Another newbie seeks advice on first telescope and future upgrades

[jonathan]

Hi!

Mr Ab Solute Beginner here, please be gentle with me!

Reading Sky At Night magazine beginner telescope guide this month I see that they recommend the Skywatcher Explorer 130, and reading a few posts here seems to confirm this. I will most likely buy this as my first telescope, however I have some newbie questions...

The finder scope - can that be upgraded / replaced with a better one? What's good to have for finding stars, galaxies, etc?

The mount - can a motor drive be fitted to enable long exposure photography with this (or any / all) telescope? What's a good motor drive unit, how are they fitted, and how do they come?

The tripod - are these all interchangeable with all mounts and telescopes? Or.. is there a wide range of varying price and quality models available that will work with the rest of the setup?

I'm mainly a photographer and computer addict at heart so those are the things I know a lot about, if there's some fun thing I can do with the laptop out in the garden then that would be spiffing. I love looking at Stellarium and could see it being a useful tool - is it? I would like to be able to read a star chart and find the stars manually rather than use a Go-To scope, but having a basic motor drive for the photography aspect is something I would aspire to after my initial scope purchase.. assuming it's something I could upgrade without too much cost or hassle.

That's another thing - our garden is quite a slope with trees and grass all the way up it, would this present a problem? We usually get very good views of the stars (even out of my bedroom skylight); I would probably have to drive a mile to get to open fields on high ground, is this likely to upset the telescope in any way? How can I avoid disturbing the collimation which I've been reading about?

Thanks for all your advice, it will be very much appreciated!

[Doc]

Hi and welcome to SGL.

Maybe an 8" dob for starters so with the aid of stellarium you can star hop around the universe and later on mount this on a Hq5 or 6 for photography work.

[jonathan]

Hi Doc,

I think I am set on the Skywatcher 130 as an all-rounder starter scope, from what I've read it will be the easiest to use as a beginner. I can always get a separate setup that's better suited for photography later.

[Doc]

John the 130 is an excellent beginners scope. Will keep you happy for a while until the aperture bug bites

[scotastro]

The Exp 130 is an ok starter scope, but very basic. This size scope will be very limited for imaging, especially if you are looking to put a DSLR on it. Red dot finder can be replaced with either a 6x30 scope or something like a Telrad. What is best to use depends on how dark your skies are. Motor drives for one or both axis also available, they are easy to fit. The Exp130PM comes with motor drive but the short focal length means less magnification for viewing planets or small faint objects.

An equatorial mount is in two parts the head which holds the scope and controls its movement and the tripod. The larger the scope the heavy built is the mount and the tripod.

Was going to back up Doc's suggestion but as you seem to like the 130. If it is in your budget the 150PL (longer FL) would give a better all round view and the mount is more stable.

Mike

[TheThing]

the 130pm is NOT an ok starter scope!

It is an EXCELLENT starter scope - hence the fact it wins plenty of praise (not just S@N but AN and others as well).

It's a 5.1 inch reflector, but you will be able to see plenty with it - everything that a beginner wants to see in any case. Don't be fooled by all this 'aperture is king' talk. The 130 will do just about anything that is asked of it.

You may want to upgrade the finder, but a lot of people find the RDF easier to use than an opticl finder.

If you're going for extras, get some more EPs, a moon filter and a copy of 'Turn Left at Orion' and you'll be well away

[brendant]

Hi Jonathan,

A lot of questions there to answer but here goes, not in order but will give it a try:-

As a beginner, it is difficult to pick an ideal telescope, it depends on what you want to see, if it's planets or the moon you need a long focal length, if deep sky you generally need a short focal length to achieve a wide field of view for nebula and longer focal lengths for galaxies. For deep sky work generally a large aperture (mirror or objective diameter) is required.

A Newtonian telescope such as the Explorer 130 is a good starting scope, they combine medium focal length with a reasonable aperture and are a good compromise and relatively cheap, they provide a good starting point from which you will be able to observe the moon, planets and some deep sky objects and with a driven mount some images providing you do not expect to see the images normally seen on the web. Dobsonian telescopes which combine large apertures of 6-10" are superb instruments for visual use (not suitable for astrophotography due the the mounting arrangement), are easy to use and provide fantastic views of the night sky.

