First telescope

[Basil]

Was thinking about buying one of these skyliner-150p classic or celestron ps1000. I would eventually like to take some pictures attaching my dslr. Any recommendations or advice?

[Charic]

Hi there, welcome to the SGL.

Of the two you mention, I would opt for the Skyliner 150P, but as you can see I own the 200P.

As for the Celestron, I would  personally avoid the Celestron for visual use, to much to adjust and correct during its use, whereas the 150 is point and view.

Neither scope will be very good for astrophotography, because neither scope is  motor driven, although the Celestron may have the ability to attach a  motor for tracking purposes, but I would still avoid it.

I could dig out my Celestron 127EQ for you to try, if your passing this way, its a similar setup to the 1000, but if you saw both scopes and tried both scopes, you would probably want the 200P.

If you liked the 127EQ, you could keep it, take it with you? In fact I drove to Strathpeffer to buy it!

[Basil]

Charic, thanks very much for the advice, what would you recommend for photography purposes at a similar price range? Where are you from? Up this way I presume.

[Charic]

Astrophotography is a difficult subject, even coming from a photographic background. The importance is in the mount and its ability to track objects accurately. A lot of your money goes into this side of the system. The telescope is next then a camera.

I own a Nikon D5000 and an Android, and its possible to take snaps like my Moon image( taken with Android HTC) but photographing Jupiter would problematic without tracking?

Canon are reputed to be the better system, due to their set-up, configuration and software availability.

A Nikon will work and Nikon have just released their new astro camera the  D810A DSLR ( not cheap)

I would recommend this book  http://www.firstlightoptics.com/books/making-every-photon-count-steve-richards.html   as a good read and to build up your knowledge of astrophotography. The books suggests a scope similar to mine that is used, and a scope with only 80mm aperture, which is the workhorse? That book could arrive before Christmas, but don't rush into this hobby, the Stars will still be there after Christmas?

As for location, along the A96 at Elgin.

Also check out these guys,  http://www.spacegazer.com/  who may be closer to you than I am? A visit could be worth your while, maybe peering through some member telescopes, this way you can see for yourself what may be the  best solution/option for your needs. What suits me, may differ to your requirements.

[Putaendo Patrick]

I completely agree with Charic that the Skywatcher dobsonian is the better of the two telescopes - whether it is right for your needs is another matter.

The Celestron appears to be very similar to the Powerseeker 127, and may be the same under a different name. Over the years this type of telescope has probably been the best selling of the Celestron range, presumably satifying the basic needs of many newcomers to astronomy at its price point. However it has very limited options to be upgraded. The tripod and mount are shakey - definitely not what you need for astrophotography. The supplied Eye Pieces are dubious to say the least - but can be replaced. A tracking motor is available for the mount, but hardly a useful option given its instability. It would also appear to be a Jones-Bird design with an extra internal lens to increase focal length - and by all accounts, this makes it very difficult to collimate.

The Skywatcher has a wider aperture which allows more light to enter and thus provides better resolution. This in turn may permit greater magnifications especially for the Moon and planets. The dobsonian mount is very quick to set up and easy to use, basically point and view! However it has no tracking ability which makes long photographic exposures impossible. Some people do achieve very limited photographs, but essentially it offers no possibilities to develop into astrophotography.

Serious astrophotography is expensive, with many people talking about a minimum investment of 1000 pounds in equipment or even much more! The key elements are a very solid tripod and a very precise tracking ability, either with motors or computerised Go-to. As a rough guide, think about 500 pounds minimum in this area without the telescope.

This said, for more casual photography there are substantially cheaper options, but neither the Celestron or the Skywatcher will be of much use. If however you could hold off on photography until later, the Skywatcher would make an excellent choice to begin with for purely visual observing!

[Charic]

....can I add my 127EQ is the Power-seeker  as described above, it would show you how to set-up an EQ system and how to Polar align the scope in order to track some target using the slow-motion (Slo-Mo) controls, but once you reach the end of travel, you would need to reset them and re-align the scope, to continue tracking, or to select another target, with scope rotations, having to loosen the clamps, in order to keep the eyepiece in a usable position?  Its just too much hassle, but your welcome to try the scope as promised, even if to just discount this type of telescope?

