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My next telescope


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I am pretty sure I introduced myself on here but I can't find any trace of my thread so please don't think I'm just asking for advice without say "hello".

On a whim I bought a Jessops 76700 for £20 and after playing with it for an hour or so I have decided to go for something a little better.

I have been looking at the "Skywatcher Explorer 130P SynScan AZ GOTO Telescope" and have been checking reviews but as a total newbie I don't know how impartial they are so could anyone advise me if this would be an ideal scope for me please? Also, it is at the top of my budget.

Thanks,

Gary.

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I’ve had a couple of 130 telescopes, the Skywatcher Heritage 130p and a celestron astromaster, neither of them were goto but optically very good telescopes.

is goto something you definitely want? Based on the telescope you selected I guess the budget is around £300.

are you looking just for visual or do your thoughts turn to astrophotography?

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Hi Andy, 

At the moment it's going to be for visual but who knows which way the hobby will take me?

I was told that GOTO would assist me as I have no knowledge of what's up there yet.

I've just noticed that I should have posted this in the "Equipment" section, sorry.

Edited by gtfreight
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Gotos are great. I was initially told when starting out not to get a goto from a telescope retailer, but to ‘learn the night sky’, I ignored them and love having a goto - but each to their own I guess.

I can’t comment on that particular scope goto but I’ve owned a celestron Nexstar 127slt, which is very similar, from a mount point of view and found it to be good. 

i think all in all it’s a good scope, there is also the AZ Gti range from skywatcher:

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

but to be clear I have no experience which this scope setup at all - so hopefully someone else will be along and able to help better than I have.

Edited by Andy38416
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Hello Gary, and welcome (back) to SGL.

I am a big fan of the Synscan GOTO system. As a beginner, I made the "mistake" of buying the Celestron Astromaster 130EQ-MD. The optical tube is similar to the 130p that you mention, and is a good compromise of size, weight, focal-length, and light capture, but I found the equatorial mount counter-intuitive, and difficult to use. About 6-months later, I bought the Skywatcher Skymax 127 with the Synscan handset. The mount is the same as the Explorer, but with a Maksutov optical tube. The 130p optical tube is a good all-rounder, and makes it easier to see wider star groups than the 127mm Mak. (I still sometimes use the Astromaster 130's optical tube on the Skymax mount - see below.)

1375761439_Astromaster130onSkymaxmount(R).jpg.9bb5c86c99203a33ebd179f4361ad7d1.jpg

Andy has suggested a gti-wifi mount. I have a Celestron "Cosmos" wifi mount, similar to the Skywatcher one, and using my tablet in place of the Synscan handset. I have found it much easier to use a handset, with "real" buttons, rather than virtual buttons on the tablet's touchscreen, particularly whilst looking through the eyepiece.

Synscan's initial alignment process is accurate and, after doing some homework, I found it quick to use. I use the "Brightest Star" alignment, and, using the (free) Stellarium program on my PC, produced a table of 14 bright stars, visible from my observing position, and, for dusk in the middle of each month of the year, identified 3, 4 or 5 of these stars, with good azimuth and altitude separation, to make the GOTO accurate. I can now be observing in under 5 minutes.

The Synscan GOTO system is no substitute for (slowly) learning the night sky, and how it changes over a year, but it makes it easier to find fainter objects; and the associated tracking keeps the objects centred as you observe, and change eyepieces to find the optimum magnification (or go indoors for a call of nature or make a hot drink).

There is no "ideal" amateur telescope system, but I would suggest that your Explorer 130p is a good place to start.

Geoff

 

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Thanks all for your help.

Geoff, thank you for the welcome back. I did show an interest about 12 months ago and registered on a couple of forums but didn't realise I had previously registered on here. I tried to log in just incase but I wasn't recognized so I presumed I hadn't. 

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39 minutes ago, Geoff Lister said:

Andy has suggested a gti-wifi mount. I have a Celestron "Cosmos" wifi mount, similar to the Skywatcher one, and using my tablet in place of the Synscan handset. I have found it much easier to use a handset, with "real" buttons, rather than virtual buttons on the tablet's touchscreen, particularly whilst looking through the eyepiece.

Good point, I didn’t get on well using the WiFi adapter in my 8se so returned it to continue using the handset.

Edited by Andy38416
Massive editing mess up
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I have just called Rother Valley Optics and the Skywatcher Explorer 130P SynScan AZ GOTO has just sold out and it could be several weeks before they're back in stock. 

Oh well, it gives mr time to consider other options. They did have the 102 version at the same price which they said has a higher mag but a narrower field of view.  I don't know if that would be suitable for me.

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46 minutes ago, gtfreight said:

I have just called Rother Valley Optics and the Skywatcher Explorer 130P SynScan AZ GOTO has just sold out and it could be several weeks before they're back in stock. 

Oh well, it gives mr time to consider other options. They did have the 102 version at the same price which they said has a higher mag but a narrower field of view.  I don't know if that would be suitable for me.

If it's the 102 Maksutov design, I wouldn't consider it. It's fine for really bright objects like the moon and planets, but it's not really got the aperture for much deep sky work, unless you can get to dark sky locations.

I bought the 102mm as that's what I could afford at the time, but I should have pushed the budget to go for the 127mm Mak instead.

I picked one up second hand a few years ago and it's now my go to GOTO scope.

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I had a 127 mak on an AZ-GTi but now replaced with a Bresser 100 f/15 mak which gets used a lot more than the old 127 mak. A super portable setup but as noted above best for lunar / planetary. I have a few other scopes so no problem with the mak being a specialist scope. 

A nice companion to the mak would be a dob for DSOs. Not as portable but simple to setup and use.

