Advice for a Budget Telescope, please

[Shaun_Astro]

A 200p is great. Rock steady alt az mount, 200mm and no CA. I wonder why people spend ££££s on APOs when a £300 newt will show you much more. 

[Louis D]

6 hours ago, Shaun_Astro said:

A 200p is great. Rock steady alt az mount, 200mm and no CA. I wonder why people spend ££££s on APOs when a £300 newt will show you much more. 

To get higher contrast and sharper pinpoints by totally eliminating the central obstruction.  An off axis reflector (or large reflector masked between secondary vanes) gets you pretty close to that experience.

[Neil H]

Hi just in case your interested I have put my skywatcher 150/750 on the sky scan 2001 EQ3-2 up for sale , it's nice scope been flocked  and the rubber O rings been removed and springs fitted to make Collimation easier I fitted clock motor so it tracks , the mount is the heavy duty one not the cheap EQ1 or EQ2

It's £110 which is what I paid for it the motor was £50 so I am not making anything on it . It's on eBay for £150 but as a SGL member you get it for the £110 you can ring me 07564238825

[RobH2020]

My two cents: don't get the celestron 70az. 

I got it as my first scope and the scope itself is fine but the mount is a real pain, doesn't make viewing a pleasure. 

[johninderby]

Dobs are as mentioned above simply the best buy as you get the most scope for the money.

If you want  an Alt Az mounted scope you will have to pay more for something decent and usable. .

https://www.firstlightoptics.com/sky-watcher-az5-deluxe/sky-watcher-explorer-130ps-az5-deluxe.html

Edited February 29, 2020 by johninderby

[Dash1st]

Thanks again for all the help, but my wife, after watching & reading things, is already talking about wanting a new Barlow lens & possibly replacing the stock lenses. 

So I am again looking for some more help/guidance/advice from your good selves, as I know I will get nothing but good advice here.

The first lens she is talking about is a 5x Barlow lens, so I can't afford an expensive one, but I don't want something that's cheap & nasty. So can you possibly help again?

Many thanks

[johninderby]

A 5x barlow will be a waste of time. You can only increase magnification so far before everything is just a fuzzy blur. A 2x barlow will be a lot more use.

Have a read of this thread.

 

Edited February 29, 2020 by johninderby

[vlaiv]

13 minutes ago, Dash1st said:

Thanks again for all the help, but my wife, after watching & reading things, is already talking about wanting a new Barlow lens & possibly replacing the stock lenses. 

So I am again looking for some more help/guidance/advice from your good selves, as I know I will get nothing but good advice here.

The first lens she is talking about is a 5x Barlow lens, so I can't afford an expensive one, but I don't want something that's cheap & nasty. So can you possibly help again?

Many thanks

Budget will be helpful, but in general you don't need to use barlow with that scope.

For most purposes you want to limit yourself to about x200 maybe x300 on a good night. That is magnification. With 1200mm focal length this means 6mm or maybe 4mm at extremes.

If you really want a barlow then get either GSO x2.5 barlow (sold under Revelation brand in UK, I believe), or maybe go for ES x2 focal extender - that is telecentric lens.

I would recommend 32mm eyepiece - like GSO 32mm Plossl as wide field eyepiece - cheap option (but good option), or ES68 / 28 as a bit better and more expensive alternative.

25mm Eyepiece that you have with your scope is very usable so keep it and use it.

Next you want an eyepiece in 16-18mm range. This will probably be your main DSO eyepiece for galaxies. Simple plossl will do there as well, but there are other wider field eyepieces that are as good.

I would also recommend something like 6mm as your planetary eyepiece.

I have two in that focal length or there about ES62 5.5mm and ES82 6.7mm.

Explore Scientific are good but a bit more expensive lines of eyepieces (68 series is good, so is 82 degrees). People often recommend BST Starguiders as very good cheap eyepieces that are better than stock EPs and better than regular plossls - so that is viable option as well.

[Louis D]

I've only heard of planetary imagers using 5x barlows effectively.  I've got a 3x barlow and never use it.  A 2x barlow is far more useful.  If you come across a used Meade 140 2x barlow for $40 or so, get it.  They were 1990s Japanese made 3 element barlows of fantastic quality.

Do either you or your wife have strong astigmatism in your observing eyes?  If so, you might benefit from wearing eyeglasses at the eyepiece when viewing at lower powers.  This would require eyepieces with longer eye relief.  If on the other hand neither of you have much if any astigmatism, you can get by with short eye relief eyepieces that tend to be less expensive because the lenses internal to the eyepiece can be made smaller and yet achieve the same view as the longer eye relief eyepieces.

If the ES82 series prices are too dear ($200+ here in the US), the Meade 5000 UWA are cheaper ($100+ here in the US) and tend to view very similarly.  There's also the OVL Nirvana UWA-82º eyepieces that are quite affordable, though limited in focal length selection.

The BST Starguiders and Meade HD-60s are also good choices.  I did a write up on them here.  If you want a really wide field of view at lower power with good correction in the central 50% (and strong field curvature beyond that), the generic 30mm 80º eyepieces on ebay are very serviceable for the money.

[Ricochet]

I've got an 8" dob and for DSOs all I use is a 28mm, 14mm, 10mm and a 2x barlow. Most DSO viewing is best at relatively low powers and, in the UK at least, the atmosphere will often be the limiting factor for planetary observations. For the most interesting planets, Jupiter and Saturn, a 7mm is probably the sweet spot on most nights. 

[fiestazetecmk2]

Well said that man 

spot on.

[Dash1st]

Hi again all,

I have another question......

Can someone tell me what the '2" Eyepiece Adapter' is used for, as there's no mention of it in the instruction manual.

 

I'm baffled, so I know this is the best place to ask.

Many thanks

[vlaiv]

It is for use with 2" eyepieces.

In order to reach focus, you must place eyepiece at certain distance to primary mirror. This is what the focuser is for, but it might not have enough travel, depending on eyepiece design used. This extension let's you use 2" eyepieces and puts them in good position for you to reach focus with your focuser.

You can put 2" eyepiece directly in focuser, but odds are that you will need to rack out focuser very much and you might not even reach focus in that configuration.

[ollypenrice]

On 25/02/2020 at 21:58, Dash1st said:

Now you've thrown a spanner in the works. 🤔

You got me looking & I've found the same telescope as you have shown locally, but he's asking for £100, but it comes with an EQ2 motor. I looked it up online & it seems to be £195, without the motor, but is a motor any good or just a gimmick?

What do I do? 😵

Buy a Dobsonian, not that EQ2. It is a wobbly mount and offers equatorial tracking which you don't need and will require polar aligning.

Oh, you did! Good choice.

Your main priority now needs to be learning your way around sky charts and knowing what to look for. Turn Left at Orion is rightly popular.

Olly

Edited March 2, 2020 by ollypenrice

[bingevader]

BST Starguiders are the way to go with EPs I think.

If they'd been around when I started buying EPs, I'm not sure I'd have bought anything else.

Until I started making the move to 82 degree EPs that is!

Saying that, a good 6mm like the WO SPL is fab for the planets when the conditions are good.