As for collimation ( keeping the optics aligned) on the Power-seeker, its fully collimated as long as you can see the three primary mirror clips via the secondary. Even centre spotting this scope and collimating using the tools, its no better!

[ollypenrice]

Until your budget is radically larger I would forget  DSLR photography because it risks leading you into a poorer choice for visual observing  while still not giving you anything workable for imaging.

For mainstream long exposures you need a motorized tracking equatorial mount but, and this is vital, you also need it to be a good one. There are mounts on sale which have all the right words in place but which are not good enough to work. However, you can do fixed tripod imaging. Try pointing at Polaris in a widefield lens and, over long exposures, capturing star trails as the sky rotates. (Yes, I do know it isn the sky rotating really!  )

I'm not sure what my minimum realistic deep sky imaging budget would be but there are folks on here whose AP kit would easily fund a new Porsche. Seriously. Of course, you don't need to spend that much but it's worth knowing where it can end...

Olly

[Balok]

I vote with the Dob party here.

To my mind it offers the most user friendly start with the most reach.It has good accesories : shelf space for manuals down below,a handle to move it and a larger aperture.

Check out this video of it - it looks very quick, effective and convenient stargazing tool.

Balok

[Balok]

The above educational video is fully sourced from and accredited to:

The Astronomy & Nature Center ,home of Scope n Skies and Pulsar Optical

www,pulsar-optical.c.uk

[Alan64]

For budding astrophotographers on a budget, this kit would make for an very good start, and at the very minimum insofar as price and capability...

http://www.firstlightoptics.com/reflectors/skywatcher-explorer-130p-ds-eq3-pro-goto.html

One will not get Hubble-quality images out of it, but they would be quite satisfactory nonetheless.

It's rather odd that the 130P-DS is not offered and bundled with the non-motorised EQ3 equatorial, as the 150P-DS is; very odd.  Perhaps someone will look into that oversight...

The only other alternative is to purchase the two separately, but upping the ante with a sturdier EQ5-class equatorial...

http://www.firstlightoptics.com/all-mounts-motors/skywatcher-eq5-deluxe.html

http://www.firstlightoptics.com/reflectors/skywatcher-explorer-130p-ds-ota.html

...and for a combined total of £398.

In future, after spending some time learning the workings of an equatorial and observing with the capable 130mm f/5 Newtonian, the existing kit may then be equipped with a go-to system featuring PEC and auto-guiding capability for astrophotography...

http://www.firstlightoptics.com/skywatcher-mounts/synscan-pro-goto-version-3-upgrade-kit-for-eq5.html

That said, I take the odd afocal photograph with a 150mm f/5 Newtonian coupled with a non-motorised alt-azimuth, and simply by holding a wee Canon S110 PowerShot up to the eyepiece...

[Stub Mandrel]

> 1000 pounds in equipment or even much more!

My pics are not the best, but on a budget of well under £500 it's still my skill and patience that's limiting my images, not the equipment.

If you go for a Dob, then you will have extra spend when you want to try AP.

If I was starting again with AP as my aim I would probably get one of these with an EQ3-2 mount and tripod:

http://www.firstlightoptics.com/reflectors/skywatcher-explorer-130p-ds-ota.html

For AP I would add motor drive, an EQ5 tripod (but keep the EQ3 mount) and the coma corrector.

If you want to add goto you can get a kit to fit the EQ3-2 or you could go for the EQ5 goto.

I'm seriously thinking about one of these plus coma corrector some time in the future as it neatly fits between my existing scope and my camera lenses, and being much lighter than the 150PL I know the mount will cope.

That may not be a solution that fits your needs, but from my brief experience the ~600mm f/l of the130P with coma corrector would be well suited to a wider range of DSOs using a DSLR, and with an x2 or x3 barlow you could get decent planetary images using a webcam.