Old but New person needs some advice please.

[tezz]

Good day to you all.

I am 66 years young soon and disabled(I can not move myself) this is my very first telescope 

The scope will be put just outside my backdoor. I live in Solihull UK.

I have picked out a telescope. It's the Celestron NexStar Evolution 9.25.

I need advice on what to buy to do the things I would like.

I do want to buy everything from FLO as I think it will be less hassle.

I want a 4K colour camera for the scope that will plugin to my PC which will be inside of my place.

So I can see everything live. That's the main thing.

I have friends who will bring the scope back in. It will live in my front room.

I know I will need loads of extras like a new eye piece\tracking\dew cover and things I don't know about yet.

But I have read lots of forums and everyone says different things about the items I need and what brand.

I am hoping that £4,000 may cover everything?

So can someone please help me.

Thank you for looking and reading.

 

EDIT= I forgot to ask. Could you leave a link to things I will need.

Edited January 30, 2023 by tezz

[fwm891]

I can't blame you with FLO but why the 9.25 ? if you can give a reason for going with this scope it will make other recommendations a little easier...

[Carbon Brush]

Hello and welcome to SGL.
I second the comment from @fwm891 about some background.

I think just as relevant is some information about the person(s) who will be setting up the scope for you.
The C9.25 on a decent tripod is big and heavy. Then you need to be realistic about the alignment and setup.
Goto is often marketed as 'turn on power and view'. The reality is different.

Here are more questions to throw into the discussion.
Is it practical to leave the scope outside under a weatherproof cover?
Is it practical to use a small plastic structure, like a tool store or wheelie bin store to house the scope?

Keep asking the questions and we will do our best to help.
With a £4K budget you can get a really good live viewing setup.

 

[callisto]

I would suggest speaking to FLO directly and discuss your needs with them 👍

[Elp]

For your circumstances, would a Stellina or evscope be easier to use, even the new Dwarf scope (though I think it's aperture limited)? I understand a C9.25 is a beast of a scope in terms of handling.

Edited January 30, 2023 by Elp

[Guest]

I will second the above.  We need a bit more detail. You say you can't move yourself so if you are in a wheelchair that would be helpful to know and then we can get you better info.   If you are uncomfortable discussing that on a ipen forum i would contact FLO directly.   Someone above mentioned Stellina, it would be in your budget and is pretty easy to use 

Edited January 30, 2023 by Mike Q

[tezz]

18 minutes ago, fwm891 said:

I can't blame you with FLO but why the 9.25 ? if you can give a reason for going with this scope it will make other recommendations a little easier...

 

 

Thank you.

After watching many reviews.

The 9.25 seams the sweet spot for the money. It has wireless so I don't need to pick up the phone for help(I live alone)

I just want to look at the stars and see what I find.

I was going to get a Nexstar 8, but that uses old tech.

[M40]

Hello tezz and welcome to the site 👍

Excellent replies above, take your time, ask questions we are only too pleased to help. All the best 

[tezz]

11 minutes ago, Carbon Brush said:

Hello and welcome to SGL.
I second the comment from @fwm891 about some background.

I think just as relevant is some information about the person(s) who will be setting up the scope for you.
The C9.25 on a decent tripod is big and heavy. Then you need to be realistic about the alignment and setup.
Goto is often marketed as 'turn on power and view'. The reality is different.

Here are more questions to throw into the discussion.
Is it practical to leave the scope outside under a weatherproof cover?
Is it practical to use a small plastic structure, like a tool store or wheelie bin store to house the scope?

Keep asking the questions and we will do our best to help.
With a £4K budget you can get a really good live viewing setup.

 

 

Thank you.

Just outside my front from is the backdoor. I have a 8x8ft wooden ramp for my electric chair.

The telescope will go there. My PC will be about 14ft from the scope.

It will make my life easy to keep the scope in my front room.

As friends don't have far to move it.

I don't mind paying £5,000 if need be.

[Elp]

If your heart is set on an sct, a C6 or C8 is just as good, but much smaller and lighter. You state you just want to see what's out there, an SCT isn't necessarily the best as they're long focal length and narrow fov when used at native FL.

A widefield short FL refractor may be better. A lot depends on what your light pollution is like and what you want to view. I've got led lampposts around and usually what I want to image is just above it, my scope struggles to image anything in such situations as any hint of stray light on the optics ruins the exposure, the same will apply if you're going to do EAA. You'd have to assess your environment and comment.

Also check is your garden north-east or east-south-southwest facing as that's where most of the celestial deep sky objects will wander. Planets typically when I've seen them are east and drift south to west. This is northern hemisphere.

Also the reason I suggested the auto scopes above, they just need to be set on the ground and will auto align and auto focus. Any other setup will require some sort of alignment and focusing if you actually want to find objects, the sky though not apparent from the human eye perspective, is huge through a telescope, more so through a narrow FOV and long FL.

Edited January 30, 2023 by Elp

[dweller25]

Hello @tezz and welcome to SGL.

I am wondering how you would get the telescope back in quickly if it rains ?

Do you have a garden or back yard ? If so you might think about having an observatory built that you can permanently keep your scope in and with an automatic roof that you can open and close from indoors.

