Newbies

[Hillside]

Hi we are just starting our journey at star gazing and I am on the look out for a good starter telescope my my daughters and I to use - budget is around 600 pounds but may spend a bit more for our first outing - any advice or pointers greatly appreciated.

[laudropb]

Hello and a warm welcome to the SGL. We need to know a little more before we can make any suggestions. What ages are your daughters? where are you going to observe from? If it is your garden, then how dark are your skies ? 

 

[Kyle Allen]

Welcome!

Here is a good place to start: https://www.firstlightoptics.com/beginner-telescopes.html

There are a huge variety of different telescope designs and mounts with their own pros and cons. To help you decide on the best one for you, it would be useful to consider a few things such as what objects you want to view, whether it needs to be easily portable, and whether or not GoTo is a requirement. Then people will be able to give you the help you need rather than just throwing options at you! 🙂

[Hillside]

My daughters are both in their teens. We live in the country and have very little light pollution. Ideally we would be using it outside until I have converted the shed to accommodate something

[Gina]

Welcome to SGL - lovely to see you here.

[feverdreamer1]

Hi,

After a few years I made my way back into astronomy having recently taken up astrophotography. If what you're going to do is purely visual, with no astrophotography intended (at least deep sky) then you cant go wrong with a dobsonian (clarifier: dobsonian is the mount it is on, the actual scope's name is a reflector, because it reflects the light off mirrors to get to your eyes, different from a refractor, which makes light pass through different lenses to get to your eyepiece) I'd recommend you get a 8 or 10 inch and invest the rest of the money in some good eyepieces. Only downside is having to move the scope manually, but this makes it even more fun, as you will learn the sky very easily! And I'm sure your daughters will enjoy it too. I dont know if you're aware but dobsonian's don't have a GoTo,(which essentially is like an automated finder) so you'll have to learn position of objects through methods like star hopping, which is really fun, also remember:

Less technology = Less problems 

 

Forgot to mention dobsonian are not famous for their portability, so bear that in mind, but as you mention, if you have dark skies, I reckon this won't be an issue

Anyway, that's my 2 cents on this.

 

Clear skies,

S

[Dr Strange]

Welcome to SGL. I would strongly suggest the Skywatcher AZ-GTi and 130mm Newtonian package from First Light Optics. Link is below. It comes with everything you need to observe and can do both star hopping or GOTO.  It is also well under budget at £359. I would use the extra funds budgeted to get a comfortable chair. It is for your eyes not your rear. You see more when comfortably seated. I would add to that the Pocket Sky Atlas from Sky and Telescope. It will act as your roadmap to the stars. Much like the Thomas Guide we used to use before the advent of GPS and the like. Lastly I would also get Turn Right at Orion as well. 

https://www.firstlightoptics.com/sky-watcher-az-gti-wifi/sky-watcher-explorer-130ps-az-gti.html

Edited July 22, 2020 by Dr Strange

[sloz1664]

Hi and a very warm welcome to Lounge

Steve

[Floater]

Welcome. Hope you and your daughters have lots of fun on your journey of discovery. 🙂

[banjaxed]

Hi and welcome to SGL.

[PeterCPC]

Hello and welcome.

Peter

[Gina]

I think a system with GOTO would be very helpful.  It would enable going straight to the object to view from a phone or laptop app.  Makes it much easier.  The alternative is "star hopping" for which a good knowledge of the night sky is needed.  Such systems were very much more expensive when I started and fewer available.  On the other hand, I know some people prefer "star hopping" to the higher tech approaches but my feeling is that your girls are well into tech.

[RT65CB-SWL]

Hi @Hillside + daughters and welcome to SGL. 

[Timdog]

From the perspective of a newbie myself, rather than any great experience these are my thoughts. I started with a skywatcher heritage 130, very quickly found that the positives were how quick and easy it was to set up the dobsonian mount and get on with viewing, the downside was having to move it to different tables to place it on. I’m fairly lucky in not being surrounded by houses so I have a good open sky but still need to change from front to back of the house to avoid some trees. So fairly quickly I bought a stainless steel tripod with alt/az mount with slow motion controls( explore scientific twilight 1, other models available) this greatly improved things to me, easier to pick up and move around on tripod and the slo mo controls are great for keeping targets in view, it’s amazing how quickly things drift out of view.

