Skylux 70/700 eyepieces & camera?

[SEnergy]

so I just recently got my first telescope and would like to dedicate more of my time to astronomy

I've read some posts here about Skylux 70/700 not being really good and what not but I don't really care since what it allowed me to see was really cool and would like to expand on that

Since I have no experience with lenses or really anything that's supposed to make images (I never actually owned a camera except the phone, so I don't even know how those parts are properly called) I decided to ask you guys, which eyepieces and other upgrades do you suggest I'd buy? I really want mainly 2 types of things (can be even something else if you think it's gonna help)

1, some really good eyepieces that I can use with my Skylux BUT that will be good with future telescope(s) as well, and uh, some "zooms"

2, some extension or something where I can place my camera to actually take pictures and of course some camera that I will fit in there, not necessarily some 300eur thing that wannabe photographers would use for their instagram

 

I've successfully taken some pictures using my phone but it was quite uncomfortable as I had to find the "hole" in the eyepiece and wait for the phone to adjust the sensitivity, which a lot of times took longer than I'd like to and the object was already out of sight, so I had to repeat the process

I have android phone, budget around 200-250 eur total (for everything) and I'd like to stick to Skylux for a while

[ronin]

Without knowing what your budget is then it has to be a bit general.

Eyepieces cover a widea area, many have the first step up to something like the BST Starguidrers, however if serious then many go up again and I suppose something like the TV Delos is one where many decide they are good enough to not require a further upgrade. They cost around £330 each (price taken from Wide Screen Centre).

For the photographic side there tends to be a set of items you need: A good equitorial mount, the HEQ5 seems the sort of standard, it needs to have motors and the goto version is the better as simply the motors are more precise, additionally for future guiding the goto is a necessary aspect. An HEQ5 goto is £775 (FLO).

Imaging scope, well many use an apo refractor, the one I have (rarely use) is the William Optics GT-81, nice scope for the price and precently at the £1000 mark (Ian King). Add in a flattener for this. You could go for the smaller dedicated WO Star 71 at £1200.

Be aware that the requirements for an imaging scope and a visual scope differ in their detail and usually one does not do the other very well.

Camera, as you appear to not want a DSLR camera, understandiable as they need modifing to capture significant Ha wave lengths, then the dedicated astrophotography cameras are either ccd, see Atik range, or the ZWO range of cmos ones. Their new ASI-1600 ones are good and come in either colour or mono for £1000. The "better" images come from a mono but that means adding in a filter wheel and a set of narrow band filters and again those will add around £600-800.

So as asked initially what is the budget?

 

[rockystar]

wow ronin, that's some serious kit, but good point about specifying a budget; as you can see, it can get expensive.

do you want to sick with your Skylux for now, and see what you can do with that?

[Bruce Leeroy]

1 hour ago, SEnergy said:

I had to find the "hole" in the eyepiece and wait for the phone to adjust the sensitivity

If by chance your using an iphone you can tap and hold the screen to lock focus and exposure....swiping up and down the screen adjusts the exposure/brightness, there are also some other camera apps you can download for android/iphone/windows phones which allow a little more control.

I bought a very small monocular that is attached to an iphone case then made an adapter to connect the monocular to a 32mm eyepiece.

Something like this http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Carson-7x18-HookUpz-Close-Focus-Digiscoping-Monocular-for-iPhone-4-4S-5-5S-/152214887581?hash=item2370b6dc9d:g:lOgAAOSwdzVXuxTT

this is quite good for planetary/moon viewing as you can see the phone screen and adjust focus/exposure in real time, below is a panorama of the moon through the iphone.

[SEnergy]

sorry forgot to specify that

yes I want to stick with Skylux for a little bit and get some practice, I'm in no rush of getting a new telescope

for the budget I'd imagine something for up to 100eur for eyepieces, not sure about prices of cameras tho, but anything that would fit and allow me to easily take pictures without the hassle of looking for that "hole" like it is with the phone, so uh total of 200-250 eur maybe? 

