamesM

JamesM

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Hi and welcome to the forum. You might want to consider asking your question over on the beginners equipment section as more people reside there and so you will receive more replies.

The scopes you describe are what are known as the Schmidt Cassegrain design which offers great magnification, good for observing the moon and planets but their potential drawback is that because they have long focal lengths (high 'F' numbers - the 6SE is a F10) they will also provide a much narrower field of view than a scope that has a shorter or lower 'F' number which is designed to give wider views. When observing some star clusters like the Pleiades (seven sisters) it will be more difficult to get all of the stars in the eyepiece. All telescopes have advantages that as a consequence will suffer from disadvantages too - it all depends on what you want to look at and what that subject will demand from the telescope in order to see it at its best. There is no such thing as a perfect scope that will allow you do everything really well. Very faint galaxies require a lot of light gathering capability to see them, so a scope like this one with 8" of aperture will yield better results. Aperture or the light gathering capability of a scope is in my view the single most important feature that a scope can have. I also believe that an aperture of 8" and above, will be one that will help make your observing more interesting because it is at this aperture that enough light can be collected to allow you to discern structure and some detail on the more fainter objects like galaxies. The more light a scope can gather, the more information/detail it will be able to deliver to you at the eyepiece and the more enjoyment you will then get from your observing sessions. Naturally the more aperture you desire the more expensive the scope is likely to be and so sometimes it's worth considering cheaper designs of scope in order to get what you want within budget. To that end the dobsonian design of scope like the one linked to above will afford you the best value for your money, as most of the money goes on the mirror rather than a complex construction as found with the Cassegrain design or expensive glass that is typically used in a refractor type design like this one or spending some of your budget on a guidance system like GOTO.

In summary, choosing a scope is a tricky endeavour given that expectations are always going to be limited by your budget which is the ultimate arbiter when making the final decision. The more light you can purchase, the greatest choices of targets you will be able to observe and to that end the dobsonian design will afford you the best value, as well as being easy to set up and to transport to a dark site should the need arise. This design does not come with any fancy electronics and will require the observer to find any targets, but for many that is half the fun and makes the final 'capture' worthwhile. 'Goto' is great but if the budget that pays for it can now only purchase a small scope, then all GOTO is going to show you is very little, as the smaller scope won't be able to collect sufficient light to reveal the great majority of those 15,000 objects that the GOTO lists for you. I hope you find my comments more helpful than confusing and will be interested to read later on what you eventually decide upon.   :smiley: 

Clear skies for now and hope that both you and your son enjoy the forum and the help that we can provide for you.

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michael.h.f.wilkinson

michael.h.f.wilkinson

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Welcome to SGL. I have an 8" Schmidt-Cassegrain myself (had it for over 19 years), which is a great all-round visual scope, except for a handful of wide-field objects.  I have binoculars and a small, fast refractor for those. The SCT gets used more during the night than the refractor, I should add. IThe SCTis also lightweight and compact for its aperture, making it easy to transport and set up, and it is a very good planetary and lunar imaging scope IF it is on the right type of mount. Choosing an SCT is certainly not a bad choice, but the SE mount is not ideal for imaging, as it is an alt-az mount. An equatorial mount is a lot better. If you want to go imaging, the easiest is lunar, followed by planetary. Deep sky is much harder, but a DSLR with short, fast telephoto placed "piggyback" on the main scope (or just attached directly to the mount), can get great wide-field shots.

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PyxisPup

PyxisPup

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Thank you all so kindly for the replies.

I am going to join the Albuquerque Astronomical Society to try and learn more.  Because I live in such a rural place, that city is 50 miles from me and there are no decent stores to buy telecopes, which means I will probably mail order.   The closest observatory is about 90 miles away, but I live in dark skies land.  My front porch will be where I set up our telescope. 

Off to read more and research more.  I'm certainly feeling like Alice who has fallen down the rabbit hole.  What a wonderful world this is!

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glowjet

glowjet

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Hi PyxisPup, welcome to SGL to you and your Son, in addition to the information already given you might also like to avail yourself of a copy of Steve Richards book "Making Every Photon Count " most of our imagers have cut their teeth on this book ( not literally of course ) in their progress down the long road known as Astrophotography. It is not available through normal retail outlets, but a copy can be obtained here... http://www.skyatnightimages.co.uk enjoy your Astronomy and the forum :)

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