If imaging is one of your main aims, the mount (tripod) is the most important piece of kit, a telescope is only as good as the mount it is fitted to, a relatively cheap telescope on a good mount will produce acceptable images, a bad mount and the most expensive scope will be worthless. I would suggest the minimum spec for a decent imaging mount to be a HEQ5, better still an EQ6. A driven equatorial mount (GEM) is a must for astrophotography, AltAz mounts are no use unless they are mounted on a wedge (allows alignment for latitude so the mount rotates in line with the earth axis).

Almost all mounts conform to two types of fixing method, namely a dovetail and this provides a means of interchanging telescopes and these are standard (the types are Vixen (common on skwyatcher) and Losmandy (more common on higher end and provide higher capacity)).

Upgrading of astro equipment is always expensive, better to save and get decent kit to start with if you can afford it, but firstly you need to dip your toe in the water and see if it is for you before spending large sums of money on a hobby that does not work out.

Most mounts can cope with slopes etc, does make polar alignment a little more difficult but is should be possible, much more preferable than out through the skylight which does not work well, as the heat escapes out through the window you will get a shimmering effect (as seen on a hot sunny day) which will ruin your viewing, its actually better with the window closed.

As the other guys say the 130 is a good starting point and a capable instrument, as with most things there is not one single answer. As a starter portability is another issue, if the scope is too big and awkward you will tire of dragging it out each night (that is when you manage to get one) and possible get disillusioned. The best scope is the one you use most.

Hope this helps to explain some of your questions.

Brendan

[ZOG]

Hi Jonathon,

I bought the 130pm from Steve at Flo about 18 months ago and I've been well pleased with it. I did want a goto system so I bought a second hand SLT mount which the tube sits on quite happily. I find that the red dot finder is perfectley adequate and the whole set up is easily portable. The scope comes with an EQ2 mount and a RA drive. I can't recommend this scope highly enough as a first scope.

[Astro_Baby]

Undoubtedly the 130 is good news as a starter scope and I think you'll learn a lot with it. The 130 doesnt need much in the way of collimation so long as your gentle with it ( I had to learn collimation fast when my youngest unded the secondary mirror vanes - eeek !!!! ).

With that said I just wonder if your pirmary interest being photography and your obvious interest in PC based stuff whether a small GoTo might not be a better route to take as they can be hooked up to a PC.

Obviously budget plays a part in and it might be that any GoTo in your budget would come at the sort of price that would leave you with a very tiny telescope.

As has already been said its devilishly difficult to choose a first scope as almost any starter scope will leave you wishing you had bought bigger or different in some respect.

[timetraveller]

Hiya Jonathan

I can second all that has been said about 130 I have its bigger brother the p200 which is the 8" version and it is a superb scope I have it currently on an EQ5 mount which i purchased and fitted the twin axis drives too a simple thing to do even comes with the correct size Allen keys to fit it just one point to bear in mind these motor drives do not usually come with power supplies other than a battery box and being that batteries cost a lot of money I would strongly recommend that you purchase a power pack to use instead of batteries they cost around £30ish and are well worth the money just charge them up when the light comes on and away you go for your next session. The only future upgrade plans i have for my current kit is to at some point upgrade the mount to an EQ6 which is more capable of handling the extra weight of a dslr camera outfit to carry out Astrophotography I'm not interested to be honest with go-to mounts more to go wrong and from what i have read on this forum they quite often do.

but for now more than happy with what i have

dark skies and good seeing

Pete

[jonathan]

Well what a plethora of helpful posts! Thank you all very much for your friendly advice.

I had wondered if there was a slightly better scope than the 130, are the 150 and 200 better in every way, or are there drawbacks? I am not the strongest but I am able bodied so should be able to carry a tripod and telescope out to the garden, even if it takes two trips; I have gotten quite used to walking with a heavy camera tripod!

I will look into the 150 and 200 as I could probably afford a bit more than the 130 costs (but wouldn't want to go overboard), it sounds like the Skywatcher range is a good starting place for me. Would you say that the 150 or 200 are worth the extra money? How much should I expect to pay for them (new)? The 130 was shown as having a price tag of £130 in Sky At Night.

