I am a beginner, what can I expect from the ''Skywatcher Telescope N 150/750 Explorer 150P EQ3-2''?

[Ricochet]

Planets will be on colour, DSOs will be black and white. 

[Geoff Lister]

13 hours ago, MBErdogan said:

Does the skymax 150 or the skymax 127 fit on the AZ4 mount?

This was a photo that I took a while ago, showing a range of optical tubes and their associated mounts.

They all have the "standard" Vixen/Skywatcher/Celestron/... dovetail bar, and any one of these OTAs will fit any one of these mounts, although some of the longer OTA/smaller mount combinations have altitude limitations.

However, some mounts have similar mechanical interfaces, the AZ4 mount is similar, but with manual controls to adjust azimuth and elevation.

The Skyprodigy mount has a plastic cowl round the dovetail clamp, to give a snug fit with the 70 mm refractor OTA, and I had to trim it back to fit my 127 Mak.

11 hours ago, MBErdogan said:

will I be able to see planets (like Mars, Saturn, Jupiter etc.) in color or will it be in black-white?

In colour, although those of Saturn are delicate shade variations of light cream. Unfortunately Jupiter and Saturn are now very low targets at dusk, and, at  52 degrees N, you will have to wait until about early May before the Sun moves out of the way, and they become visible at dawn, just before the Sun rises, and August for a better evening view. You will be looking at low altitude through the Earth's atmosphere, so visibility will be very variable.

With my 127mm Mak., I have seen the blue/green colours of Uranus and Neptune. It was a challenge, first to find them amongst the background stars, and then, after using different size eyepieces, to optimise magnification V clarity, and then look for a long time until the atmospheric conditions gave me enough photons for my eye to see in colour - worth the effort.

Geoff

[MBErdogan]

Does the skymax 150 fit on az-GTi wifi goto mount with tripod, the connection of the mount with tripod is 3/8''?

Edited January 2, 2021 by MBErdogan

[johninderby]

A bit too heavy for the AZ-GTi mount.

The Celestron C6 SCT will work fine on the mount though as it is much lighter than the Skymax 150.

Edited January 2, 2021 by johninderby

[MBErdogan]

Well, I think I know enough. I have decided to go for the skymax 127 with az-gti mount. Good choice?

[Ande]

I had one of those. It was a cracking ‘scope, and nice and portable too.

[MBErdogan]

Is it recommended to buy a 30 mm Vixen eyepiece and a 5 mm Vixen eyepiece together with the skymax 127? Or isn't a 5 mm needed as you already get a 2x barlow lens and a 10 mm eyepiece?

Edited January 2, 2021 by MBErdogan

[Andy0306]

Just a thought about your balcony issue.

I suspect the hand railing is 1100mm high, so with a short Mak on the tripod, you would only need to have it just above the rails. Therefore you wouldn't need to fully extend the legs, keeping the footprint of the tripod smaller. 

[MBErdogan]

On 02/01/2021 at 21:56, MBErdogan said:

Is it recommended to buy a 30 mm Vixen eyepiece and a 5 mm Vixen eyepiece together with the skymax 127? Or isn't a 5 mm needed as you already get a 2x barlow lens and a 10 mm eyepiece?

Which eyepieces are recommended for the skymax 127? I want to see almost all of the planets in our solar system in descent detail.

[Ricochet]

3 hours ago, MBErdogan said:

Which eyepieces are recommended for the skymax 127? I want to see almost all of the planets in our solar system in descent detail.

"Decent detail" probably only applies to Jupiter and Saturn, possibly Mars when it is close enough and the Moon if you're counting that as a planet. Mercury and Venus are just phases really while Neptune and Uranus will be small blue discs. For planetary work I would advise looking for some binoviewers that are in your budget and through trial figure out which barlows/gpcs you need and the eyepieces to go with them. 

[MBErdogan]

8 minutes ago, Ricochet said:

"Decent detail" probably only applies to Jupiter and Saturn, possibly Mars when it is close enough and the Moon if you're counting that as a planet. Mercury and Venus are just phases really while Neptune and Uranus will be small blue discs. For planetary work I would advise looking for some binoviewers that are in your budget and through trial figure out which barlows/gpcs you need and the eyepieces to go with them. 

