keen beginner needing advice!

[LukeSkywatcher]

It might be worth contacting Astronomy Ireland here in Dublin to check out what they have to offer. They deal exclusively in Celestron......so probably no Dobs. Other then that.........FLO (LINK AT TOP OF PAGE)..............brilliant service and after sales care if needed.

A  Dob aint the only option but for your budget...........the 150mm is the one.

http://www.firstlightoptics.com/dobsonians/skywatcher-skyliner-150p-dobsonian.html

[rickoshea]

cheers Paul .... my only problem is ever getting clear skies up here in Donegal, if I tried to get a 150p outside at the minute it'd end up in the USA with these storms lol

but when the skies are clear it's just stunning

[happy-kat]

A spotter has a fixed 45 degree viewing angle so ok for day but less good for night plus the eyepeice is fixed. Overall a less versatile device I think. I bought a celestron C70 which I am in the process of modifying to use any diagonal and eyepiece because of the fixed 45 degree and soso diagonal optics.

Depending on how far into the distance you would be looking in day time viewing from your terrace I might consider a mak90 or a longer focal length refractor. Though I do like my ST80 and the generous field of view make finding your target easier.

[rickoshea]

so the ST80 gives good, sharp terrestrial viewing compared to a spotting scope? (once the image is flipped with a diagonal) .... I'm getting the 150p but still undecided about a spotter or the ST80 (not a bad decision to have to make though lol)

[happy-kat]

Well I cann't say that because I have not looked through a spotter scope.

The limiter for me with a spotter is that there is a fixed eyepeice. Some spotters come with the ability to take it out and use normal 1.25 eyepeices, which might give greater control on image resolution.

Can you find any reviews of the spotter you are looking at?

[RichM63]

The ST80 is a great all round small telescope, that has many uses; Astro, Terrest', Camera Lens, and Guide Scope.

One of the unmentioned problems with any Newtonian telescope apart from the inverted views is that they are pretty useless for terrestrial viewing as they are by nature designed to point above the Horizon which pretty much rules out any Earth bound objects.

You can use one but you would require either tall mount/tripod or be happy lying on the ground, min EQ3-2 just to get down far enough.

I have used the 150P on a cliff top for observing Tall Ships out at sea on an EQ3-2 with a W/O prism. The motion controls take some getting used to when trying to track a moving ship.

The 150P is a great telescope for starter Astro' observing, it is easy to setup requiring minimum cooling time, and retains collimation almost year round.

I recently upgraded my photo tripod to a Pro' version with 15kg capacity, a side benefit is that my previously shaky 20/80 binoculars are now rock solid and a pleasure to use. I'd love to have them permanently in your window. Best of both worlds, great for Astro' and Terrestrial.

[rickoshea]

Well I cann't say that because I have not looked through a spotter scope.

The limiter for me with a spotter is that there is a fixed eyepeice. Some spotters come with the ability to take it out and use normal 1.25 eyepeices, which might give greater control on image resolution.

Can you find any reviews of the spotter you are looking at?

I have some of this one :

http://www.firstlightoptics.com/celestron-spotting-scopes/celestron-ultima-65-straight.html

which seems to be a decent one compared to my last link. Apparently 60x mag is about the max for terrestrial, above that the image gets "pretty Rubbish"!  I would have thought the image through a refractor would be better quality than a spotter but the spotters have zoom and wider fov. Someday I'll be able to decide lol

Thanks sub for the comments - yeah I think the 150p will do me for a good while, my wife will have kittens at the size of the thing (she's expecting a wee Argos scope) but sure, I'll be back at work before long so will be able to escape the "comments"!

You're in Brittany? ... I lived in Fontainebleau for 7 years and just came back home to Ireland 4 months ago - definitely clearer skies here

[RichM63]

"You're in Brittany? ... I lived in Fontainebleau for 7 years and just came back home to Ireland 4 months ago - definitely clearer skies here"

Yup 25 years, and I have to drive to go and see my nearest street light.

[rickoshea]

"You're in Brittany? ... I lived in Fontainebleau for 7 years and just came back home to Ireland 4 months ago - definitely clearer skies here"

Yup 25 years, and I have to drive to go and see my nearest street light.

haha ... I'm the same here with streetlights but don't quite have the Fontainebleau weather!

