Newbie question

[Destroying Angel]

Evening everyone

First serious post after saying hi.

Now I'm sure this has been asked a few times. I'm a complete beginner in all of the sky observing. I had a telescope when I was a kid, but short of looking at the moon and Orion, I never ventured further afield. Now, 20 (cough) odd years on I want to take it a bit more seriously.

Now as a newbie what would you guys recommend? Should I start off with a decent pair of binoculars to get used to scanning the sky and working out what is what, or go straight to a telescope?

I've been stalking the Sky-Watcher website and for around my budget (£100 maybe a little bit more) I've come across the Sky-Watcher Capricorn-70 which seems like it could do the job of getting me started. It has a focal length of 900mm, which reading on here seems to be good (please correct me if I'm wrong!)

What are you opinions?

Thanks in advance!

Jamie

[bob4026]

Hi,

IMHO, I would spend just a little money on a pair of 10x50 Binos, and save hard for the scope. You'd be amazed what you can see with binos, and you will learn loads about the night sky as you can see so, so much more than with the naked eye.

Check out the excellent site Binocular sky, and read a few reviews.

From my short time on here I have managed to pick up this little nugget.... the SW 150/200p dobsonians are good enough to remain your main scope for years. I don't have one.....yet!

One thing is certain, you will receive loads of help on here.

ATB

Bob

[Cornelius Varley]

A good pair of binoculars are always a sound investment. For the telescope I would stretch the budget just a little bit a go for the Heritage 130P http://www.firstlightoptics.com/dobsonians/skywatcher-heritage-130p-flextube.html

[Dave Lloyd]

The Capricorn is f12+ so chromatic aberration shouldn't be a problem. It's maybe a little low on light gathering but should give reasonable magnification - 90x with a 10mm eyepiece for instance. Does it come with an alt az mount. That's best for visual generally IMHO. Don't forget it's virtually a 3" refractor which back in the day was into serious scope territory.

[Cornelius Varley]

The Capricorn is f12+ so chromatic aberration shouldn't be a problem. It's maybe a little low on light gathering but should give reasonable magnification - 90x with a 10mm eyepiece for instance. Does it come with an alt az mount. That's best for visual generally IMHO. Don't forget it's virtually a 3" refractor which back in the day was into serious scope territory.

The Capricorn 70 is mounted on the EQ1 equatorial mount.

[Dave Lloyd]

The Capricorn 70 is mounted on the EQ1 equatorial mount.

Ah, well its still a light scope I think. Would the longer tube be a problem? My ST102 is barely capable on an eq1.

[Putaendo Patrick]

If you want an inexpensive tripod-mounted telescope, I would suggest a simple Alt-azimuth mount rather than an Equatorial. Equatorials at the cheap end tend to be unstable and imprecise. I don't know if this option is available for the Capricorn, if not take a look at the very similar Celestron Astromaster 70:

http://www.firstlightoptics.com/celestron-astromaster-series/celestron-astromaster-70az.html

If you can wait a while or stretch to a 150mm reflector on a Dobsonian mount it will be a better long-term investment though.

Meanwhile a reasonably inexpensive pair of binoculars (perhaps 10x50) is also a great addition to your kit. I reckon I use binoculars just as much as a telescope for wider more general viewing, and you can always have them easily to hand in the car or out walking.

[Destroying Angel]

Thanks everyone for the replies so far, very much appreciated.

I do want to make sure I can get the best telescope I can (depending on budget), so maybe the Binoculars are the way to go to get me started.

[Gibson]

I thought I needed a telescope to start out, fortunately I found this forum and binocularsky. I bought a pair of 10x50 binoculars and borrowed a copy of turn left at Orion from the library. For me there is so much to learn about the night sky and look at before I progress to a telescope.

[willinliv]

On 1/22/2016 at 20:29, Cornelius Varley said:

A good pair of binoculars are always a sound investment. For the telescope I would stretch the budget just a little bit a go for the Heritage 130P http://www.firstlightoptics.com/dobsonians/skywatcher-heritage-130p-flextube.html

I went with one of these as my first scope and I have been very happy with it - one of my mates bought a slightly bigger version that was on an equatorial mount and we still haven't yet worked out how to set it up! I'm very with it being dobsonian, which I think is basically an easy way to angle the telescope (left-right, up-down -altaz), and find that the telescope is very self-contained and apart from putting a bin bag over the top I don't need to keep the whole thing packed away in it's cardboard box when not in use unlike my mates. Also I think with it being a Newtonian reflector it's got good light gathering capability - I use mine most of the time in my back yard which suffers bad light pollution but I'm stil able to make out a lot of the tours that get published in Sky at Night magazine for example, and when getting to a dark-sky site the views through the magnification even on this simple and cheap scope take your breath away. Along with my 130p I later supplemented this with a pair of 10x50 Helios Naturesport binoculars which are handier, and I felt a good way to become more familiar with the cosmos. I'm no expert but for me this worked: minimal setup and ease through a good beginner scope that arrested my interest, then binoculars at a later stage depending on my interest that has helped me become more aware of what's above me as a whole. Hope this perspective helps, Will

[beka]

Hi Vaccum,

My starting telescope was a Celestron FirstScope 114EQ which was a 900mm f8 ish reflector on an EQ2 mount. It not in their lineup anymore but I think it was a good beginners telescope  in that it gave good views of the brighter deep sky objects as well as reasonable views of the planets. Out of the box it came with 10mm and 20mm eyepieces with a magnifications of 45x and 90x.  My point is that the 70mm Refractor will not be as good for the deep sky and the 130 reflector with 650mm focal length will  not be as good on planetary out of the box. Looking through the lineup at FLO I saw the SkyWatcher Explorer 130(EQ2) with 900mm focal length and EQ2 mount. If the supplied eyepieces and Barlow are reasonable you get a larger range of magnifications out of the box. The drawback of this scope for the beginner is the EQ2 mount with a slightly higher learning curve that an Alt-azimuth and difficulty of keeping it steady at the higher powers. You will probably need to collimate the scope as well.  This last also applies to the 130P though the refractor will be free from this problem. Hope all this helps and good luck!

[NotSoSuperNova]

Binos are a great place to start. They're fantastic at helping learn the constellations (often overlooked) and break you in to being outside for prolonged periods of time at strange hours. Just make sure you get a tripod as well as it'll make the experience that much easier. If you decide you do enjoy it then you can pop down your local astro club and check out what everyone else is using and see what you like. Though it's likely they'll have slightly more expensive models than what you're looking at, you'll get the idea.