Celestron Skyprodigy 130

[Timothy Tappan]

I am thinking about buying one of these and would like to know if anyone here has one and could tell me if they are worth the money. I presently have an old DS-114 electric but the Autostar has bit the dust. I don't have a good dark sky where I am at and I mostly have an East to West overhead view but am content with just looking at the moon most of the time. Any advice is good advice.

[alanjgreen]

Tim,

i had one of these as my first scope, it was a great starter scope but now it is out of production I would go for something different if you are buying new.

The starsense camera is the main bonus of the sky prodigy and makes setup a breeze. But doing a  manual 2 star alignment is quite easy, so do consider the 150p star discovery.

https://www.firstlightoptics.com/reflectors/sky-watcher-star-discovery-150p.html

its much cheaper and has more aperture. The motors and tracking are there too, you just need to manually align it yourself.

if you can get the sky prodigy for the same price then go for that otherwise save some cash and get the star discovery instead!

 

Alan

[Timothy Tappan]

Well that bums me out, I ordered the 130 last night. But thanks for the input, it is appreciated. Maybe I can sell the 130 and go for the 150.

[rockystar]

5 minutes ago, Timothy Tappan said:

Well that bums me out, I ordered the 130 last night. But thanks for the input, it is appreciated. Maybe I can sell the 130 and go for the 150.

where did you order it from? Most Astro shops allow returns, and as it's Easter I doubt they will be open and shipping anyway, so you may get lucky and they haven't sent it yet, so still time to change the order.

 

[gtis]

9 minutes ago, rockystar said:

where did you order it from? Most Astro shops allow returns, and as it's Easter I doubt they will be open and shipping anyway, so you may get lucky and they haven't sent it yet, so still time to change the order.

 

Like Lee say I don't think they will ship it out until Monday/Tuesday 

i would certainly try to cancel/reorder

[Geoff Lister]

If it's not too late:-

I recently bought a Skyprodigy 70 for under £200, and they seem still to be available for that price. The dovetail clamp (holding the 'scope tube onto the mount) plastic cowl is designed to be a snug fit on the 70mm telescope tube. If you are prepared to take the risk, the cowl can be removed by unscrewing 3 bolts, and the cowl cut back slightly to take a larger diameter telescope tube. I now use mine with the 'scope tubes from a Celestron Astromaster 130 Newtonian and Skywatcher Skymax 127 MCT (both 5 inch mirrors). These give the Skyprodigy Starsense capability without paying the much higher price of the Skyprodigy 130.

The Starsense system seems to work, even with a full Moon. The setup menu lets you select from "Full Moon"/"Hazy/Urban"/"Suburban"/"Dark"/"Windy"/"Custom" options. If it cannot see enough stars to sort out where it is pointing, you are not going to see much through the eyepiece anyway.

Geoff