Getting started

malc-c · August 11, 2015

thanks for the concern.
I would like to get a scope to look, take pictures and videos (or streaming parts of sky) from as close & as clean as possible with my budget which is £300
moon, sun, other planets (whatever I can get access to see within the budget) - I guess more automatic the better? (tracking wise) although I have no knowledge I would like to start from higher budget than just scope for £100 quid - buy more to less upgrade later maybe what is im trying to say. thanks

You won't get a computerised scope (goto) for your budget. The goto option (as mentioned) will add £300 to the price of the scope, and these are only suited to a range of mounts starting with the EQ3-2. All other options will be manual, so you'll have to learn your way around the night sky to locate the targets, no real hardship, people have been doing that for years, but it's no use for imaging as you'll still need to either manual guide using an off axis guider, or fit the optional motor drive kit (£80 - £110 depending if you opt for the basic or delux option).

Best advice I can offer to cover all your initial requirements, would be to wait a while and save up an extra £250 and purchase the 150P pro goto http://www.rothervalleyoptics.co.uk/skywatcher-explorer-150p-eq3-pro-goto-telescope.html for £547. It will give excellent results for the targets you have mentioned, it will take out the steep learning curve of learning the night sky each season, whilst still allowing you to get familiar with the location of objects as the telescope shows you around the sky. Having the goto handset you can later interface it to a PC so later on if you get seriously into imaging you can use software on the PC to control the mount, right up to the point of using a guidescope and camera to automate the process... If at a much later date you find the hobby is becoming an obsession and you find yourself outgrowing the mount you'll have no issues selling the scope on and the second hand value will be quite high.

Try not to fall into the trap of constantly comparing the cost of one goto scope with the entry level of the next one up. For example, the 200P on an undriven EQ5 mount is £427.50, a good £120 cheaper. But then you still don't have the same functionality of the 150P pro goto. Yes you could get a 200P on an EQ5 plus a delux motor kit for £527, which will track and is still cheaper than the 150p pro goto. But to het the equivilent in the 200P EQ5 pro goto you need to shell out £735.

Bottom line is that it's your cash and only you can make the choice of what option you go for. For me I found the extera £100 above my initial £600 budget and purchased my scope with the goto option. I wanted the easy route of having the objects pointed out to me by the telescope. I soon upgraded the mount as I wanted to do purely imaging as a lot of the fainer DSO's were not visible from my location due to light polution, but managed a cracking deal by purchasing secondhand. I also recovered £400 selling the EQ5 goto mount making the upgrade sweeter

Sorry if my post has confused you with more options. But heed Ronin's advice and slow down and don't rush into a purchase.

paultarnecki · August 11, 2015

Ok thanks a lot guys