[Alan64]

Alan - great images again. I found my old Canon point and shoot digital this morning which I hope will let me dabble in taking pics through the eyepiece. Not sure I see the moon monster!

Great find!

Do you see it now...

The Sky-Watcher Startravel 80mm f/5 achromat that you're considering, similar to my Antares, would be much more versatile.  In addition to terrestrial use, as equipped, you can add a star-diagonal in future and have a low-to-moderate-power scanner for the night sky; for the dimmer deep-sky objects and venues, such as the galaxy in Andromeda and the Pleiades, along with the Milky Way, respectively.

The 150mm f/5 Dobsonian has a focal-length of 1200mm, whilst that of the 80mm f/5 is only 400mm, and a third the length.  A low-power, 32mm ocular would give a magnification of 38x with the 6" f/8, which is not that low of a magnification.  With the 80mm f/5 however, a 32mm would result in a magnification of 13x.  In that configuration, the achromat attached to your mount of choice would be as one half of a pair of 15x80 binoculars; as a monocular instead, but with the ability to alter the magnification with this eyepiece and that.  You can't do that with binoculars, and spotting scopes aren't much better in that regard, nor are inexpensive spotting scopes manufactured to the level of quality required for astronomical observations, so I've read.

[rickoshea]

ha ... I see it now Alan!

great advice thanks, I've actually found the ST80 plus an AZ3 mount for only £100 :

http://www.jessops.com/online.store/products/90044/Show.html?utm_source=google&utm_medium=cpc&utm_campaign=PLA&utm_term=Startravel-80%20AZ-3&gclid=CNeL__GMhsoCFWSc2wod3PQPUg

which is the same as the Celestron spotter I was looking at (actually £5 cheaper) Plus it gives me a couple more EPs and a 2xBarlow - probably not the very best of quality but enough to get me started as I could pop them into the 150p as well.

You've got me watching videos on webcam conversions, Registax and afocal astrophotography now .... !! My old Canon is only a 2MP so I'll probably need another one - I may need to sell a kidney at this rate to finance all this lol

[rickoshea]

meant £110 but can't seem to edit my posts    

[happy-kat]

Editing comes when you reach a certain number of posts :-)

[Alan64]

You won't be able to edit until you reach a minimum of 50 posts.  Even then, if you need to edit, do it quick, else the button will disappear.

I had to edit my own even...

"You can't do that with binoculars, and spotting scopes aren't much better in that regard, nor are inexpensive spotting scopes which are not manufactured to the level of quality required for astronomical observations, so I've read."

[2STAR]

The images within my last post are of my Antares 80mm f/6 achromat, along with a few afocal photographs taken therewith.

Here are a few more.  Can you spot the "Moon Monster"...

100115f.jpg

These were taken with the Antares one cloudy night, and through the 16mm Konig II...

092615-16mm-30x.jpg

092615b-16mm-30x2.jpg

<GASP!>

'Moon Monster'.jpg

My 60mm refractor is dim.  A 70mm is not much brighter.  In my opinion, 80mm is the minimum for visual use.  A 102mm, however, is an eye-opener, albeit among refractors.

102 frac goto is small, easy storage, easy to transport, superb quality optics , ideal for both terrestrial & astronomy, within your budget also. I think you have already found that this subject is very subjective lol.

[Alan64]

Practice with the small Canon, and regardless of image quality.  At two mega-pixels, you might be surprised at just how well the images will "develop"...

http://snapsort.com/learn/sensor/megapixels...

"2 Megapixels - All You Ever Need?

