Age old question… which telescope for a beginner

[Stephen_M]

21 hours ago, Llew said:

Amazing responses, I have been avidly reading them all, all day long continually doing research. I was reluctant to respond as I wanted to get as many views and find with these sort of threads once you say what you have decided they end fairly abruptly until the next similar one comes along. I do have some very good binoculars, but personally I would like to be able to upgrade the telescope if we both get into the hobby.

I would like to thank you all for your input it has been very helpful. I took the plunge and bought the Heritage 150p, I will be researching more over the coming weeks as to which cheeky little Xmas gifts I could possibly buy, turn left at Orion is arriving tomorrow anyway so had that covered.

Special thanks to the help I have gotten via private message which has also been invaluable. Time is so precious so thanks to all and I look forward to learning more as time goes on. 

Good luck with the new scope! I think a good thing with this hobby is that if you get equipment with a good reputation, then they seem to hold their resale value quite well which can help with upgrading later down the line.

Please let us know how you get on over the the observation - reports section. I'll do a shameless plug for my beginners journal that I did, might be something useful there. Particularly, it can be very frustrating when you start so you'll need some patience if you are self-teaching like I did!

 

[BinocularSky]

On 14/09/2022 at 15:16, Louis D said:

Did anyone on here find binocular astronomy anywhere near as exciting as telescope astronomy?  Without excitement, passion quickly wanes and interests migrate elsewhere.

First used binos (my Dad's) for looking at the night sky (actually, for Sputnik) on 4th October 1957. I still use them more than any other instrument for visual. It's not a question of what is right or wrong, just what rocks your boat.  I simply love the portablility and the challenge of hunting stuff with small apertures and low magnification.

[Louis D]

57 minutes ago, BinocularSky said:

First used binos (my Dad's) for looking at the night sky (actually, for Sputnik) on 4th October 1957. I still use them more than any other instrument for visual. It's not a question of what is right or wrong, just what rocks your boat.  I simply love the portablility and the challenge of hunting stuff with small apertures and low magnification.

I guess it shouldn't surprise me you like binocular astronomy. 😉

I picked up Crossen & Tirion's Binocular Astronomy back in the 90s (first edition) and still have it.  I went through it and used the excellent charts at the back, but I still longed for a telescope.  Once I got my first Dob, I went crazy on astronomy.  It was the increased image scale and light gathering that did it for me.  I do enjoy sweeping the night sky at low powers, but I use 2" eyepieces in short focal length ED/APO refractors instead of binoculars.

I might try to make one of these binocular observing chairs someday, though:

[lvan]

With a wide range of affordable telescopes readily available, I feel the modern astronomer probably appreciates the idea of binoculars later in the hobby.

 

[ashm4n]

On 14/09/2022 at 12:48, Tomatobro said:

With that budget I would go for a Sky-Watcher Heritage-150P Flextube Dobsonian Telescope. Flo have stock so you would not have to wait for it.

These scopes have very good reviews, are lightweight and when collapsed are easy to store and transport. And at 150mm give better views.

I am also eyeballing them. How big of a problem is the lack of slow motion screws on them?

[wulfrun]

11 minutes ago, ashm4n said:

I am also eyeballing them. How big of a problem is the lack of slow motion screws on them?

Not a problem at all. The idea of a Dobsonian is that it's easy to nudge along to follow your target. You can also get "go-to" versions of some Dobs (including the Heritage 150P) that will locate and then track your target. Nudging is a quickly-acquired skill that becomes second nature in no time. At really high magnifications it can be a nuisance but such high powers aren't used that often, especially in a smaller scope.

[Spile]

4 hours ago, ashm4n said:

I am also eyeballing them. How big of a problem is the lack of slow motion screws on them?

Nudging a Dobsonian becomes second nature, like riding a bike. You don’t think about it.

[Moon-Monkey]

Ok so I found on flow’s site a little while ago the Ursa Major branded scopes a 6” with 2” Crayford some eyepieces and all for £250 seems a beginner bargain to me bud … 

 

[KevinPSJ]

On 14/09/2022 at 16:58, Tomatobro said:

When you have friends round and they know you have a telescope (and its clear) you want to show it off so first it HAS to look like a telescope. Second, when you have Saturn or whatever you can move away and folks can go to the eyepiece and see what you just saw.

You cannot do that with Bins.....

I remember a few years back going to a church garden party when the weather was good and Jupiter and Saturn were both visible. I set the binoculars up on a tripod in the garden and pointed at Jupiter. You could see 3 of the moon's but not much else. Nevertheless people were blown away! There was a queue all evening. 

I would not have transported my skywatcher 150p but the binoculars and tripod were super portable. The other advantage was people knew how to use them with almost no instructions beyond "don't hold them" to avoid vibrations.

