Celestron NexStar 60 SLT

[bdmhenderson]

There's someone selling this scope on the sellers board - is it any good for a beginner or would I be better with a larger scope i.e 80mm refractor?

Brian

[John]

If you can run to something with a bigger aperture (lens / mirror diameter) I think you would get more satisfaction to be honest.

If you can find a few more £'s then something like this would give you some very nice views:

http://www.firstlightoptics.com/proddetail.php?prod=s1145pm

John

[Helen]

Welcome to SGL, Brian

I suggest you go for something a bit bigger than 60mm if you afford it.

What's your budget? and what do you fancy seeing? The 60mm will give you good views of the moon and the big planets (although the images of the planets will be small). Its not really suitable for looking at galaxies and the like.

That said, the SLT mount is a neat, small mount and can take other bigger scopes (I've got one I use for quick viewing sessions) if you choose to go bigger in the future.

Helen

[bdmhenderson]

Hi, thanks for the welcome!!!

My budget is quite small - getting married in April so cash is tight. I'd like to look at planets and maybe a couple of galaxys.I really want a goto scope, I work with computers and have a large intrest in this area and love the idea of moving the scope from the laptop and when i get the money even having webcams etc hooked up.

I haven't set a price for a budget but not really looking to go over the £150 mark. I will go over a little if there is something much better for just a few pounds more though

[tarqs101]

Hi,

as already mentioned the SLT mount is quite handy, I've been bought the 102SLT for my birthday. Not aloud it until the 8th november though!! However, my family got the 102 (4") used for £160. Not bad at all in my opinion as it's £300 new.

Gavin

[John]

Hi Brian - welcome to SGL (should of said that in my earlier post :oops: )

If you can do without GOTO you can get a nice scope for your budget. If it has to be GOTO then the options are very limited as most of your money will go on the mount and the electronics in it.

The trouble is a 60mm scope will have trouble actually seeing many of the things that the GOTO mount finds because of it's limited aperture.

For £160 though you could get a non-GOTO scope that will show loads of objects - but you do have to find them yourself (with the help of a book or some planetarium software) - which is rewarding in itself of course

John

[Wedge]

Hi, welcome to SGL!

I am sure that others will agree with me in recommending a Skywatcher 6" Dob!

http://www.firstlightoptics.com/proddetail.php?prod=dobsky150

It is a 150mm aperture and will show you great views of the planets and galaxies (I also have a 6" and am very pleased with the views)

Also, it is only £155 so it will not break your budget!

Good Luck

[bdmhenderson]

If I can't get one with goto the very least I'd want is something that would auto track an object, it would also need to be rugged enough to be portable enough to be driven to darkerskys. I thought a refractor would be better for this reason.

[Brinders]

I have the SLT 60 but I bought it for my Megrez 72 APO and not for the Celeston scope that came with it. The megrez makes a great wide field and grab and go scope with the SLT mount but is outside your budget.

I have never tried using the SLT 60 that came with the mount on the night sky (I have only used it to observe the sun in white light with Badder solar film - never use a scope to look at the sun without a suitable objective filter otherwise you will be permanently blinded in your viewing eye).

As others have said, a 6" reflector will be best to start with as it will give you bright wide field views of the night sky and you will be able to observe the moon and brighter planets at reasonable magnifications as well as deep sky (nebula, clusters, galaxies etc). I still have my TAL 150P and can vouch for a 6" Newtonian reflector as the best way to start, and without GOTO you will have to learn the night sky with the aid of books or planetarium software such as the free Cart du Ceil or Stellarium available over the internet. Learning the night sky for yourself is no bad thing!

A Dobsonian mount is the simplest mount available and it seems to me that the Skywatcher Skyliner 150P will make the ideal starter scope for your money and you are unlikely to grow out of it (I still use my TAL despite having a 9.25" Celestron SCT and the little Megrez).

Aperture is king and the Skywatcher is the biggest you can get within your budget.

Welcome to SGL and clear skies!

Brinders

[bdmhenderson]

How would one of those dobsonians handle being moved frequently (one or twice a week)? I'd like something rather maintanence free if possible. If looking at the likes of saturn how long can you look at it before it goes out of view if you don't move the scope?

[John]

How would one of those dobsonians handle being moved frequently (one or twice a week)? I'd like something rather maintanence free if possible. If looking at the likes of saturn how long can you look at it before it goes out of view if you don't move the scope?

I have an 8 inch dobsonian and I move it in and out of my house each time I use it. You can follow objects at high power by "nudging" the scope gently up and down and left and right as the object appears to move across the field of view. You soon get used to the technique. I have tracked objects at 250x magnification using this method.

This design of scope does occasionaly need collimation, that is adjusting the alignment of the mirrors but this is not really too difficult and there is lots of advice available to help you.

If you feel you want a scope on a driven mount then this might be the answer - it's a little bit over your budget though:

http://www.firstlightoptics.com/proddetail.php?prod=SW130PSupaTrakAUTO

John

John

[bdmhenderson]

Been looking at the scope you recommended it seems it maybe worth the extra £30. What are everyone elses views on this scope?

[themos]

How would one of those dobsonians handle being moved frequently (one or twice a week)? I'd like something rather maintanence free if possible. If looking at the likes of saturn how long can you look at it before it goes out of view if you don't move the scope?

Depends on the magnification and the kind of eyepiece. For planets, let's take 200x as the operating magnification. A cheap Plossl will give you 15 arcminutes of view and an expensive Nagler more like 24 arcminutes. If the planet's on the celestial equator, it will seem to go past at 15 arc-seconds per second. That gives edge-to-edge times of 60 seconds to 96 seconds. In the UK, the best placed planets are high in the south in the winter, above the equator, so going a bit slower than that.

