Jumping in, but don't want to have to upgrade soon!

[MikeK02048]

Hi all.  I want to get into visual astronomy and astrophotography.  I had a telescope when I was a kid and loved it.  I was this close (my index finger and thumb are about 1/2 inch apart) to buying a nice telescope, and then I had kids and that was that.  It's now 30 years later, and I want to get back into it.  The bad news is that I'm too old to make this a lifelong pursuit.  The good news is that I can afford much more than I could when I was younger.  

 

I'm primarily interested in deep sky objects, but I also would like my equipment to be capable of solar system astronomy as well.

I have some constraints...I won't buy anything made in China, and I prefer to buy things made in USA.  From all I'm reading, a good quality refractor is the way to go, along with a really good equitorial mount.  For example, I am considering the following setup:

https://www.stellarvue.com/svx102t/

http://www.losmandy.com/gm811g.html

I realize there's a lot more to it than jsut the telescope and mount.  But let's just focus on these for now.  And as I said in the title of this post, I want a setup that I can grow into, as opposed to something I'll outgrow in a few short years.

If you all had about $6-7K to spend on a telescope and mount, what would you do?

 

Thanks much!  

Mike (in the Boston area)

Edited July 20, 2020 by MikeK02048

[John]

Most of us are happy with scopes that come from the far east, Europe, Russia, the UK and the US Mike.

Restricting it to just USA made ones will reduce the options and probably the suggestions hugely.

We are a worldwide forum

 

 

[MikeK02048]

Thanks John.  As I said, I only eliminate products made in China.  I'm happy to consider others.  For example, I hear good things about William Optics made in Taiwan.

[John]

6 minutes ago, MikeK02048 said:

Thanks John.  As I said, I only eliminate products made in China.  I'm happy to consider others.  For example, I hear good things about William Optics made in Taiwan.

I don't think most on here are bothered where things are made to be honest with you.

 

[Ant]

21 minutes ago, John said:

 

We are a worldwide forum

 

 

Some might say truly international. Lol

[Mr Spock]

All life forms are welcome here, even me 

[cletrac1922]

Mike

First of all welcome from Land Down Under

For purely visual, you cannot go far wrong with either a Skywatcher 200mm or 250mm Flex Dob

Easy to use, just plunk on the ground, then using spotting scope, go to object you want to view

Couple of things as well

Get a right angle spotting scope, as saves laying on the ground when  tying to spot objects directly overhead

The base been chipboard material, put down a small waterproof tarp, to stop moisture in the ground damaging the base

The attached pic is of my 250mm flex Dob, and in background with shroud fitted is a 200mm flex Dob

The Dob comes with a 10mm and 25mm eyepiece

In addition, I use a 15mm and 17mm wideangle eyepiece as well, even though I have a 2X barlow, have rarely used it

Hope I have been of assistance

John    

 

[michael.h.f.wilkinson]

Planetary and DSO imaging have almost diametrically opposed requirements, as for the former aperture is king, and slow scopes to match the pixel size of the camera to the Nyquist sampling frequency of the scope, whereas for the latter short, fast scope is the much preferred tool. The Stellarvue 4" F/7 would probably already require a focal reducer for best results on many targets. Likewise, the requirements for the mount are very different: planetary imaging requires far less in the way of accuracy in polar alignment and tracking or guiding than DSO imaging. Of course, a mount solid enough for DSO work is certainly going to be great for planetary stuff.

For that reason, a minimum of two scopes, taking turns on a solid EQ mount would be best. I have a Celestron C8 on a Vixen Great Polaris mount, which is my main observing and planetary tool. With a 0.63x reducer it might be usable for smaller DSOs but getting that to track or guide with enough precision would be hard. For planets and the moon it is a killer:

For DSO imaging and wide-field observing, I have an APM 80 mm F/6, which gets results like these:

I have recently got a third scope, a Meade SN-6 6" F/5 Schmidt-Newtonian. This is great for smaller DSOs and should be a good planetary imaging and observing scope as well, as it has considerably more aperture than the little 80mm refractor. Here are some results on galaxies

 

I haven't tried it on planets, but it works very nicely on the moon. The Schmidt-Newtonian and Maksutov-Newtonian designs are perhaps the closest thing to an alround performing scope. Meade Schmidt-Newtonians can sometimes be had for a song (mine cost just EUR 165 for the OTA). Mak-Newts are still made, but they are considerably more expensive. Both designs have better field correction than regular Newtonians, and lack the diffraction spikes cause by the support of the secondary. Both are also heavier and prone to dewing up of the corrector plate, so a dew shield and dew band are required. 

 

 

 

[MikeK02048]

Michael W. - Your images are fantastic!  What does "match the pixel size of the camera to the Nyquist sampling frequency of the scope" mean.  What is a focal reducer and why would I need one?  I'm a photograper, so I understand what a "fast" lens is.  It basically means that the maximum aperture is large, so you can use faster shutter speeds.  But when you say that for DSO, aperture is king, it means to me that you need a larger aperture which means a faster scope.  But then you say for plnetary targets, you need a fast scope.  So I'm confused.