[RT65CB-SWL]

Hi @Llew & family and welcome to SGL.

Good advice by fellow SGL’ers. For more info on the ‘scopes mentioned, then this is a good read... https://www.firstlightoptics.com/beginner-telescopes.html if you have not already.

 

[BinocularSky]

On 14/09/2022 at 16:58, Tomatobro said:

 Second, when you have Saturn or whatever you can move away and folks can go to the eyepiece and see what you just saw.

You cannot do that with Bins.....

I can and do 🙂 . I mount them on a parallelogram, so not only can I move away, but I can adjust the eyepiece height to something suitable for the next person before I do so. Very handy when showing stuff to both adults and youngsters; no faffing around with observing steps for the little-uns, or having Dad trying to hold kiddo up to an eyepiece.

[Mandy D]

On 14/09/2022 at 17:01, Macavity said:

Total Newbies are not in the best position to evaluate the quality of a *second hand* telescope etc. etc. 🤔
 

This is not something I have ever thought about and it is a very valid point, which is backed up by my own experience.

I bought my Skywatcher 200P through this forum, but I already owned a 250PX and an RC6, so I had some idea of what I was looking at. The view through the eyepiece was completely white and nothing was coming into focus, but I figured it may have been to do with being indoors and nothing distant to focus on. The primary mirror looked fine and clean, as did the secondary. The focuser racked back and forth smoothly and everything else about the telescope was good, so I paid my money and took it home.

Outdoors with distant views and sky available, it would still only produce a uniform white image, no matter what eyepiece or focuser setting, which left only collimation. Fortunately, it came with a cheshire, so I set about collimating it. The primary mirror was so far out, no part of it was visible in the collimator or eyepiece, but it took less than five minutes to bring it into near perfect collimation.

A newbie would probably have rejected this perfectly useable and well-priced scope or having bought it been unable to fix the problem.

[Tomatobro]

Cost of bins plus tripod plus parallelogram would exceed £200 budget.

I am not against binoculars at all as I have quite a collection with my fork mounted 25/40 x 100's being one of my favourite's. I also have 15 x 80's mounted on a parallelogram.

[cajen2]

On 09/10/2022 at 07:53, Moon-Monkey said:

Ok so I found on flow’s site a little while ago the Ursa Major branded scopes a 6” with 2” Crayford some eyepieces and all for £250 seems a beginner bargain to me bud … 

 

Yes, that's a cracking scope for the price. There are a few downsides:

The Crayford focuser is only 1.25" (no option for 2" EPs) and single speed 

The altitude adjustment /locking is rather primitive though no doubt effective

You can upgrade the finder to a RACI - I would highly recommend that over the straight-through finder

It's much heavier and more awkward to move around than the Heritage 150p

Upsides include the optics. GSO (who also make the StellaLyra range) do a very good job on the mirrors. The build quality is also marvellous.

If you could stretch to the StellaLyra 8", all those problems (except portability) would disappear.

HTH.

 

Edited November 4, 2022 by cajen2

[Moon-Monkey]

1 hour ago, cajen2 said:

Yes, that's a cracking scope for the price. There are a few downsides:

The Crayford focuser is only 1.25" (no option for 2" EPs) and single speed 

The altitude adjustment /locking is rather primitive though no doubt effective

You can upgrade the finder to a RACI - I would highly recommend that over the straight-through finder

It's much heavier and more awkward to move around than the Heritage 150p

Upsides include the optics. GSO (who also make the StellaLyra range) do a very good job on the mirrors. The build quality is also marvellous.

If you could stretch to the StellaLyra 8", all those problems (except portability) would disappear.

HTH.

 

Oh I know I’ve got the SL 8” 😉 and love it !!!

[cajen2]

1 hour ago, Moon-Monkey said:

Oh I know I’ve got the SL 8” 😉 and love it !!!

Ah, another proud owner - me too!

The remarks were actually aimed at the OP or anyone else in the market for a good dob.

[Moon-Monkey]

2 hours ago, cajen2 said:

Ah, another proud owner - me too!

The remarks were actually aimed at the OP or anyone else in the market for a good dob.

Oh sorry buddy I must have miss-read it yes it’s a great instrument have been very happy with mine for about 18 months I think or sometime around that 🙂🙂

[Moon-Monkey]

12 hours ago, cajen2 said:

Ah, another proud owner - me too!

The remarks were actually aimed at the OP or anyone else in the market for a good dob.

I modified mine somewhat by moving the Raci further to the outboard side and putting my telrad in between the focuser and Raci I’m also moving the mirror closer soon to take advantage of my 2” filter wheel 

min the process of currently making a new EP tray for thr 2” set I’m using as it’s annoying to me that nobody does eyepiece trays anymore everywhere is always out of stock OR won’t ship to the Uk anymore 🙂🙂