Which One?

[ColinD]

I’m an absolute beginner and after star gazing while on holiday in France last year seeing the 1000s of stars my wife & I decided we need to be able to see some of them a bit closer. I have narrowed the selection down to the following

Celestron NexStar 102SLT

Skywatcher Explorer 130 or 130P

Sky-Watcher Skyhawk 1145PS or AZ EQ Avant

Sky-Watcher Skyhawk 1145P

But which one do I go for?  The Celestron is the most expensive at £220 on Amazon and the cheapest is the 1145P at £134 from FirstLightOptics

What I’m wanting to do is astrophotography as well as gazing. Any advice gratefully received

[Floater]

Colin, in the spirit of welcome I say hello. But I’m afraid I can’t help too much here.

I’m visual only and also not experienced enough to advise on this scope or that. Each in your list is well respected.

However, since you put astrophotography before ‘gazing’ in your goals everybody will tell you to concentrate on the mount.

Enjoy the hobby - and the learning curve it will take you on. ??

[geordie85]

The skywatcher 130PDS is a very capable scope for astrophotography but as mentioned above, the mount is just as important, if not more important than the scope. 

Take a look at this thread to see what it's capable of.

 

[newtyng5]

Hi Colin, and welcome.

Seeing you are new to astronomy, perhaps it would be a good idea to get a scope to learn and enjoy the stars first. Then in time move onto astrophotography?

I am purely visual as 'Floater'.

Astrophotography can bump up your budget by a very large margin.

Skywatcher  scopes are good value money, and the 130P would be a good start, although the 130pds on a good mount would be ideal for astrophotography (although the mount will bump up the budget again).

130pds EQ3

Lots of choices, you could go down the dobsonian route (cheap and cheerful) , then branch out later into EQ mounts and astrophotography in time?.

Anyway have fun, and others here will surely give you lots more ideas.

 

[wok]

As Floater said, if you are interested in astrophotography, most of your money will go to the mount, then you can just upgrade the OTA when you feel like you need to. The AP guys will give you a better advice on which OTA will be good to start, for the mount, I would look into an eq5/heq5 pro depending on how much weight you are going to put on it. If you have the cash, eq8.

[Ricochet]

From your choices above it doesn't appear that your budget will stretch to an astrophotography set up, at least for DSOs. Possibly the nexstar slt could be used for planetary photography but someone more knowledgeable would have to confirm. You should also be aware that the Amazon price you give is not a normal price. It looks to be maplin selling off their stock and the price has already increased, probably because they have sold some, so if you want that scope (the only one in your budget with goto) you should act quickly. 

For visual astronomy, aperture is king and the largest telescope within the price range you have given is the Skywatcher Skyliner 150p. Not only is this larger than all the telescopes you have listed but it also has the most stable mount. If you have discounted that telescope based on size then the next step down (but a bit over your budget) would be the Skywatcher 130ps AZ5. The AZ5 mount should be a lot more useful than the eq2s supplied with the 130s you have looked at. 

If it really has to be one from your shortlist then I would go for either the 102SLT, because that's a good deal for a goto scope, or the 1145ps AZEQ Avant, because you can use it in AZ mode and will not be restricted to EQ mode as with your other options. 

[NGC 1502]

 

Hi and welcome to SGL.  You have already been given good advice. I’d like to add something that could sound a bit depressing but could also save a lot of problems.

I’m a member of a local club. A lot of keen new folk see wonderful images of the night sky, and quite understandably would like to  try do do the same. They may well be good daytime photographers, but getting great astrophotos is a whole different experience.

Many of the astrophotos online and in magazines will have been taken with very expensive kit and taken hours to capture and process. It’s well worth considering that. 

One good way to proceed could be to join a local club. Some of them, like my club, may have equipment to borrow to try visual and perhaps imaging. My club doesn’t charge to borrow kit, as long as they are paid up members. It’s a good way to dip your toe in the water at little expense.

Good luck and HTH, Ed.

[ColinD]

Many thanks for your thoughts and as recommended and on reflection perhaps it is better I understand it before trying to photograph it ?

my original thoughts were to get a good starter package so i didn’t get into the ‘Woulda, Coulda, Shoulda’ scenario of buying one thing and then thinking I should have bought something else.