The birdhouse image displayed is .13 megapixels and it looks great, it probably takes up about 3.5" x 5" on a standard monitor - so right of the bat you can see that a .13MP image can look great when shown at a reasonable size - pretty close to a 4"x3" print. If you took the same photo with a clean 2MP you would have 15X or 1500% more pixels. That would be the same as a 20" x 13.5" print with only 2MP! Now think of what distance you'd view such a large print, probably a few feet back - look at how crisp the birdhouse is from a few feet back! This helps you understand how pros can create incredible poster size prints with "only" 5MP. Today's digicams come with outrageous megapixel ratings of 14MP plus and yet they can't compete with a quality 4MP pro DSLR. Don't be fooled by megapixels - they're not as important as you think. If you want to understand some of the science behind why digicams megapixels aren't as clean as a SLR - check out the true resolution property. Don't get us wrong - more good clean megapixels are always welcome, especially if you're a pro. What we're saying is the resolution rating put out by manufacturers doesn't correlate with real world detail capturing performance and most people are served fine by just a handful of megapixels. As you can see 2MP, as long as they're nice and clean, could very well be all most people need."

I remember, what I term, "paper cameras".  I never owned one though, and never wanted to; too much trouble.  My father was keen on it for a time.  When the digital cameras first became popular, I couldn't resist, and bought my very first.  It was an Olympus 1.3MP point-and-shoot.

In any event, for me, photography had finally arrived, and I've never looked back.

[rickoshea]

good news ... I had a hunt in the garage at our stuff (still not unpacked after our move from France) and found my "newer" 6mp Canon point and shoot so that'll do - interesting what you said Alan though. Yeah, I started with a Minolta X300 film SLR then moved my way gradually up to my present Canon 650D. It's good news that you can do afocal astro stuff with a cheapy though!

2Star ... cheers for the pointer to the goto but I'm determined not to change my mind (yet again lol) and to go for the Skyliner 150p Dobsonian. I know this will cause issues with tracking and photography - I'd love to try the webcam-stacking-Registax thing but that's probably not possible without some form of autotracking?

I'm looking forward to experimenting and the inevitable failures lol

[rickoshea]

Hi again all, just thought you'd like to know that I've ordered a Skyliner 200p Dob which should be arriving at the beginning of next week! I'm also going to get either a Skywatcher ST80 or (probably) an ST-120 reflector on an AZ3 mount for another astronomical scope and to use as a terrestrial scope. Can't wait to get them .... any ideas on anything else to enhance the newbie experience? I've ordered "Turn Left at Orion" and will get a Cheshire collimating EP (any difference between the Premium and the standard ones from FLO?)

cheers

Rick

[Dazzyt66]

good news ... I had a hunt in the garage at our stuff (still not unpacked after our move from France) and found my "newer" 6mp Canon point and shoot so that'll do - interesting what you said Alan though. Yeah, I started with a Minolta X300 film SLR then moved my way gradually up to my present Canon 650D. It's good news that you can do afocal astro stuff with a cheapy though!

2Star ... cheers for the pointer to the goto but I'm determined not to change my mind (yet again lol) and to go for the Skyliner 150p Dobsonian. I know this will cause issues with tracking and photography - I'd love to try the webcam-stacking-Registax thing but that's probably not possible without some form of autotracking?

I'm looking forward to experimenting and the inevitable failures lol

You don't need tracking to get some good webcam images. My avatar pic was from a 150p Dob and a modified PS3 cam stacked in registax - it stacks the frames so as Jupiter (for instance) moves across your view for around 5 seconds (my webcam acts like a 6mm ep on the 150 without a Barlow) so at 30fps you get 150 frames or so to stack. The moon gives great crater detail but I haven't stacked any of those yet cos the focus was a bit off... The rest of the family were well impressed with those shots though!

[Ricochet]

Aside from the Cheshire, perhaps a red light torch and some sort of adjustable seat to sit at while using the dob. Other than that it's probably best to wait until you've had a few stargazing sessions before thinking about additional upgrades.

I've not used a skywatcher Cheshire to compare the two but the flo premium Cheshire is a well built and accurate device.

[rickoshea]

You don't need tracking to get some good webcam images. My avatar pic was from a 150p Dob and a modified PS3 cam stacked in registax - it stacks the frames so as Jupiter (for instance) moves across your view for around 5 seconds (my webcam acts like a 6mm ep on the 150 without a Barlow) so at 30fps you get 150 frames or so to stack. The moon gives great crater detail but I haven't stacked any of those yet cos the focus was a bit off... The rest of the family were well impressed with those shots though!