What type of telescope do you prefer?

[theblazingak]

"Which type of telescope should I get?" I'm sure you guys have seen this question a million times, so as a beginner I'll try asking something a bit different: what type of telescope do you prefer and why? What is your preferred mount? How much do you like goto scopes as compared to manual?

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[mcolbert]

not trying to be funny but it does depend on my interest at the time.  This is possibly the reason that other members of the forum have several or more telescopes.

Initially I had an interest in DSOs and purchased one of the orange C8s - this was in my long departed youth  Life interrupted and I sold it - without any regrets.  Now, my interest is with photography and glass rather than mirrors so I now have a refractor (130mm) which I share with the family.  It's also an instrument that I would never dispose of.

Regarding the mount - that is what I am looking at purchasing next - one of the 10micron models.  Something which will hold the ota and several lenses/camera bodies/cmos units etc.

Goto or manual - to answer that I'll wait until after I've played with the new mount.

michael

[BeanerSA]

Dob. Drop it on the ground and start observing. You need to be comfortable with star charts and enjoy the thrill of the hunt though. If you don't think you have the patience for that, then maybe you need a GOTO, but they aren't necessarily as easy as they make out.

[ollypenrice]

I'm not going to be much help because I like most of them!

The only helpful thing I can say is that German Equatorials make sense only for imaging. For visual, give me Alt Az, motorized or manual, any day.

Olly

[hjw]

It is very much depending what you want to do. If you like the outdoors with a family, a low lying sportscar, no matter how nice, is not for you .

I hardly look through my scope, other than doing the polar alignment. Once done I use the last calibration star to focus the camera. From there on I focus more on computers than on the stars. The reward comes hours or days later. If this sounds like your idea of astronomy, then a sturdy EQ mount is the center of your setup. GOTO is nice, because you know the target will be in the middle of the frame. The scope is almost secondary - but the SW 80ED IS nice!

If on the other hand you want to see things yourself, the largest Dob you can afford is likely to give you the best results.

[cjdawson]

"Which type of telescope should I get?" I'm sure you guys have seen this question a million times, so as a beginner I'll try asking something a bit different: what type of telescope do you prefer and why? What is your preferred mount? How much do you like goto scopes as compared to manual?

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That's two completely different questions.  Let me start with your second question "Which type of telescope should I get?" The answer to that can only come from you.  The piece of advice that I can give is.... "The one that you will enjoy using the most"

As for what I prefer.  Personally, I don't discriminate on type, they're all good when they optics are good quality.   I own an 8" SCT, with an 80mm Refractor mounted on top of it.  Both scopes are great in their own ways.   I love my SCT as the optics are fantastic for the size of scope.   Having taken plenty of time to collimate it properly, and upgrade some of the mechanical parts.  My scope runs better than when it was at the factory.   I'm very happy with it and would no plans of replacing either of my scopes.

[michael.h.f.wilkinson]

My workhorse scope is the nearly 20 year old Celestron C8 on a Vixen Great Polaris driven, but non-goto German EQ mount. I actually prefer star-hopping in RA and DEC because the star-hops stay the same regardless of the time of night. This scope is a great all-round visual performer, and coupled to a BIG finder scope I do not have trouble finding objects. It is also a nifty planetary and lunar imager. Note that while I prefer hopping with an EQ mount, I do not mind alt-az star-hopping, and a Dobsonian is certainly on my wish list. The best visual experience on DSOs bar none was when I was piloting Olly's 20" Dobson (a.k.a. Sir Isaac) under superbly dark Provençal skies. The views of M51 and M101 where absolutely stunning. We also managed Stephan's Quintet that time. Really wonderful. I also love my 80mm F/6 frac, both as a wide-field instrument and for solar H-alpha views with a Solar Spectrum filter inserted. The views are just amazing. Finally, I love bins. Wonderful relax stargazing, truly grab and go

[laudropb]

As you will have gathered from the previous reports there is no easy answer to this. There are lots of things to take into consideration. Where will you observe from? What will be your major interest ? What is your budget?