Another question - is there such a thing as a hard case to pack the stuff away in, will it even fit in a manageable case, or is that generally something I would have to arrange for myself? I prefer not to knock my kit around, I suppose this will be a good trait to have with telescopes.

[jonathan]

It's looking like a big telescope may have to wait until I can arrange a proper place to keep one. Having thought about it and seeing a Skywatcher 130 up close and personal (boy they are big, and heavy too so I'm told!) I can't see it fitting in with my current arrangements. I might just invest in some good binoculars or a spotting scope instead for now, once I've recovered from buying the Canon 1000D.

[Astro_Baby]

A 130PM is quite tiny compared to a 200. Its stil quite a sizeable bit of kit though if space is limited.

If you want an idea of how large a 200 is theres a pic of one side by side with a 130PM HERE its about halfway down the page.

Like you photography was/is a hobby of mine but I found once ytou start looking into astrophotography it gets very expensive very quick and its a real uphill struggle especially when your rying to learn basic astronomy which can be taxing enough in its own right.

I bought the 130PM as a kind of toe in the water because its very tough to know whats good to buy when you start out. The 130 kind of gave me some idea of what I'd want longer term and one of the changes in direction was abandoning astrophotography in favour of observing.

Fact of the matter is the weather has been so atrocious this year that I really suspect if I had gone the astrophotogrphy route I would have;

a) spent a ton of money

gotten really fed up

c) sold all the gear by now.

As it is I almost packed it up a few months back just from the sheer frustration of never getting to use the kit. I think that would have been even more true if I had a ton of astrophotography equipment.

As it is my SW200 has only had half dozen outings and has only actually had a chance to see anything twice in the 6 months or so I have owned it.

Theres a lot to be said for the 130PM - its small, relatively portable an will give great views.

[jonathan]

Two years on and I'm seriously of the opinion that astrophotography was just a bit of a pie in the sky for me, I would never be able to produce the kind of images I would want to, nor put the time and effort into it to make the expense worth while (if I was that passionate about it I would have done it by now). I think, like Astro_Baby, I should just stick to observing.

With that in mind, I have been eyeing up the Sky-Watcher Evostar-80ED DS-Pro on a decent manual mount (EQ3?) I like the sound of being able to put it away in the solid aluminium case it comes with, no need to collimate (yes? no?), and should give me some great views. Opinions on this scope? It has a 600mm focal length, f/7.5, 2-inch dual-speed Crayford focuser, fixed dew shield, and weighs in at 2.6kg.

[pvaz]

I don't see the 80ED as a good all rounder but more of a specific scope for some uses.

Basically it haves 2 major limitations IMO:

1) 80mm aperture will be a great limit for DSOs.

2) The theoretical 160x max magnification seams too low for planetary use. I like the 200 to 300x range. (I use 240x on planets most of the time as it's the highest mag I can regularly get a stable image with.)

It's known to be excellent for DSO photography and wide field observation of large, bright DSOs. But weak on the 2 points I mentioned.

[great_bear]

Some questions:

1) What have you been using in the meantime?

(binos? or did you buy any scope at all?)

2) Do you live in the city or the country?

3) What's your budget?

[jonathan]

Hmm, then perhaps the 120 instead of the 80? There seems to be quite a price difference (as in lower than the 80) - maybe because of the ED and DS-Pro bits - will these really make a huge difference for a beginner / would they be worth splashing out the extra cash for? Hmm, seems the 120 might require an HQ5 mount which bumps the price up considerably. I doubt I'll be that fussed about missing out on a few DSOs to be honest, and the highest practical power (potential) is listed as x240 for the 80ED, is power not the same thing as magnification?

