First Telescope

[Westy777]

Hi, I am thinking about getting my first telescope and have been looking a Celestron and Skywatcher. I have a budget of up to £600 and would like to connect it to my laptop so I can save images. I have a bridge camera but I assume this can't be connected to a scope. Does anyone have any suggestions on what telescope would be best?

[Louis D]

Do you want to do visual as well or do you want to concentrate on astrophotography?  The latter is much more expensive to do well.  With the right adapters, just about any camera can be connected to a telescope in some manner.  Whether it's optimal is another issue.

[Westy777]

Many thanks for your very quick reply. It will be mostly visual but I would like to save images if that is possible. 

[brantuk]

Celestron and Skywatcher are both very good makes - but beware they offer a wide range of different scopes, some of which are good for observing, and others good for imaging - very few good for both.

Taking pics of the night sky is a very involved business and mistakes made early can be costly. I would advise you invest £20 in the book "Making Every Photon Count" by Steve Richards to fully appraise yourself before making any astro photography purchases.

You may find that getting a cheaper scope for observing only to learn the basics is the best way forward, and indeed, what I would advise.

[Westy777]

Many thanks for your reply. I will take your advice and purchase the book.

[brantuk]

I forgot to put the link up for you - here it is:

https://www.firstlightoptics.com/books/making-every-photon-count-steve-richards.html

You can get a great manual starter scope for around £300 like a Skywatcher 200P Dobsonian. But for imaging you need to know which kind of mount and scope you need, which camera is appropriate and which objects you'll be able to image. And that's before we get into filters, software, darks, flats, lights, bias frames, processing, and finishing.

Not trying to put you off though - it's very rewarding done right, but a lot of work. Some beginners have taken reasonably nice shots with just a phone camera held up to the eyepiece.

[wookie1965]

As brantuk has said you need to decide whether your going to be visual or imaging, If you want to take pictures of deep sky  objects you would need a motorised mount so you can track. If you are thinking of just taking pictures of what your looking at you can buy adapters that will fit smart phones and bridge cameras to take single images and you would not need a motorised mount for that. Most people say the tripod is the most important for imaging you need something steady EQ5, HEQ5 are steady EQ2, EQ3-2 not that good. 

[Westy777]

Once again many thanks for your message. Do you know if there is a telescope that will connect to my laptop? If I could get an image on the laptop screen that would be great.

[ronin]

I think that the bit saying " It will be mostly visual but I would like to save images if that is possible. " is the problem. To get an image is more detailed then press the exposure button. Wish it was that easy.

An image/picture is built up from say 20 images of the object, each of about 30 or 60 seconds exposure for each one. This means that owing to the earths rotation the scope and camera has to track fairly accuratelt the object. You then take all the individual exposures, stack them and then haul the compound stacked image into some photo processing software and work on that until you get the final picture.

So you are up to suitable scope and a visual and imaging scopes tend to be a bit biased one way or the other.  Then a driven equitorial mount, driven means power. The catch with imaging is that this means a minimum requirement which was what Louis was trying to say.

If you already knew or realised this then I apologise for repeating it but the bit of  "but I would like to save images"  sort of reads like Scope+camera, press exposure button, look at the picture taken. You do not save an image, you build up an image.

Do you want goto is one question and these days a fundimental one, I guess if imaging is required then you do. One aspect is that these days a reasonable, even "small" goto costs around the £500 area.

[Westy777]

Ronin

As you have guessed I am new to all this and I have realised that it a bit more complicated than I thought (but this does not put me off).  I am going to take Brantuk's advice and purchase the recommended book before I go any further.

Many thanks for your help.

Westy777

[Louis D]

I was at a local star party and an imager had his laptop hooked up taking 10 minute long images of nebulae and then displaying them.  As a rough guess, he had about $3000 invested in the scope and mount, $2000 in the dedicated astrophotography camera, and an unknown amount invested in his laptop and software.  The results were spectacular for having had no manual image processing.  He had automated the entire capture process so much (darks, lights, flats, bias frames, stacking subs, etc.), it looked simple, but it wasn't.