[John]

Is the 100 euros per eyepiece or for a number of them ?

The BST Starguiders are probably about the best value around at just under £50 GBP each. 

[rockystar]

you can buy phone adaptor that will hold it over the eyepiece for you, not too sure about cameras but you won't be able to do long exposures without a motorised EQ mount.

as for EPs, you would want to be looking for a plossel at about £20 each or the next step up would be BSTs, you can find these from a specialist shop on eBay

[happy-kat]

The Moon is great to image. If I assume you have an android phone or tablet then you may be able to connect a webcam to it. Application such as usbwebcam I've used with my android tablet and a €5 webcam. 

[Cosmic Geoff]

I used to own a  Skylux 70/70. My advice is this: DO NOT spend money on eyepieces for this scope other than to fill glaring gaps in the range of eyepieces. Once I had another telescope and eyepiece set for comparison, I found that the limiting factor with this scope was the objective lens rather than the eyepieces.  If you want to buy some eyepieces to use with this scope, budget eyepieces  of the Kellner or MA types available cheaply will be sufficient. Astroboot.co.uk  has eyepieces for under £10 that should be adequate.  Unless you definitely intend to buy another scope soon, quality eyepieces such as the BST Starguiders will represent a complete overkill.  I recommend that you wait till you buy a better telescope before buying eyepieces in this quality class.

 

[Louis D]

1 hour ago, Cosmic Geoff said:

I used to own a  Skylux 70/70. My advice is this: DO NOT spend money on eyepieces for this scope other than to fill glaring gaps in the range of eyepieces. Once I had another telescope and eyepiece set for comparison, I found that the limiting factor with this scope was the objective lens rather than the eyepieces.  If you want to buy some eyepieces to use with this scope, budget eyepieces  of the Kellner or MA types available cheaply will be sufficient. Astroboot.co.uk  has eyepieces for under £10 that should be adequate.  Unless you definitely intend to buy another scope soon, quality eyepieces such as the BST Starguiders will represent a complete overkill.  I recommend that you wait till you buy a better telescope before buying eyepieces in this quality class.

 

Interesting.  Most folks find the objective to be decently figured (it's an f/10 for crying out loud) in most department store scopes, and it's the mount and mechanicals that are miserable.  Is the opposite true of this scope then?  I looked at videos and images online taken using this scope, and they didn't look too bad at all.  Sure, there's some CA, but not like with an ST-80 or ST-120.  Views of solar system objects seemed sharp enough.

[domstar]

Welcome to the skylux club. I have the same and I've seen lots of good stuff with it. I bought a skywatcher 25mm and 10mm plossl from ebay. It seems that when people get a skywatcher telescope they quickly upgrade the eyepieces and pass the old ones down the food chain. Because of this, I got them at about a fiver each plus postage. I'm sure everyone will tell you they are rubbish, but they are such an improvement on the H20 and useless H4 that I was blown away. If you want to spend more, go ahead and get some quality but Hyugen eyepieces are so poor (maybe you don't have the lidl version) that a few quid would improve the views a lot.

[Cosmic Geoff]

2 hours ago, Louis D said:

Interesting.  Most folks find the objective to be decently figured (it's an f/10 for crying out loud) in most department store scopes, and it's the mount and mechanicals that are miserable.  Is the opposite true of this scope then?  I looked at videos and images online taken using this scope, and they didn't look too bad at all.  Sure, there's some CA, but not like with an ST-80 or ST-120.  Views of solar system objects seemed sharp enough.

So far as I could tell, the Kellner eyepieces were not that bad, compared with other eyepieces, nor was the star diagonal. It was the objective lens that was the weak link. Later ones than mine seem to be a different kit.  After I disposed of it I happened to acquire a vintage 70mm Ross refractor, and the quality of this was a revelation - it is superb.

[SEnergy]

On 2/25/2017 at 18:44, John said:

Is the 100 euros per eyepiece or for a number of them ?