I haven't actually done a lot of star gazing in recent months, been too tired / lazy after work and the summer means that I'd have to stay up late to get the best views, plus it's been annoyingly cloudy when ever I did want to get out. I have a pair of 8x42 Bushnell bins but have hardly used them until last night (I have trouble getting a clear view through bins, plus there's the old shake-o-vision thing which tends to put me off). I have this week off work so I'm just bumming around the house doing all those little things I wanted to do but was too lazy for, star-gazing being one of them. Astronomy is probably something that I will just pick up from time to time when the mood takes me, I'm rarely into a hobby so much that I spend every spare moment doing it, but when I do want to do something I want to make sure I start out with the right kit as disappointment frequently ends in disbanding the hobby with me.

I live in the countryside, street lights in the village were replaced with dark-sky friendly ones so there's hardly any light pollution from them, but there are two main roads down in the valley so not much can be seen looking straight across in that direction. I can get some great views just in the back garden, or I could drive a couple of miles and be at the top of a hill out in the middle of nowhere.

I envisage spending up to 500 quid on a scope, and what ever a manual (EQ3-2?) mount and tripod costs (might like to fit motor drives later, we'll see how it goes). I want something that's easy to handle, easy to set up and maintain and packed away for easy storage when not in use (space is limited), but will give me that Wow! factor every time I use it. I won't be out every night but when I do go out I want it to be a great experience.

The Refractors are enticing as they offer just about everything I want right now - if I find that I want to see more detail then I'll worry about that later, probably have to think about a reflector but really I don't have room to keep a decent size one (which is what put me off buying before).

The Skywatcher 80ED DS-Pro is 435UKP, add 155UKP for an EQ3-2 mount, less than 600 for what I keep reading on here and elsewhere is a very nice telescope. Might look to buy one of these towards Christmas time.

[pvaz]

Refractors are great scopes but they are the least cost effective design.

I think you need to make up your mind on what's your goal then chose the best scope for that goal. From what I read it was a good all rounder for visual use so the definition of that is a Newtonian reflector, around 8". They can be a lot cheaper too.

If however you prefer a refractor for personal reasons then I think you can't go wrong with the 80ED, as long as you understand what it excels at and what it's not meant to do. Under a dark sky you can probably complete the messier's list with the 80ED, but the Herschel 400 and many Caldwell objects will be beyond it's capabilities.

Regarding planets, 160x will suffice for the moon, Jupiter and Saturn. Mars details will be much harder.

[great_bear]

One other telescope to consider is the TAL100RS (there's a well-written review by Astro_Baby here)

I know that Astro_Baby - like other TAL100 owners - is very fond of hers.

When it comes to mounts, remember that an Equatorial style mount is heavy (needs those counterweights) and - if you want it set-up properly - time-consuming to set-up and which has little benefit under manual operation.

You may find it more enjoyable to start with an Alt-Az style mount like the Vixen Porta II and see how you get on with that.

[jonathan]

I think you need to make up your mind on what's your goal then chose the best scope for that goal. From what I read it was a good all rounder for visual use so the definition of that is a Newtonian reflector, around 8". They can be a lot cheaper too.

Thank you for the advice.

I just want to see the stars, moons around Jupiter, the rings of Saturn, galaxies, nebulae... not that fussed if I can't see absolutely everything. I don't have a specific goal right now and probably will never have one, especially as I don't currently own any kind of telescope and have never looked through one at the stars. There's always time and the possibility to upgrade later!

The portability and storage aspects are very practical considerations for me, and if I have to do a lot of set up then that will put me off too, so yes it will be a compromise as I'm sure a Newtonian reflector would allow me to see more at a better price than a refractor, but I just don't have the space to keep one.

[jonathan]

When it comes to mounts, remember that an Equatorial style mount is heavy (needs those counterweights) and - if you want it set-up properly - time-consuming to set-up and which has little benefit under manual operation.

You may find it more enjoyable to start with an Alt-Az style mount like the Vixen Porta II and see how you get on with that.

I notice that particular mount is quite a bit more expensive than the EQ3-2, is that typical of Alt-Az mounts?

Not sure on the TAL100, looks rather large and hefty, and while it certainly looks to give superb views it did seem to suffer a little from colour problems.

[pvaz]

Thank you for the advice.

I just want to see the stars, moons around Jupiter, the rings of Saturn, galaxies, nebulae... not that fussed if I can't see absolutely everything. I don't have a specific goal right now and probably will never have one, especially as I don't currently own any kind of telescope and have never looked through one at the stars. There's always time and the possibility to upgrade later!