I mainly observe from my back garden , so a Dob is ideal. Very quick to set up and lots of mirror for your money. I also like to go to a dark sky site occasionally. The Dob is not the easiest to transport, so I have a frac for this and I am about to purchase a Mak as well. This set up suits me, but might not be ideal for you.

[Stub Mandrel]

Newtonians, because I am tall and refractors mean grovelling on wet grass.

[ChrisLX200]

Ah. You guys _look_ through telescopes. Do people still do that? How quaint!

ChrisH

[Moonshane]

As above, it depends what I am doing. If I am solar observing then it's easy, it's a refractor every time. I have tried newtonians (my other usual choice) but the views through a good refractor and Lunt wedge / my PST mod are always better. I may be struck down for saying this but even as a solely visual observer, I am starting to wonder about the benefits of an equatorial mount solely for solar observing. It might me nice to have a tracking motor on right ascension and with the scope roughly aligned only have the occasional nudge to make - this would definitely aid sketching. Currently I use a giro iii on a steel legged tripod and love it.

For general observing of many targets I prefer the larger newtonian on a dobsonian mount. I just prefer it full stop.More comfy position, better resolution and detail and in my scopes better contrast than many fracs. 

if I fancy a lunar / double star / planetary session, I tend to use my 6" f11 dob on a tracking equatorial platform which works a dream allowing long views with no nudging, waiting for those moments of clarity.

All that said, I also like the grab and go nature of my 80mm apo and my 120mm ed which bother deliver on all objects but make for more neck ache than my newts.

Yes, like Olly, I like them all!

[Ruud]

I prefer a refractor, but if I had to start all over again it would definitely be with a Dob.

[AndyWB]

I agree with Olly - Equatorial mounts only make sense to me for photography. I'd go further, and more controversial, though - I wouldn't go for a comAlt-Az mount either. To me, it means worrying about electricity, and that's just another thing to go wrong. Unless you're fortunate enough to live somewhere really dark, you're bound to want to transport your scope to the middle of nowhere sometime.

But I accept that there are arguments for computer control.

[swamp thing]

I Principally observe Galaxies and diffuse nebulae. For 99% of this type of observing large optics rule. Therefore for me, Dob's are the "Kings of the night"

[Stub Mandrel]

I agree with Olly - Equatorial mounts only make sense to me for photography. I'd go further, and more controversial, though - I wouldn't go for a comAlt-Az mount either. To me, it means worrying about electricity, and that's just another thing to go wrong. Unless you're fortunate enough to live somewhere really dark, you're bound to want to transport your scope to the middle of nowhere sometime.

But I accept that there are arguments for computer control.

Vaguely remembering my struggles with alt-az as a teenager EQ mounts seem a godsend to me!

How on earth do you star-hop around with an alt-az when you have to cross large areas with only scattered nondescript stars? With the EQ mount I can easily follow the grid lines of the chart up and across.

[John]

My preference is for alt-azimuth mounted scopes. I've owned GOTO and driven but not GOTO in the fork and equatorial varieties but, for me, keeping things as simple as possible gives the most enjoyable experience as purely a visual astronomer. My current scopes are a dobsonian mounted newtonian and a couple of refractors but I enjoy using other designs as well. They all have their strengths and weaknesses, which is why many of us own more than one scope of course !.

Like many aspects of the hobby I think you will get as many opinions as there are replies to this topic so consensus might be hard to spot !

[Stub Mandrel]

I suspect a large part will depend on how your first proper scope was mounted :-)

[John]

I suspect a large part will depend on how your first proper scope was mounted :-)

My 1st three proper scopes were on equatorial mounts. I only discovered that I enjoyed alt-az mounts a few years later. Initially I was told that the equatorial mount was the only type that was suitable for astronomy

[MartinB]

If I had to pick a single set up it would be a 10" SCT (plenty of aperture, compact and portable, and good all rounder for solar system, DSO observing, planetary imaging, and DSO imaging given a bit of dedication). I would go for a german equatorial mount such as a Celestron CGEM/Eq6 (since I'm mainly a DSO imager). With a GEM I would have the choice of whether to use goto or not.