36E183B1-D0C9-4D4E-8D7B-B3D6B62073B5.jpeg

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1 hour ago, gtfreight said:

I have just called Rother Valley Optics and the Skywatcher Explorer 130P SynScan AZ GOTO has just sold out and it could be several weeks before they're back in stock. 

You could always try the widescreen centre, they might have one if you give them a call.

https://www.widescreen-centre.co.uk/sky-watcher-explorer-130p-synscan-az-goto-computerised-reflector-telescope.html

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An interesting observation about using the AZ GTi with both the app and a handset (I started with a SynScan and bought the AZ GTi earlier this year).

I'm currently out at the Astrofarm astronomy centre in the Charente, so able to make good use of the higher proportion of useable nights for observing.  

The alignment with the App is very straightforward and much easier than using the handset - the GPS provides the location and time/date info behind the scenes, and both the Two-Star and Level and North alignments are very straightforward.  There's a useful feature of the L&N alignment method that seems to be designed for cloud ridden UK observers - I'll come back to that...

As regards the use of a handset, I can certainly see the point that having a physical handset can make it easier to make adjustments at the eyepiece by touch, but what I notice is that if I've aligned using the app, and adjust using the handset, the object then isn't tracked, so if I have used the handset at all, I use the app to do the final up and right (even if that's only momentarily) and the scope will track after that. 

Another feature that I'm going to explore is that the SynScan app can be used with the telescope control built into the Pro or Plus versions of Sky Safari 6. This is easier done on Android I'm told,  so long as battery optimisation is switched off for the Synscan app.  On iPhones, you need to have two devices, one to have the Synscan running, and the other to have the Sky Safari running. I've not tried it myself, but the weather is looking good here for tomorrow, so that will be something i'll explore. A post below by Captain Magenta indicates that this may not be the current position, as s/he has both working on an iPhone8

About the Level and North and its useful feature: if you want to look at a planet or the Moon (so you don't need a GOTO, but you do want to have tracking), you don't really need to check the alignment of the two stars - and in principle you don't even need to be able to see them.  So, let it go to where it thinks Arcturus is - click OK, then let it go to where it thinks Altair is (or whatever the two stars are). If you started pretty close to Level and North, then your alignment may be a few degrees off, but the tracking will be good enough.  I found this useful when I had my first view of Saturn earlier in the year - most of the rest of the sky was either clouded out, or behind the trees in our garden, but Saturn was just about visible.  So I 'faked' a L&N alignment and did a GOTO of Saturn - it was about 5 degrees out, but easily found in the finder and was then easily tracked for almost 1/4 hour.

Edited by Gfamily
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They are both made by Synta and use the same OTA. The mounts are very similar but use different software but work pretty much the same. Some prefer the Celestron alignment procedure.

Nothing to,choose between them really. 

The SW AZ-GTi is a much better mount though but more expensive.

Edited by johninderby
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This photo shows the similarity between the Celestron and Skywatcher mounts.

Comp3(R).jpg.af7498d5062b28bfd60e20ab85e8d4c8.jpg

The Sky Prodigy has a built-in 640x480 web-cam and Starsense software, and a battery-backed real-time clock; so alignment is one button-press away, if you are observing from the same site.

Geoff

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I have just been talking to Simon at Harrison Telescopes and he has informed me of things I wasn't even aware of. When I was looking at the sky with my £20 jobbie I was looking through my front window which I now know this is a big no-no. He also said that the 130 I'm looking at is more suitable for deep space.

This is a hobby my wife and I are looking at doing together and I'm not sure how keen she'll be outdoors in the winter months. 

The model with the wifi built in was also mentioned which is now worth considering. 

I also enquired about a 150 and Simon said that it would be a good option but where do you stop and they quickly get heavier also.

I'm getting more confused the more I research this hobby.

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There will always be someone who says ‘spent more and get a bigger telescope’. It might be worth looking at something cheap, like the skywatcher heritage 130p, nothing motorised or goto about it but it’s a good little scope and will see if your interested in the winter months without spending huge amounts of money. It would need a table or something to sit on though.
 

or if you really want a goto the skywatcher you have seen or the celestron Nexstar slt range are good entry levels. It’s certainly can be very confusing, but you definitely need to be outside, not even inside with a window open is any good. I’m a little sceptical of the WiFi only range, I really struggled when I brought a WiFi adapter, when your looking in an eyepiece a proper button to move the scope slightly is so much easier then having to take your eye off the eyepiece to look at a screen button.

my advice would be to have a good think and ask as many questions on here as you need to.

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1 hour ago, happy-kat said:

I've a goto mount and it has 'freedom find' a skywatcher feature and I do like to use it along with goto, means the mount can be disengaged and moved by hand, not all goto mounts can. Useful for if power goes flat.

A very good point.

There's two ways that can work. 'Freedom Find' has a way of keeping track any movements  you make manually (using encoders), so once you have it aligned you can move it manually and you can still use the GOTO.

There are also mounts that have clutches, so you can move it manually, but then it's lost alignment.

For SkyWatcher, the AZ GTi has Freedom Find, there's also the AZ GTe that only has clutches. 

For any of the mounts listed, the scope can take other telescopes if they're on the same type of dovetail bracket. So you could look at the Heritage 130p now and think about mounting it on a GOTO mount later.

One thing I've heard (but I don't know if it's still an issue) is that Celestron mounts were less happy with rechargeable batteries. I've not had a particular problem with SkyWatcher mounts using rechargeable AA cells.

Edited by Gfamily
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I am now actually looking at a "Skywatcher Star Discovery 150P GOTO Parabolic Reflector Telescope"          which has the "Freedom Find" feature.  Am I correct in thinking this is a similar but bigger and better version of the 130 I was looking at?

 

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