What telescope.

[Ross boakes]

Hi to you all just asking for help.. getting back into astronomy need advice on a scope. It's for general stargazing the planets and deep space hopefully.

[ronin]

Optically I suspect they are the same lens and to a large extent the same scope: Skywatcher = Celestron = Synta.

Both achromats and fairly wide so expect some CA on brighter things, like Rigel, Sirius, Jupiter and Saturn sort of thing. Guess both up around f/8 so eyepieces should not be a great worry. Budget on 4 eyepieces and the general recommendation is the BST Starguiders. But they can come one at a time later.

Jupiter needs 80x and above, Saturn needs 125x and above to see any "detail".

Alternative would be the Bresser 125, not sure if they do a 150 they might.

Get a 2 speed focuser if either offer such, they are just easier to get a decent focus with.

[domstar]

Make sure you've seen one in the flesh before you buy (I expect you have). They are big boys.

[Cornelius Varley]

11 minutes ago, ronin said:

Optically I suspect they are the same lens and to a large extent the same scope: Skywatcher = Celestron = Synta.

Both achromats and fairly wide so expect some CA on brighter things, like Rigel, Sirius, Jupiter and Saturn sort of thing. Guess both up around f/8 so eyepieces should not be a great worry. Budget on 4 eyepieces and the general recommendation is the BST Starguiders. But they can come one at a time later.

Jupiter needs 80x and above, Saturn needs 125x and above to see any "detail".

Alternative would be the Bresser 125, not sure if they do a 150 they might.

Get a 2 speed focuser if either offer such, they are just easier to get a decent focus with.

Not the same telescope. The Omni XLT150 is essentially the same as the Skywatcher ST150 which is supplied on the better EQ5 mount here . The longer focal length Evostar 150 is also supplied with the EQ5 mount. The shorter XLT/ST150 (f5) will exhibit more chromatic aberration (false colour fringing) around bright objects.

[vlaiv]

Celestron Omni XLT is F/5 scope actually, so wide field version - much worse on planets, but shorter length and more manageable.

 

[alacant]

Hi. At f5, The Celestron would be good for widefield dsos and the Skywatcher closer views of the same. Both will show false colour. A better corrected version which gets the wow factor every time and for around the same price is the Bresser 152s, a 4 element Petzval with a nice flat field and well corrected colour. HTH

[Cosmic Geoff]

Are you dead set on getting a large refractor? If you want a 150mm scope for visual only, I suggest that you consider a Maksutov or SLT on an alt-azimuth GoTo mount. It would be easier to manage, easier to find things with and worth a price comparison.