Beginner telescope. Skymax-127 Virtuoso GTi tabletop?

[gamermole]

Hello there guys.

 

I'm currently thinking about purchasing my first telescope and after looking around i have decided to maybe buy the Skymax-127 Virtuoso GTi tabletop telescope as seen here https://www.rothervalleyoptics.co.uk/skywatcher-skymax-127-virtuoso-gti-table-top-maksutov-telescope.html

 

although the telescope has apps and an automatic mount i will also be wanting to use it manually, i will also be wanting to take photographs using the telescope (mainly by attaching my smartphone to the eyepiece) or if there is a better way by purchasing a specific camera.

 

Can you guys tell me your thoughts on this telescope, or if you know of any better options out there regarding my needs.

 

PS im very new to this.

[happy-kat]

Hi

The virtuoso is a great mount with gotto, freedom find and manual. The mount moves in tiny left right up down movements though imaging is possible within this capability before rates field rotation becomes too visible. The Moon and planets tend to be captured by short videos high frame rate from which an image is extracted. Deep space objects are a different prospect as often quite dim and generally require longer exposures where field rotation can become apparent quite quickly. There's a thread on this mount I'll add a link later

 

[Mandy D]

33 minutes ago, gamermole said:

Hello there guys.

 

I'm currently thinking about purchasing my first telescope and after looking around i have decided to maybe buy the Skymax-127 Virtuoso GTi tabletop telescope as seen here https://www.rothervalleyoptics.co.uk/skywatcher-skymax-127-virtuoso-gti-table-top-maksutov-telescope.html

 

although the telescope has apps and an automatic mount i will also be wanting to use it manually, i will also be wanting to take photographs using the telescope (mainly by attaching my smartphone to the eyepiece) or if there is a better way by purchasing a specific camera.

 

Can you guys tell me your thoughts on this telescope, or if you know of any better options out there regarding my needs.

 

PS im very new to this.

I think that is a great choice for a first telescope. What are you thinking of photographing with it? For the Moon and bright planets, it will work well with your mobile phone. However, given that you are using a phone camera, you will only have a small sensor and with the focal length (1500 mm!) of that telescope you will not fit the Moon on the sensor, but you will be able to do close-ups. Deep sky is another game altogether and you will probably want to look at a proper astro-camera, but I'll leave that to others to discuss as I am not knowledgeable enough on that topic.

[Cosmic Geoff]

1 hour ago, gamermole said:

Can you guys tell me your thoughts on this telescope, or if you know of any better options out there regarding my needs.

It is a good starter scope for visual use, if you have thought about what you want.  

As for imaging, you should do some serious reading about what this entails, and gain some idea of what you can accomplish with this scope + mount and a smartphone.  If you want to take award-winning photos, you should be prepared to invest far more money on quite different kit.

For a start, read the imaging threads in this forum, and check what kit the contributors used.

[gamermole]

Thank you so much guys, a lot of great advice there, ive checked out a few "proper" image taking setups in the past and im quite aware that they are very expensive, i dont want photos of anywhere near that level, i just want to be able to capture what i can see quite decently.

 

This sounds lame but before considering a telescope i just used a pair of celestron binoculars on a tripod and using my phone camera through those to look at the moon...... so anything better than that is a bonus.

[happy-kat]

Have you had a look around this forum

https://stargazerslounge.com/forum/279-imaging-smartphone-tablets/

[gamermole]

1 hour ago, happy-kat said:

Have you had a look around this forum

https://stargazerslounge.com/forum/279-imaging-smartphone-tablets/

Not yet, im thinking of getting a scope before i  seriously consider the photo aspect of astronomy

[happy-kat]

The virtuoso table top design suits me well, I use a v1 version with added wifi dongle and different scopes. 

[Guest]

That particular series of scopes seems like it would be really good for starting up.  You will probably end up needing a dew shield.   They also make a collapsible dob line which would also be worth looking at. 

[Jules Tohpipi]

21 hours ago, gamermole said:

Hello there guys.