Does a binoviewer improve the quality of what you see?

[M40]

Hello MBErdogan, thought I would show you this topic...

There is another topic that you may wish to search out where the OP has also bolted his mount to his balcony railings. These are options that you might not have considered that maybe your Father can help with as a first step?

If you want portability have a think about the binoviewers Binoculars mentioned earlier if the telescope is to stay at your Fathers then the Skymax127 is a good choice particularly as the balcony is south facing. Nothing unfortunately ends at the telescope though you will need some other stuff, with the Skymax127 you will need a dew shield which may also help to reduce light pollution. If you choose to stick with the telescope, as far as eyepieces go, as mentioned earlier think about a single zoom eyepiece rather than a range of eyepieces. I have the Baader Hyperion Zoom which replaces a range of eyepieces between  8x and 24x magnification. 

Binocular's not binoviewers 🤦‍♂️sorry, thats trying to multi-task, not one of my few talents....

 

Edited January 7, 2021 by M40
correction

[MBErdogan]

How can a binoviewer make the telescope more portable? A binoviewer just divides the eyepiece into two eyepieces so you can look with both eyes at the same time, right?

[Geoff Lister]

2 hours ago, MBErdogan said:

Does a binoviewer improve the quality of what you see?

Yes. The brain expects a similar image in both eyes. It is unnatural to close one eye. When you are looking at fine detail on Jupiter, Saturn or the Moon, binoviewers seem to help the brain to process the detail.

I have found that, with advancing age, and particularly with bright objects, I have "floaters" in my eyes. By having the same image in both eyes, the brain seems to blend the image, and the floaters almost disappear.

Geoff

[MBErdogan]

Hey guys, 

 

I have determined to buy the skywatcher 127 az-gti with eyepieces of 8mm, 21mm and 30mm together with a binoviewer and a dew shield. The total price is going to be around 1100 euros and I am selling everything I don't need anymore. I just need 400 euros till my purchase  I will inform you when I have my telescope!

[gilesco]

18 minutes ago, MBErdogan said:

Hey guys, 

 

I have determined to buy the skywatcher 127 az-gti with eyepieces of 8mm, 21mm and 30mm together with a binoviewer and a dew shield. The total price is going to be around 1100 euros and I am selling everything I don't need anymore. I just need 400 euros till my purchase  I will inform you when I have my telescope!

With a binoviewer you are likely to need 2x the eyepieces.

I'd really suggest you slow down  and think about a plan to slowly edge yourself into this, get the Mak127, get the AzGti mount, see how you go, then look at potential upgrades.

Edited January 6, 2021 by gilesco
Elaboration

[MBErdogan]

15 minutes ago, gilesco said:

With a binoviewer you are likely to need 2x the eyepieces.

I'd really suggest you slow down  and think about a plan to slowly edge yourself into this, get the Mak127, get the AzGti mount, see how you go, then look at potential upgrades.

Well then with each eyepiece two times, the total cost will be around 1300 euros. So I will save some more money then. I really want the best out of my telescope.

Edited January 6, 2021 by MBErdogan

[gilesco]

Just now, MBErdogan said:

Well then with each eyepiece two times, the total cost will be around 1300 euros. So I will save some more money then.

See how the basic setup works for you, get used to the equipment, learn how to use it, just buy what you need to get started.

All the other stuff can come later, if I had bought all my equipment at the start then I would have spent over 13000 euro and wouldn't know how any of it worked, because there would be too much and I wouldn't work out where the problem  was.

Forget the binoviewer idea, get started with trying not to squint looking through a mono lens, you have young eyes, If you need / choose binoviewers in the future then it is an easy upgrade.

Don't get me wrong, your enthusiasm is commendable 

[MBErdogan]

1 hour ago, gilesco said:

See how the basic setup works for you, get used to the equipment, learn how to use it, just buy what you need to get started.

All the other stuff can come later, if I had bought all my equipment at the start then I would have spent over 13000 euro and wouldn't know how any of it worked, because there would be too much and I wouldn't work out where the problem  was.

Forget the binoviewer idea, get started with trying not to squint looking through a mono lens, you have young eyes, If you need / choose binoviewers in the future then it is an easy upgrade.