The portability and storage aspects are very practical considerations for me, and if I have to do a lot of set up then that will put me off too, so yes it will be a compromise as I'm sure a Newtonian reflector would allow me to see more at a better price than a refractor, but I just don't have the space to keep one.

"galaxies, nebulae" -> this is exactly where aperture comes in. Most galaxies/nebula are just gray smudges, under darkskies with a 200mm scope which gathers 625% more light then a 80m scope. The brightest ones will be visible but you won't see nearly as much detail.

If by portability you mean it needs to be small and lite then the refractor is a good option, you may also consider an SCT to fit this requirement. If you can handle something up to 25kg and 4feet long then an 8" dobsonian is the easiest to setup. You just put it on the ground, remove the caps and observe.

No matter which one you choose, it will get you started and busy for at least a year or 2. Any of the choices are great, though they have some diferences in their strong and weak points. Anyway there is no perfect scope and most people end up with a few.

[great_bear]

I notice that particular mount is quite a bit more expensive than the EQ3-2, is that typical of Alt-Az mounts?

For good ones, that is probably true unfortunately. Whilst equatorial mounts benefit from the inertia of the counterweights to provide smooth action, Alt-Az mounts need extra-super-smooth bearing design instead.

Some people use equatorial mounts in an "Alt-Az" configuration, by adjusting it to point directly upwards instead of ~at the North Star, but a genuine Alt-Az saves on lugging those counterweights about. From personal experience, every bit of faff saved counts.

Of course the ultimate faff-free all-round scope is a 6" Dobsonian - but you indicated a preference for refractors, and I do totally understand the appeal of that approach.

While it [TAL100RS] certainly looks to give superb views it did seem to suffer a little from colour problems.

Ah - you're the same as me then - I'm not one to tolerate colour edges either. If you're anti-heft as well, you'll definitely be after either an ED or APO refractor.

[jonathan]

Thanks for the further advice guys, it's very much appreciated.

pvaz - I had already assumed that the lovely photographs of nebulae were due to hours and hours of exposure and considerable investment in time and kit, just wasn't sure what could be seen with the naked eye through a small telescope. I'm not likely to put that kind of investment in so it looks like nebulae are out, at least until I have space, funds, and enthusiasm for a more appropriate setup.

I think for a Dobsonian my sloping garden would be a problem, negating any of the easy setup it would offer, and it sounds like it could be a tricky thing to transport safely to a better viewing location (and then find a suitable location to position it - not always possible out by the road side or in a muddy field).

I know it sounds like I'm just dismissing these alternatives but I just can't help but think that a refractor is still my best compromise, and yes I probably am like you great_bear!

[jonathan]

I'm wondering about the Skywatcher Evostar 80ED DS-Pro Outfit with a Skywatcher EQ5 Deluxe mount, grand total cost of 655.

I don't think I want to go for the whole Go-to thing and I'm unsure of the extra cost and effort involved with motorised mounts (which will require more precise setup and a power source too). A manual mount should do me to start off with as I look around at various objects, just to view them for the first time and maybe do some sketching; there certainly should be plenty to keep me busy if binocular viewing is anything to go by. I have also been thinking about storage - it may be possible to store a telescope in the garage, does anyone do this, is it advisable? It's far from hermetically sealed, indeed there's a permanent draft in the winter, but my bike doesn't rust so it can't be that bad in there. Is there much on a telescope / mount that would be sensitive to damp or cold if not used for a while?

If I find that I want to get into it more then I can buy a more powerful scope or upgrade the mount then, but to go out and spend 1,000 or more straight away without ever having looked through a telescope before, well that just sounds a bit daft to me. Some may say the same about spending 655, but for me I think that according to all that I have read indicates that this is probably the minimum price for the type of quality I would like to start off with. The EQ5 sounds like a very solid mount that should be good for almost any telescope I care to throw at it.

You can probably tell I am still um-ing and ar-ing over the whole thing.. I'm delaying spending so much money mainly for financial reasons, but as soon as those reasons go away I will be spending!