Greetings and Clear Skies to you all

[SpaceForce]

Hi Friends,

I am very new to this group and actually joined today only.

Since childhood I loved to watch skies and used to play a game of star counting. This is because I grew up in very remote place where there was no electricity for hundreds of miles and a typical night with clear skies is feast for eyes. Since then I had an inherent reverence to the heaven.

Long story short, now after 4 decades, I am now in most light polluted cities and miss those days of wonderful nights where I still remember seeing milky-way covering the entire sky. So now I am in need of telescope to return to sky gazing once again.

I bought a 20x80 binoculars and slowly looking to get a good  startup telescope gear for visual and gradually capture some photos of planets, clusters, galaxies etc...

Could you suggest what kind of telescopes should I buy as first telescope? Refractor Vs SCTs. My budget to start with is around 1000 GBP. ( I know it is a tiny budget, but... )

So wish me good.

Thanks for reading my introduction.

Peace and Clear Skies.

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Floater]

Welcome. I hope you have lots of fun deciding which scope you want and ‘rediscovering’ the sky. 🙂

[cletrac1922]

Welcome from Land Down Under

John

[Mr Spock]

Welcome to SGL 

You could ask your question here https://stargazerslounge.com/forum/186-getting-started-equipment-help-and-advice/ as more people will see it.

[PeterCPC]

Hello and welcome.

Peter

[rwilkey]

Hi SpaceForce, a warm welcome from me too!

[Dave Lloyd]

Hi and welcome. Those binoculars sound the business. 

[laudropb]

Hello and a warm welcome to the SGL.

[banjaxed]

Hi and welcome to SGL. My first scope (highly recommended on this site) was a Skywatcher 200P dobsonian and it has never disappointed me yet and have no intention of parting with it. Mine is on a platform trolley which can be wheeled out and ready to go in 1 minute. It is also well below your budget. Enjoy whatever scope you buy.

[sloz1664]

Hi and a very warm welcome to the Lounge

Steve

[ronl]

Hello, and welcome to the community, hope you enjoy your time here in SGL,

it's not easy choosing a new scope, take your time and ask lots of questions,

good luck, I will see you around the forums.

Clear Sky's.

[Pete Presland]

Hi welcome to SGL from Peter in Bedfordshire 🙂

[Dr Strange]

Welcome! That is a hefty budget in terms of getting started. The big questions are do you like the idea of hunting down something and until you get good at it only looking at 2-3 objects a night? Do you just want to look at stuff and have everything else fade into the background? Do you like both? How bad is your light pollution? 

I am going to assume you have city level light pollution.

If the answer is you want to hunt for things I would suggest the Skywatcher Skyliner 200p Dobsonian. 130-150mm is considered the entry point for a beginner to really see stuff out there. the 200p is a totally manual setup that requires you to hunt for the objects you want to see. I would suggest a Telrad and a RACI (Right Angle Corrected Image) finderscope upgrade to the scope. This will make it easier to hunt for things. This is also the least expensive option. It will set you back about £570. 

If the answer is you want everything to fade into the background I would recommend the Celestron Nexstar 8SE telescope with an Explore Scientific 82 degree 14mm and 8.8mm eyepiece. Along with the 25mm eyepiece it comes with you will have a good range of options. However it is going to be the most expensive option at about £1,200. It is fully computerized and will track an object while you look at it in the eyepiece (EP). 

If the answer is both then I highly recommend the Skywatcher Explorer 130mm newtonian on a AZ-GTi mount. I would add to this a Telrad to replace the red dot finder and a RACI finderscope. It is £470. I like this one a lot. It lets you star hop if you want or use GOTO to have the mount move the telescope for you. 

Regardless of the option you choose the two things I would add are a comfortable adjustable height chair and the Pocket Sky Atlas (PSA) from Sky and Telescope. The chair is for your eyes not your rear end. You see more if you are seated comfortably. And the PSA is your map of the night sky. If you are star hopping it shows you the stars to use to get to what you want to see and has instructions on how to make a tool to see what you would see in the Telrad and the finder as well as the main telescope as you star hop and hunt. For the GOTO end of things it is a nice map by the season of the year to see what is out there to look at.