Looking for Telescope Guidance

[myself]

I am trying to choose my next telescope. As a young child I had a Celestron 114mm newtonian, and now I have a small refractor that I got for free. I am wanting something more capable than this and I am looking at three models at the moment: the Orion Skyquest XT6, a skywatcher Heritage 150 p, and an explore scientific 127mm mak. I am looking for something a little portable that can be used for planetary and deep sky viewing. My price range is around $500 or less. What is your advice? Are these good models to look at, or do you have any different suggestions?

[allworlds]

Any would be a good choice. The Heritage 150P is probably the cheapest and is highly portable. The Skymax 127 can also be highly portable with the right mount and tripod but is the most expensive of the three (and if it's brand new I expect it's either over budget or under mounted). A good Mak-Cass is an excellent lunar and planetary scope, I have a smaller one that impressed me, but it won't do wide field and it gives up a bit of aperture for deep sky. The XT6 is arguably the best all-rounder of the three but it's a bulky thing to move around - easily transportable by car but not very practical to take a long distance on public transport, two wheels, or on foot.

[Guest]

I would second the Heritage for portability reasons.  I do believe that they are making a go to version now in your price range 

[dybz]

I went through your exact conundrum and settled on the skymax 127 as I want to focus on planets/moon and portability was high priority. Main two things you need to decide is what you want to focus viewing on and how important portability is for you.

Edited October 11, 2022 by dybz

[dybz]

I also forgot to mention - check out Grovers Optics and FirstLightOptics out of the UK. For me it was a good amount cheaper to order from one of those and pay shipping rather than ordering from a store within the US. For instance the 127 + AZ GTI mount is $880 here vs something like $600 shipped from UK. Also opens up additional models that we don't have in the USA like the Sky-Watcher Explorer 150p and Sky-Watcher AZ4 mount/tripod, which only comes out to ~$450 shipped. 

Edited October 11, 2022 by dybz

[myself]

I think that my main interest will probably be split between planets and moon and dso's. Have you ever tried your 127 on anything outside of the solar system? While I find the planets and Moon really interesting, I think that it would be good for variety's sake to have the capability to focus on other targets as well, maybe I'm just inexperienced. I am asking about the 127mm because I recently found a Celestron starsense 127mm SCT that is within the top end of my price range and I am wondering how well it would perform. 

[dybz]

I just ordered mine so still waiting. From what I read the mak 127 will have a tighter field of view vs the sct so the sct should be slightly better at DSO. The difference seems small and generally neither is considered great relative to a reflector of similar aperture. Realistically if you want both planets and DSO get the reflector. Even the 6/750 gives you great DSO and planet views with the included 10mm eye piece and the heritage 150 is extremely portable. With the heritage though you might want to make a shroud to cover the open area and no one seems to be a fan of the focuser. You can order the skywatcher explorer 150 plus az4 mount from the UK if you want a better focuser and solid tube, but you lose some portability. The explorer also comes with a 2x Barlow so you get the equivalent magnification of the sct/mak without anything extra.

Edited October 12, 2022 by dybz