Late Christmas present scope advice

[Astralprojection]

Just now, alanjgreen said:

Agree with charl - this is the only thing missing from your list, you need something like

https://www.firstlightoptics.com/dew-prevention/astrozap-flexible-dew-shield.html

 

 

Thanks! I actually forgot, I found a Celestron Dew Cap/Shield that I have been considering. Would that be as good?

 

Cheers

[alanjgreen]

When I had an 8" SCT, I made regular use of eyepieces in the 12-17mm range.

10mm was used on mainly on globular clusters.

I had a 41mm for large open clusters and the milky way in the summer.

I would let her pick these later if I were you

 

[happy-kat]

Yes I'd also let the eye pieces come later. They can be a very personal choice.

[alanjgreen]

7 minutes ago, Astralprojection said:

Thanks! I actually forgot, I found a Celestron Dew Cap/Shield that I have been considering. Would that be as good?

 

Cheers

Yep that one is fine, they are all the same really except you can get some with built in heater tape - this is overkill for an 8" in my opinion.

 

[Putaendo Patrick]

With a focal ratio of f10, your Evolution will be able to handle most 1.25" eyepieces - faster scopes are often much more demanding. So really you have an enormous range to chose from, and a wide range of prices.

The Plossl design would work very well at 20mm. A basic example will cost about 25 pounds, for example: https://www.firstlightoptics.com/skywatcher-eyepieces/skywatcher-sp-plossl-eyepieces.html   The Vixen NPL Plossls are better quality at about 49 pounds: https://www.firstlightoptics.com/vixen-eyepieces/vixen-npl-eyepieces.html

One limiting factor of Plossls is a relatively narrow field of view (about 50°). More expensive eyepieces give wider views. At about 100 pounds, the Baader Hyperion 21mm would be very nice and give a 68° field of view: https://www.firstlightoptics.com/baader-planetarium/baader-hyperion-68-degree-eyepiece.html

 

[happy-kat]

Eye pieces are personal. Some like twist up eye cups some like rubber eye cups, some wear glasses, some chase magnification some like low powered expanded views some like all eyepieces to match some prefer to mix it up some telescopes are demanding others aren't some eyepieces are huge others are tidy sized. There is so much variety you thought choosing the telescope took research.

[cjdawson]

Sounds like you are getting alot of great advice.

The dew shield is well worth getting.  It will extend the session with the scope from about 30 mins in the weather we've been having recently to a couple of hours.

At a later stage, it would be worth adding a "Dew heater" as well.  This is used in addition to the Dew shield.  The idea is that the shield will slow the built up of mist on the lens.  The heater, will put in just enough heat to stop the mist (dew) forming in the first place.

They can be made easily using Nichrome wire, and you can made controllers for them for using dimmer switches from ebay.  (Unless you want to spend lots of money on a good looking fancy box that does essentially the same thing)

 

One thing that I've noticed missing from the list, although it's probably too late to get them in the post...

A Pair of Astro gloves.

http://www.astrogloves.net/?gclid=Cj0KEQiAyuPCBRCimuayhb3qqvwBEiQAgz62kduwOoUfyGfawK0HTNYvQNHj9vuaO0jBJX1yTSA4vd0aAnD18P8HAQ

It gets very cold outside observing.  Using normal gloves makes picking stuff up difficult.  Fingless, are better, but you only really need the three fingers they've cut off on these gloves.

I use them myself and they're great for keeping you warm and comfortable.   On a clear night, there's nothing worse than freezing your bits off.

[Cosmic Geoff]

Chris, the Celestron Evolution 8 is a fantastic scope and I'd like to have one myself (actually bid on one  on ebay but didn't get it).

My one reservation is that it might be a bit much for a complete beginner who is not comfortable with high-tech gadgetry. If neither of you is used to handling telescopes it might be a good idea to play around with a cheap and simple one like a 102mm refractor on an alt-azimuth mount so that you get a feel for operating the hardware and what you can see with it.  So something smaller and cheaper and simpler and lighter might be a safer bet, but this is something you should discuss with your partner.  Unlike some, I am a big fan of GoTo, which the Evo has, and you should find GoTo a massive time saver overall, and an introduction to whole classes of fainter objects like minor planets, globular clusters, and galaxies.  The Evo 8 should be compact enough to be luggable to dark-sky sites (more so than a 8" Newtonian on an EQ-5 anyway).  You can buy carrying cases for them (pricey).

The Evo 8, like its smaller Maksutov cousins. should serve well as a general purpose visual scope and the Evo 8 (according to the spec) may serve as an introduction to astro-photography. 

Accessories - definitely upgrade the higher power stock eyepieces right away (should have done that with my Mak). Baader Classic Orthos or Celestron X-Cel at £50 to £70 should be okay. You might like a Starsense (under £300). 

[Jimtheslim]

Personally I would scratch the moon filter and the barlow from the list for now. 

[cloudsweeper]

Great set-up!

From Harrison's -   Manual clutches in both altitude and azimuth offer greater flexibility to manually point the telescope 

This is a great advantage!

You might like to get a 2" diagonal so you can use low power, wide angle EPs.  I'd recommend a 40 or 42mm.

Share the fun!

Doug.

[cardigan wearer]

With eye pieces if your budget allows I would try the Baader Hyperion range as they have a super wide field of view, more important they are parfocal: This means that you can swap eye pieces and the object will still be in focus. With cheaper optics you will need to refocus each time you change eye piece. Another critical specification not mentioned yet: Eye Relief this is the distance you can have your pupil away from the optic and still see the complete field the longer the better. With cheap optics with a small aperture say 8mm the eye relief will be very short as in 3-5 mm it is really uncomfortable trying to maintain this distance and not get the feeling your about to bash your eye ball. Baader Hyperion have 20mm eye relief across the entire range (except 24mm?)

https://www.firstlightoptics.com/baader-planetarium/baader-hyperion-68-degree-eyepiece.html

I agree with the earlier advice, drop the barlow and get something like a 10mm 17mm and 24mm quality optics. Dont spoil a saville row suit with sports direct trainers!

[JOC]

Err......if you ever need a new GF PM me.....LOL.............  :-D