What's the issue with this scope?

[azrabella]

Ok, does anyone have a clue as to why there are so many Skywatcher 200p dobs currently available on the second hand market? I was under the (misguided?) impression that this was the "Goldilocks zone" for reflectors, yet they seem to be sold on just as soon as they are bought. Do they not live up to the promise? It would be interesting also to get an idea what folks are using once they have sold these scopes.

 

 

 

[Peter Drew]

As with most popular items, the more that are sold, the more likely they are to come up for sale secondhand.    ?

[Moonshane]

Possibly laziness. There are no electronic bits so you need to learn the sky. Many people want instant gratification these days. It's a great scope but basic in features.

The irony is you could buy a scope for double the cost of a 200mm dob with goto and hardly be able to see objects in the field of view due to minimal aperture in comparison.

[azrabella]

I'd like to hear from folk that have had one and passed it on, for whatever reason.

[rhw1967]

Sold mine as upgraded to a bigger DOB.

[steppenwolf]

1 hour ago, Peter Drew said:

As with most popular items, the more that are sold, the more likely they are to come up for sale secondhand.    ?

+1

[domstar]

I think stargazing takes a lot of work at the beginning and a lot of people don't get past the moon and maybe Jupiter before giving up. Joining this forum has definitely kept me interested and without it I was starting to run out of suitable targets. Cold nights unsuccessfully searching for very subtle objects can be quite a turn off at the beginning. As stated above, popular first purchases will be popular to be sold on and 8 inch dobs won't fit under the bed so give extra incentive to be sold if they are not used, unlike say an unused watch.

[AdeKing]

This was my first scope although I still have it. It doesn't get as much use as my refractors but is still regularly put to use particularly when I want a back to basics session.

As @domstar said they are too bulky to hide away easily after an upgrade hence why they tend to get passed on.

A great scope if you are happy to work at finding your targets manually and learn to find your way around the sky.

[Carbon Brush]

Yes unused big things have to be moved on.

To me, the biggest problem with a dob like the SW200 is the finder.
I just cannot get on with a straight finder on any scope that has the eyepiece sticking out of the side.
Would adding a few ££ to the new price for a right angle finder really lose sales?
 

David.

[paulastro]

In my view, this is largely to do with the dreaded so called 'upgrade' (I hate this word in this context)  syndrome many astronomers suffer from.   By this people mean bigger of the same thing, more electronics (often goto or imaging related) or because they want to take pretty pictures. 

Often this doesn't work out.

 A  bigger scope isn't necessarily better for all observers (too big or heavy, difficult to drag it outside, smaller field of view with the same eyepieces etc.)

Goto outfits are not fool proof generally speaking.  Electronics can go wrong and prove to be expensive when they won't work any longer.  Also electrical gizmos of any sort don't improve the view through the scope. 

Imaging instruments have different requirements from purely visual instruments.

Observing is a skill that has to be learned, many people are too impatient and never get very far, a change of scope won't help in this respect.

A 200mm Dob is a superb visual instrument, and this will always be the case, if people are daft enough to sell them on quickly, pounce on it and take advantage!

[lenscap]

I think  more people are lucky enough to be able to buy an 8" dob as their first scope nowadays but dont realise just how big it is till it arrives.

When I was trawling the classifieds I found a guy who had bought a 10" dob for his 3 year old! ( "Daddy I want a telescope" ).

Off course it was on Gumtree within a week.

 

[paulastro]

21 minutes ago, Carbon Brush said:

Yes unused big things have to be moved on.

To me, the biggest problem with a dob like the SW200 is the finder.
I just cannot get on with a straight finder on any scope that has the eyepiece sticking out of the side.
Would adding a few ££ to the new price for a right angle finder really lose sales?
 

David.

I think this is a matter of individual taste David.  I have never been able to get on with angled finders and though it wouldn't necessarily deter me from buying a scope - I'd replace the finder immediately.  A case of horses for courses I suppose.

[azrabella]

This problem solved by adding a small straight through (6x30) finder to a scope with a 9x50 raci finder.

[domstar]

@paulastro makes a wonderful point that I never considered. We all want a scope for life but is there anyone whose first scope is their last scope? Do people always either give up or upgrade? This has implications for which scope to recommend as a first scope. Maybe the best advice is to start small rather than go deep.

[azrabella]

I for one keep coming back to my 6" f/8 dob. Faultless and very easy to modify. Not so many get re-sold that I am aware.

[Astro-Geek]

I don't think it should be taken as any indication of the 200p Dobsonian being inferior or having some hidden shortcoming.

As has been mentioned already on here, telescopes have become much more popular as "whim" buying items than ever before.

Anyone who owned an astronomical telescope 50 years ago (or yearned for a good one !), can appreciate how cheap really good quality scopes are nowadays by comparison.

The best that most dedicated amateur astronomers could afford then were 6" Newtonians, and the richer ones could stretch to an 8".  If memory serves me correct, even Patrick Moore only had a 12" Newtonian in his garden shed observatory, (and that didn't have a dome, it was just a wooden shed that slid open in two halves on rails).

"Goto" wasn't even  a miilionaire's toy, because home computers hadn't been invented.

So many classified adverts for scopes contain phrases like "only used once", "unwanted present", or even "still in original boxes".

I'd say that the majority of new telescopes are bought by people who have never read an Astronomy book or can identify constellations. Their expectations are (undertsandably) raised too high by today's plethora of high quality marketing images of Saturn and Jupiter, and are dissapointed at only just being able to see the rings and the red spot through their new purchase.

One of my scopes is a skywatcher 200, and it gets the most use, being a perfect compromise between light gathering, magnification, and portability (for me).

 

 

[Cosmic Geoff]

8 hours ago, azrabella said:

Ok, does anyone have a clue as to why there are so many Skywatcher 200p dobs currently available on the second hand market?

I wonder if this observation is statistically significant?

I distinctly recollect somebody posting that not many Dobs were being offered second-hand because they were so great that people hung on to them. ?

Assuming that many Dobs are being advertised used, it could be natural turn-over of an item selling in large numbers, or because people buy them only to find that the instrument is not so easy to use, or as general-purpose as they were led to believe.   They'll buy an 8" manual Dob because it looks like a bargain, but  when they find out what's involved with using it effectively they won't want to be bothered with that any more than they'd want to memorise the streets of London instead of using a satnav.

 

[TareqPhoto]

Before I thought it is about 200p Newtonian as tube not a dob, but then I got it that the talk is about a dob model itself.

I am new, and I didn't plan to get a dob before, but this year a dob became like a very high priority item in my list, but I will be honest, I never thought about 8" or 10" Dob at all, in fact even 12" is likely out of my list, so only 14" and larger, and I know the larger I go the more magnified issues it will be, but I do that because I wanted to have something to stop me upgrading to keep going higher again and again, so I want to be at high enough "Aperture" from beginning, and I know if I buy that 200p dob then I will sell it in no time, but good that I bought 8" F5 Newtonian anyway.

So, regardless the size or aperture of the dob itself, I want to ask about the quality of mirrors in those dobs, are they on par to another reflectors such as SCT or Maks?