I’m hoping to get to Astrofarm in France next month so will look to buy something after that

 

Once again, thanks everyone for your insight

[Cosmic Geoff]

With your budget you should forget astrophotography for the moment, and  concentrate on getting a starter scope with which you can look at stuff and see what sort of observing (and future hardware) appeals to you once you have tried it. I don't know much about deep space astrophotography except that it is very expensive and involves lots of complex kit and processes.

As for the telescopes, these outfits are all in the 'starter' category.  The Celestron Nexstar 102SLT at £220 is clearly a sale price as I think either the mount or the telescope might normally cost that much on its own.  If you want a 102 mm refractor (a useful thing to have - I have the Sky-watcher Startravel which is probably similar and is a useful wide-field & portable scope) or a GoTo mount (again a useful thing to have and I have the Nexstar SLT) you should place the order on reading this before they sell out. What can you do with this? With my equivalent setup I looked at galaxies (when on holiday), had a go at photographing M42 and the minor planet Ceres and (mostly with a different mount) looked at widefield star clusters, a comet, and projected the Sun's image.

The Nexstar GoTo mount works quite well for basic planetary astrophotography, but you'd want a different telescope e.g. a Maksutov.

A 130mm Newtonian reflector is a respectable instrument that will show you quite a lot. Some people recommend them for deep-space astrophotography, but then you'd want the photo version and a different and very expensive heavy-duty mounting.

 

 

[Geoff Lister]

As Cosmic Geoff mentions above, an Alt/AZ GoTo mount; his Celestron SLT, or my Skywatcher Skymax; is fine for basic astrophotography. I have the 127mm Mak. and dabbled with astrophotography using the Philips 900nc modified webcam. It is a basic 640x480, but will record reasonable videos of the Moon, Jupiter, and Saturn; and using the Registax stacking program, will get you a reasonable still image. Having dabbled, I tried my Nikon D3200 DSLR, using a T-mount, and was able to take a series of 8-second stills of some of the fainter DSOs. My GPCAM is more of an advanced webcam, with the ability to record slow-frame video or longer-duration stills; and, when used with Sharpcap, can do live stacking to give Electronically Assisted Astronomy, a compromise between pure visual and pure photography.

Cosmic Geoff is right - the 102SLT is a bargain at £220.

Geoff (another one with that popular name)

[dph1nm]

On 07/04/2018 at 11:35, Geoff Lister said:

Cosmic Geoff is right - the 102SLT is a bargain at £220.

Unless this is secondhand I would be very wary of someone selling at this price. This scope is currently selling between 400-500 pounds new at all the 'well-known' astro stores.

NigelM

[Geoff Lister]

4 hours ago, dph1nm said:

Unless this is secondhand I would be very wary of someone selling at this price. This scope is currently selling between 400-500 pounds new at all the 'well-known' astro stores.

The Amazon site price of £220 was clearly a "special" last weekend, as Amazon now (2 days later) has it at £441.99.

Geoff

[Ande]

I think, as was alluded to earlier in the thread, that Maplin were shifting clearance stock via Amazon. 

[spillage]

Hi,

I think this should be your first starting point. It might be worth reading it a few times as it will save you the heartache of wasting allot of your money.

With photography you need to start from the ground up to ensure you equipment is a rock steady as possible. The scopes you have mentioned will all be a bit wobbly to get any great images.

[happy-kat]

Sounds like a great holiday next month.

If you already own a dslr then you could start now learning how to use it and the mirrad of astro software to create pictures of the night sky.

DSS 

Sequator

GIMP

Starstax

Remote release

A sturdy tripod and a wide lens, or what ever you have already, and get out capturing the night sky.

[ColinD]

Thanks for the great advice. Got to France and setup scope and  saw Jupiter & Venus. It was a new moon, so didn’t see it until later in the week. Unfortunately Astrofarm didn’t happen as Andrew had been taken I’ll. I’ll be going back in a couple of months for a dedicated weekend.

I bought the NexStar 102SLT In the end as it seemed too good a price at £247.

[happy-kat]

Hope you have a lot of fun with your new telescope. In time take a look at the No EQ DSO Challenge thread for tips on using your mount when you expand your imaging adventure.

[cjdawson]

WOW, got this far down without a recommendation for "Making Every Photon Count"  This book would be a great read for you.  It'll teach you the jargon that we use, give you ideas about the kit that you'd need and some ideas of things to avoid.

As for a scope recommendation.  I'd say.... get the book.   Hold onto your cash.  Find and join your local astronomy society.   Ask lots of questions and once you have a better understanding of what you are trying to achieve, then start looking at equipment.