So a 10" LX200ACF / Celestron Edge complete with an AP 0.67 reducer, on a Celestron CGEM/EQ6

You could spend a lot more money but the above set up could give you a lifetime of very versatile service.

[Alien 13]

I like low power scopes preferably hand held unfortunately there is nothing on the market today that hits the spot, I did use an old right angle military tank/gun sight many years ago that had increadible views the magnification was around x6 but it had a large objective and the eyepiece end was also large (2 inches or more) with a very comforatable eyecup. I have searched in vain for something similar but failed so far.

Alan

[Dave Lloyd]

Anything that's sitting under clear skies.

[Alfian]

I have a small collection of scopes mainly reflectors. This choice is based partly on cost effectiveness (regarding aperture) but also on the ergonomics of the eyepiece/focuser being at the back-saving end of the scope, which, I have reasoned, is preferable to hunching over the bottom end of a scope. However in truth I'm not over enamoured of diffraction spikes and love the pinpoint view of stars I get though binos and refractors. So with sufficient spare funds that I could justify spending I can foresee me, sometime whenever, acquiring a 4"-5" refractor or maybe even a pair of 25x100s. Perhaps then (avoiding the Mak/Cass option) I will be better able to say which I prefer. 

[GeoffB]

I must admit I am a relative newcomer/returner and am going dow this road of discovery for the past year I have been using Celestrons cheap bigginers refractor on an alt az camera tripod. This was a great reintroduction to the hobby. I have just upgraded to a beast of a 200mm newtonian of f5 and a EQ5 mount power assisted but not goto. Both setups have their advantages and disadvantages the refractor is light and easily transported but not always easy to track stars and star hop. The newtonian is great on light collection and with the eq mount great for tracking and star hopping but lacks the grab and go of the celestron travelscope combination. You need a good back garden to utilise the newtonian to its maximum, I do take the newtonia out and about but itsone hell of a lug and fills my large estate car boot.

I hope that helps a little

Geoff

[Stu]

I'm a purely visual observer, and committed AltAz user in many guises.

I love refractors, and often use small fracs on a Giro-WR mount for grab and go whether it's at home for a quick session, an afternoon's solar, camping in the UK or holidays abroad. Abroad I use the Giro on a photo tripod, at home I use an EQ6 tripod. With this setup I can use anything from a single 60mm Tak up to an 8" SCT in parallel with a 4" Tak. At a dark site, manually star hopping with this combination is fabulous. For solar, I can use the Tak 4" with the Quark and the 120ED with a Herschel Wedge which is another great combination.

For larger scopes, an AZEQ6 in AltAz mode does the job, giving tracking and goto via a Nexus and SkySafari on my iPhone. Finding objects at home under light polluted skies is much easier this way, plus this mount gives the required stability.

In terms of dobs, I have a 10" f6.3 1/10th wave for use at home. This is just a manual dob and is great for planetary, lunar and brighter DSOs.

Finally a 16" truss dob which only really gets used occasionally at dark sites and star parties. This scope has encoders to give push to functionality with a Nexus and SkySafari again. This really enhances my viewing and simplifies object identification. I had a ball with this scope at SGLX and am looking forward to 11

[AndyWB]

Vaguely remembering my struggles with alt-az as a teenager EQ mounts seem a godsend to me!

How on earth do you star-hop around with an alt-az when you have to cross large areas with only scattered nondescript stars? With the EQ mount I can easily follow the grid lines of the chart up and across.

With a star chart and a low power eyepiece! It sounds flippant, but it works. I will admit I did concede and get a RACI, which does make star hopping with the dob somewhat easier (for following the chart). My Equinox 80 has such a wide field of view that it is it's own finder.

Following grid-lines sounds so weird!