The BST Starguiders are probably about the best value around at just under £50 GBP each. 

number of them, I'd imagine getting 2 or 3 eyepieces for that amount

On 2/25/2017 at 18:47, rockystar said:

you can buy phone adaptor that will hold it over the eyepiece for you, not too sure about cameras but you won't be able to do long exposures without a motorised EQ mount.

as for EPs, you would want to be looking for a plossel at about £20 each or the next step up would be BSTs, you can find these from a specialist shop on eBay

thanks! will look at both of them, the 25mm and 10mm plossel mentioned before might be worth a try, unless BSTs will seem more appropriate

On 2/25/2017 at 19:05, Cosmic Geoff said:

I used to own a  Skylux 70/70. My advice is this: DO NOT spend money on eyepieces for this scope other than to fill glaring gaps in the range of eyepieces. Once I had another telescope and eyepiece set for comparison, I found that the limiting factor with this scope was the objective lens rather than the eyepieces.  If you want to buy some eyepieces to use with this scope, budget eyepieces  of the Kellner or MA types available cheaply will be sufficient. Astroboot.co.uk  has eyepieces for under £10 that should be adequate.  Unless you definitely intend to buy another scope soon, quality eyepieces such as the BST Starguiders will represent a complete overkill.  I recommend that you wait till you buy a better telescope before buying eyepieces in this quality class.

 

you say it's overkill, but they WILL BE just fine with a better telescope, right? even when I'm not getting one soon, they will be "reusable" in the future, so I'd say it's not really waste of money, unless I break them ofc

[Cosmic Geoff]

16 hours ago, SEnergy said:

you say it's overkill, but they WILL BE just fine with a better telescope, right? even when I'm not getting one soon, they will be "reusable" in the future, so I'd say it's not really waste of money, unless I break them ofc

Until you take delivery of, or at least select, your better telescope, you can't know what eyepieces you need to buy for it. For instance, three of mine came with a 25mm eyepiece, and in no case did I feel any pressing need to replace this item. The focal ratio, and whether the telescope has a 2" focuser (giving the option of fitting low-power 2" eyepieces) also have a bearing on eyepiece choice.

[Louis D]

22 hours ago, SEnergy said:

you say it's overkill, but they WILL BE just fine with a better telescope, right? even when I'm not getting one soon, they will be "reusable" in the future, so I'd say it's not really waste of money, unless I break them ofc

Yes, if you buy premium eyepieces across a range of focal lengths, they will be eminently reusable with whatever telescope you purchase in the future.  If you buy used and decide to sell later, you'll likely break even at the worst.

My first eyepieces were Vixen LVs and Pentax XLs nearly 20 years ago, and I'm still using them.  I've never regretted buying them.  I've added XWs, Delos, Morpheus, ES-82, ES-92, Panoptics, and others over the years to fill in the gaps or to achieve different fields of view.

[spillage]

On 2/25/2017 at 17:57, happy-kat said:

The Moon is great to image. If I assume you have an android phone or tablet then you may be able to connect a webcam to it. Application such as usbwebcam I've used with my android tablet and a €5 webcam. 

Why not use some money as happy-kat has mentioned to put towards a cheap webcam for astro work. You can pick up a old philips 900 for under £50 that will give you some good results for the money and the software (if you have a laptop) would be free to download.

[SEnergy]

well I guess I'll be trying the cheap webcam thing, searched about it for a while and I'm kinda interested in what it can do

Thanks all!

[kiloran]

I have the same scope and purchased a Celestron X-Cel 9mm (around £50) because I wasn't getting on with the supplied eyepiece for planets (4mm I think). Needed the eye relief. Have also got a basic 25mm Plossl from another kit telescope which gives a wider view of the larger DSOs. Both of those are pretty standard lengths and will be usable with any future telescope.

My concern with doing any sort of astrophotography with this scope is that hanging a camera off the end would cause balance issues and put strain on the already flimsy focuser. Definitely worth beefing up the mount.