 

I'm currently thinking about purchasing my first telescope and after looking around i have decided to maybe buy the Skymax-127 Virtuoso GTi tabletop telescope as seen here https://www.rothervalleyoptics.co.uk/skywatcher-skymax-127-virtuoso-gti-table-top-maksutov-telescope.html

 

although the telescope has apps and an automatic mount i will also be wanting to use it manually, i will also be wanting to take photographs using the telescope (mainly by attaching my smartphone to the eyepiece) or if there is a better way by purchasing a specific camera.

 

Can you guys tell me your thoughts on this telescope, or if you know of any better options out there regarding my needs.

 

PS im very new to this.

Yes a good choice for a new telescope with an excellent range of features. 
 

Before committing it’s worth investigating the same telescope but with the AZ-GTI mount. Features are pretty much the same except the tripod gives more positioning flexibility and the ensemble is smaller when stored. The AZ-GTI can also easily be upgraded with add-ons for next-step Astro photography. There’s also quite a big online community of AZ-GTI owners if you need help and advice. 
 

Either choice would be excellent. 
 

https://www.rothervalleyoptics.co.uk/skywatcher-skymax-127-az-gti-wifi-telescope.html

 

[gamermole]

3 hours ago, Jules Tohpipi said:

Yes a good choice for a new telescope with an excellent range of features. 
 

Before committing it’s worth investigating the same telescope but with the AZ-GTI mount. Features are pretty much the same except the tripod gives more positioning flexibility and the ensemble is smaller when stored. The AZ-GTI can also easily be upgraded with add-ons for next-step Astro photography. There’s also quite a big online community of AZ-GTI owners if you need help and advice. 
 

Either choice would be excellent. 
 

https://www.rothervalleyoptics.co.uk/skywatcher-skymax-127-az-gti-wifi-telescope.html

Oh wow thank you very much, this scope seems to suite my needs far better than the one i posted..... in terms of actual telescope are these the same just using a different mount?

3 hours ago, Jules Tohpipi said:

 

 

Edited November 29, 2022 by gamermole

[Astronomist]

These scopes are definitely a great choice for starting out. However you should bear in mind that the maksutov will have a small field of view due to its long focal length, which could be tricky when observing large objects. If you are mostly interested in the planets and moon disregard what I just said.

below is a scope using the same tabletop GOTO mount but would give a wider FOV and a little more aperture.

 https://www.firstlightoptics.com/heritage/sky-watcher-heritage-150p-flextube-virtuoso-gti.html

also have a play around with this useful site:

http://astronomy.tools/calculators/field_of_view/

Edited November 29, 2022 by Astronomist

[Mart29]

21 hours ago, gamermole said:

Thank you so much guys, a lot of great advice there, ive checked out a few "proper" image taking setups in the past and im quite aware that they are very expensive, i dont want photos of anywhere near that level, i just want to be able to capture what i can see quite decently.

 

This sounds lame but before considering a telescope i just used a pair of celestron binoculars on a tripod and using my phone camera through those to look at the moon...... so anything better than that is a bonus.

Depends on what you are after, personally if its half decent mobile images I would be going for a Skywatcher 200p or if you want ease to find things a Celestron 200 dob . Here are my examples from my phone with the 200p . I don't even use a holder , just put the phone on the eyepiece 

[gamermole]

5 hours ago, Mart29 said:

Depends on what you are after, personally if its half decent mobile images I would be going for a Skywatcher 200p or if you want ease to find things a Celestron 200 dob . Here are my examples from my phone with the 200p . I don't even use a holder , just put the phone on the eyepiece 

Have you tried running them images through registax,  that's something I've been reading about lately.

[Mart29]

8 hours ago, gamermole said:

Have you tried running them images through registax,  that's something I've been reading about lately.

Don't really want to go into astro imaging it's another part of the hobby. Eyepiece views are so much better . A quick phone snap does me 🙃

[Jules Tohpipi]

16 hours ago, gamermole said:

Oh wow thank you very much, this scope seems to suite my needs far better than the one i posted..... in terms of actual telescope are these the same just using a different mount?

 

Yes, these are fundamentally the same telescope with the same optics. So the views will be identical. There can be some minor ancillary differences depending on which Sky-Watcher mount they are bundled with from the factory. For example, looking at the online photos, the green dovetail bar on the telescope looks longer with the virtuoso version.