Then upgrading the standard eyepieces to a good range, personally I went on recommendation with BST starguiders, great value and I’m happy with performance at this stage. 

Although trying to learn/ find way around the sky with the aid of book/charts and apps such as Stellarium and SkyView is part of the fun and experience I also wanted to add in the option of just setting up and using a GOTO system to either find things for me and allow the family to quickly be able to come out and view. So I bought the skywatcher  az gti which I would recommend but need to be aware of weight limits

I have avoided the EQ mount system in favour of the easier to use alt/az simply because at this time I only plan on visual and not photography( that may come later)

This all eats into your initial budget unless you are happy to have initial expense and then keeping adding as the interest grows.  If, with my limited experience I was starting again I would buy all of the above but I am probably going to either sell heritage 130 and buy the heritage 150 which is still great to pack up and take away with me or buy a skywatcher 200 explorer for extra aperture which will mount on my tripod but too heavy for my goto. 

Just a few thoughts 

Edited July 23, 2020 by Timdog

[Timdog]

Meant to add, there are great packages available if you want to start off with a set up which includes the telescope, with tripod (stainless steel is sturdier if ultra light portability isn’t essential)  and manual or WiFi control.  The included eyepieces are ok to start with but you will almost certainly want to allow for improving them, they are useable but best described as budget quality to keep initial purchase price low.  You will find loads of very helpful advice from people on here who really know their stuff.

[Mr Spock]

Hi, welcome to SGL 

[Neil H]

Hi and welcome to the amazing hobby were the sky is the biggest window to amazing things your eye can behold

[Dave Lloyd]

Hi there and welcome. 

[Pete Presland]

Hi welcome to SGL from Peter in Bedfordshire 🙂

[Starwatcher2001]

Hiya and a warm welcome aboard.

This is a wonderful hobby and quite addictive.  As you are already in the countryside and have dark skies, perhaps portability (as in putting it in the car to take it elsewhere), might not be a major factor. You will of course need to take it outside and bringing it back in.

I too would recommend a "Dobsonion", as it's a simple design and much of what you'll be paying will be spent on the optics. As you may know, telescopes are not so much about magnification as collecting light. Collecting more of those photons means a brighter and more detailed image, so in simple terms the bigger the mirror (assuming you chose a reflecting telescope), the better.  Light is of course collected across the AREA of the mirror, and you'd get 78% more the light collected by an 8 inch mirror than a 6 inch - which isn't always intuitive.  The mirror is one thing that you can't really upgrade without getting a new tube, or entire telescope. Better eyepieces and other goodies can be bought as you all progress in your hobby.

Learning the night sky and "star-hopping" to find cool objects to look at is great fun, especially as there'll be three of you doing this together.  You can start doing this before you get your scope, just get yourself a good sky guide. I started with "Night Sky" by Collins, which shows the necessary constellations, and which ones are "up" in the sky during the month.  Learning a bit of the mythology is quite fun too, especially with kids. I always think of "Auriga the charioteer", "Perseus the hero", and "Bootes the herdsman", whenever I look up.

Don't be disappointed when the image in your scope doesn't look like those glossy photographs in the books. They were probably taken with long exposure photography and the view through the eyepiece is never as good. However, there are a lot of beautiful objects that can really be appreciated. My wife's favourite is a "double" star called Albireo, which has a beautiful golden star and a blue star orbiting each other. Star clusters and globulars can look amazing, as can planetary nebulas (look like donuts).  With say an 8" and dark skies, you'll likely be able to see many galaxies, and even make out some of the structure of them.  Observing is a learned skill, and you'll find you'll see more detail and be able to find fainter objects the more experience you get. You'll never forget the first time you see Saturns rings or the moons around Jupiter.  Observing the craters on the moon is also an experience you'll probably never tire of, and one of the few objects you can look at during the day!

If you already have any binoculars, bring them outside too. Looking up at the Milky Way through almost any bins can be quite an experience, and they can be very helpful when looking for things.

All the best,

Mark.

Edited July 25, 2020 by Starwatcher2001
Edited to add a few bits