Don't get me wrong, your enthusiasm is commendable 

Well thank you for your advise. I actually have glasses and my eyes are -3 (at least, in the Netherlands it works this way). But I don’t know actually, we have still a lot to sell what I don’t use anymore. Maybe we will get those 600 eruos pretty fast. I don’t think my parents will buy expensive things twice anyway. And is it really that hard to use a binoviewer and eyepieces, I can actually imagine it is hard to have sharp image with high mm eyepieces.

Edited January 6, 2021 by MBErdogan

[John]

Those that use binoviewers often say that they don't need to use such expensive eyepieces with them to get excellent views.

If you get on with these devices they do seem to help tease that additional planetary / lunar / solar detail out. Not sure they help much with deep sky objects though

They don't double the effective aperture of the scope though. The light that the scope gathers is split between the two eyepieces reasonably evenly with a small loss of light overall. I think it is the power of using both eyes plus what the brain can do with that information that makes the difference.

 

 

Edited January 6, 2021 by John

[MBErdogan]

Well, the light has to travel a little longer with the binoviewers, right? So you will also get a little extra zoom?

Edited January 6, 2021 by MBErdogan

[Ricochet]

59 minutes ago, MBErdogan said:

Well, the light has to travel a little longer with the binoviewers, right? So you will also get a little extra zoom?

Usually the focal length of the telescope is set by the objective so you have to wind the focuser in by the same amount that the light has to travel. With a telescope that focuses by moving the primary mirror, focusing actually changes the focal length, so if you add binoviewers you can increase the focal length so that the image comes to focus. However, the telescope is designed to work at a certain focal length and moving it away from that introduces aberrations that will make the image worse and so you do not want to do this. You should add a barlow or gpc in front of the binoviewer to allow the telescope to focus somewhere near its usual focus position. Also, you will be unlikely to make much use of an eyepiece as short as 8mm with a Mak, especially if you add binoviewers into the mix. 

[MBErdogan]

1 hour ago, Ricochet said:

Usually the focal length of the telescope is set by the objective so you have to wind the focuser in by the same amount that the light has to travel. With a telescope that focuses by moving the primary mirror, focusing actually changes the focal length, so if you add binoviewers you can increase the focal length so that the image comes to focus. However, the telescope is designed to work at a certain focal length and moving it away from that introduces aberrations that will make the image worse and so you do not want to do this. You should add a barlow or gpc in front of the binoviewer to allow the telescope to focus somewhere near its usual focus position. Also, you will be unlikely to make much use of an eyepiece as short as 8mm with a Mak, especially if you add binoviewers into the mix. 

Well I heard that 8mm is great for Mars.

[Cosmic Geoff]

First piece of advice: Don't buy a binoviewer till you have got used to using your scope. 

Second piece of advice: If you do buy a binoviewer, just get a pair of low power Plossls to use with it, if they are not supplied with it, not a whole set of eyepiece pairs.

I have a binoviewer which came with a pair of 30mm plossl eyepieces, and two Barlow lenses to incrrease the magnification.

I bought a second 20mm Plossl as (I thought) an exact match of one I already had.  Unfortunately one had a retention groove (the supplied 30mm Plossls did not) and when I tried the pair of 20mm I could not get the images to merge. The 20mm pair was unusable.

Edited January 6, 2021 by Cosmic Geoff

[MBErdogan]

9 hours ago, Cosmic Geoff said:

First piece of advice: Don't buy a binoviewer till you have got used to using your scope. 

Second piece of advice: If you do buy a binoviewer, just get a pair of low power Plossls to use with it, if they are not supplied with it, not a whole set of eyepiece pairs.

I have a binoviewer which came with a pair of 30mm plossl eyepieces, and two Barlow lenses to incrrease the magnification.

I bought a second 20mm Plossl as (I thought) an exact match of one I already had.  Unfortunately one had a retention groove (the supplied 30mm Plossls did not) and when I tried the pair of 20mm I could not get the images to merge. The 20mm pair was unusable.

Would you recommend the Omegon Magnum 1.25'', 8-24mm zoom eyepiece for the binoviewer? Are they good quality with sharp enough image? Because it seems a little odd to me, that this single eyepiece of 60 euros can replace many eyepieces with the same quality of a single eyepiece.