[AJSullivan]

Hi Guys, I bought this scope from the For Sale section as I wanted the go to mount. I was looking for a refractor anyways. Will this mount be able to handle a 100mm ish refractor? Was looking at something like this: http://www.firstlightoptics.com/proddetail.php?prod=TAL100RSota.

I know its not an apochromat which is better and If i have the fund will consider getting one of those, but i do want something of a good size. Will this mount be able to handle that? Ive seen some relatively cheap 150mm refractors like http://www.firstlightoptics.com/proddetail.php?prod=st150ota

Ive also seen something like this http://www.firstlightoptics.com/proddetail.php?prod=equinox

Sorry for all the links etc, just confused about the REAL difference between APO and Achromatic. I heard its got something to do with colour fringing? but this seems like a small thing when the difference in price is HUGE.

Thanks in advance

Alex

[Helen]

I would say that the mount will struggle with the first two of those scopes. TAL have a reputation for being well built (ie tank-like!). The problem would be length as well as weight. And the 150 will be huge too around 30 inches long!

The mount should cope with the 80mm equinox though, and it would be a nice grab and go set up

The difference in price between apo and non-apo reflects the difficulty of getting all the light to come to focus at the same point.

HTH

Helen

[AJSullivan]

At the moment i have a 4.5" reflector which I am wholly underwhelmed with. I am hoping to see some clear views of the planets and some DSOs, double stars etc. I was always led to believe apperture is the thing you need, so wouldnt a 80mm APO be able to show LESS than a 102 mm Achro?

[asteria]

Hi - I've been using a short focal length refractor (ST120 from Skywatcher) and I think it is a very good scope - portable, fast (f5), with reasonable optics for an achro tube. I use it for DSOs and even in light polluted skies it can do a good job. The apo/achro issue is less problematic on the dimmer objects like galaxies and nebulas. The ST120 shows colour fringing on the Moon, but even on bright stars I don't think its obtrusive.

Ed

[Helen]

Yep, all things being equal you'll see less. And the bigger you go the more you in theory can see. But, the question you asked was about the capabilities of the mount. You won't see much at all if the mount slips, or won't track properly, or shakes so much, or if the scope is too long so you can't see all the sky because it hits the mount.

A good quality 80mm (which the equinox is) on a stable mount will give very nice views of clusters, the brighter DSOs, double stars, and the planets (they will be small, but the definition will be quite good). I've got a slightly larger 90mm scope and I love it!

If you want aperture I recommend a Dobsonian - loads of light gathering for not very much money and easy to handle... but if you want something for the mount you've just bought, then I'd say the 80mm....

Helen

[AJSullivan]

Thanks for the advice Helen! Anyone think a 100mm would be ok on that mount? I would "Like" a slightly larger scope than a 80mm, though if thats the best I can have then thats ok as well.

Alex

[John]

Thanks for the advice Helen! Anyone think a 100mm would be ok on that mount? I would "Like" a slightly larger scope than a 80mm, though if thats the best I can have then thats ok as well.

Alex

I think that mount will struggle with anything much more than a short tube 80mm TBH.

John

[John]

Been looking at the scope you recommended it seems it maybe worth the extra £30. What are everyone elses views on this scope?

Brian,

Here is a link to a review by Ade Ashford which appeared in Astronomy Now - it covers both the 130 Newtonian and 127 Maksutov-Cassegrain versions of that scope:

http://www.nightskies.net/scopetest/scopes/supatrak/supatrak.html

John

[AJSullivan]

.

[SteelRat]

Where the Skywatcher motorised Alt az range has a smaller version mount for the smaller scopes, the Celestron SLT range are all on the one large mount. The SLT60 sits on the same spec mount as the SLT130 and long f11odd SLT80 refractor.

The 102 SLT 4 inch refractor on that same mount has a focal length of 660mm. I know for fact that the 130mm newt setup is adequate for visual, and due to the tube sizes and the way the two scopes are fixed to the mount I'd bet good money that the 4 inch refractor setup is much better.

BUT - the SLT scopes have many plastic parts. Lens cells, focusers, dewshields, finders etc are plastic making them very lightweight and much less work for the mount.

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Alex, I have used a 4 inch f5 (short) skywatcher refractor on my SLT mount and it wasn't bad at all, but I have mine sat on a rigid Tal wooden tripod and that make's for a big big difference. My ST80 and rigid tubed Tal1 work nicely on it.

I used to own a Tal 100mm refractor and while it would have been nice if the SLT mount had been been up to the job - the big heavy russian cannon would have killed it. Needs a MUCH stronger mount - trust me;

http://stargazerslounge.com/index.php/topic,11492.msg119609.html#msg119609

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P.s. perhaps you might consider using your Orion 4.5 StarBlast on the mount before buying a refractor - to see how you get on with.

HTH.

[jgs001]

My Konus Vista 80s is an 80mm f5 frac (same as the ST80) and works great. it weighs about 1.5 kilos. When the 450d is added on the back, the total load is about 2 Kg and the results speak for themselves (I've been able to achieve 2 minute exposures)

[AJSullivan]

I will probably try the relfector on the mount as you said, though I expect that the refractor that this comes with will probably give similar performance. I have been very underwhelmed with the reflector to be honest. It wasnt a GREAT deal of money, but still expected a bit better to be honest.

As for the advice so far, I really appreciate it. I will probably look at a 80mm APO, as this will hopefully give me lovely clear sharp images which I think is what I am after.

Alex