That would allow you to use an 8 or 10” Newtonian which are both cheap and high on performance.

Alternately, if you use a wheelchair could you attach a small 5” reflector or short refractor to it ?

Just a few ideas for you.

Best of luck 👍

 

Edited January 30, 2023 by dweller25

[fwm891]

I too would look at going for a refractor with a shorter focal length. You'll see more stars and a lot of the neubulosity too...

[Cosmic Geoff]

You seriously need to see a night-time demonstration of the kind of setup you have in mind, before investing £4000.  I understand you want to have a camera on the scope and view the output from indoors.  None of this is as easy as you think.  The Goto telescope has to be set up and aligned by an operator at the telescope (a fairly skilled operator, judging by some of the posts we get here 🙂).   Then the camera has to be focused.  How is that going to be done?  If you do it, you will require a remote-controlled electric focuser.

Then you direct the GoTo to find the object. That's the easy part - just use your tablet or phone etc and the wifi. 

But will the object be in the camera's field of view? My experience of such matters is that it may not be, and some human intervention at the telescope, or electronic intervention via 'plate-solve and resync' will be necessary to nudge the scope into the correct position.  If I was going to rely on this system, I'd want to be darn sure it worked with the gear I had in mind before investing £4000.

I'm not saying that what you have in mind is impossible, but what you have in mind is likely to require some skilled development, or require you to be an 'early adopter' of some cutting-edge tech.

1 hour ago, tezz said:

It has wireless so I don't need to pick up the phone for help(I live alone)

I have no idea what you mean by this. The Evolution has wifi, but this is purely for connecting the mount to a remote tablet etc, for the sole purpose of controlling the mount.

[Cosmic Geoff]

Another thought. What you are describing is a remote-controlled telescope.  Instead of owning it yourself, why not subscribe to a remote-viewing service with a big scope located somewhere in the world with clear skies?  £4000 would buy you a lot of viewing and imaging time.

[dweller25]

1 hour ago, Cosmic Geoff said:

Another thought. What you are describing is a remote-controlled telescope.  Instead of owning it yourself, why not subscribe to a remote-viewing service with a big scope located somewhere in the world with clear skies?  £4000 would buy you a lot of viewing and imaging time.

Excellent idea @Cosmic Geoff - do you have a link for the OP ?

Edited January 30, 2023 by dweller25

[mikeDnight]

2 hours ago, tezz said:

 

 

Thank you.

After watching many reviews.

The 9.25 seams the sweet spot for the money. It has wireless so I don't need to pick up the phone for help(I live alone)

I just want to look at the stars and see what I find.

I was going to get a Nexstar 8, but that uses old tech.

Hi Tezz,

 Keeping this scope in your living room may not be a good idea; a cold dry room would be better. A SCT, or any catadioptric telescope that uses an amplifying secondary mirror, can take as long as 3 hours to reach thermal stability when coming from a warm environment to outside. The stars you hope to see may appear as blob's and be very disappointing due to the internal heat, plus the scope has a narrow field of view, so large impressive targets won't be seen to advantage.

What is it you'd like to observe or image - Moon & planets, Solar, or deep sky, wide field? There may be a more suitable choice that will fit your circumstances. 

[M40]

Just a thought tezz, do you have any South facing windows? Its not ideal to view from indoors but it has been done. 

Out of interest and you may already be aware, the nexstar can be fitted with a remote focuser allowing focusing from a tablet.

[bosun21]

2 hours ago, tezz said:

 

 

Thank you.

After watching many reviews.

The 9.25 seams the sweet spot for the money. It has wireless so I don't need to pick up the phone for help(I live alone)

I just want to look at the stars and see what I find.

I was going to get a Nexstar 8, but that uses old tech.

It actually uses the same tech for go to apart from having WiFi, but that’s easily solved with the addition of a WiFi dongle. The alignment process is the same for both. If whoever is setting it up for you has astronomical experience then that’s excellent. If not they may struggle a little with the alignment, for which the star align would be best as the three bright stars don’t have to be selected by name. 

[StevieDvd]

Hi Tezz,

If I summarise your requirements first before even mentioning any equipment it may help us suggesting options.

You will be indoors so not expecting to view via an eyepiece outside yourself. Presumably, wanting to image live views with as much detail as possible. And an ease of setup out of consideration to your friends helping  you.

Have you seen images you could refer to as examples of what you want/expect to see?  Some of the best images on the forum are heavily processed (indoors which may be part of the fun for you) and can't be seen in such detail even with the best cameras.  There is a group who like to see almost instant images - Electronically Assisted Astronomy who get to see more than the naked eye but not always captured for post processing, an in the moment image.

Perhaps you have a local astro society which may have members doing something similar, albeit their setup is similar as they want it portable. A member may be more than happy to pop along and show you their setup as a contender for your needs. We like showing our stuff off, hence forums like this. One aspect to be considered is the view from your garden and any light pollution/nuisances.

So your options would seem to range from the single piece EAA scopes such as:

• https://www.firstlightoptics.com/unistellar-telescopes.html
• https://dwarflab.com/products/dwarf-2-smart-telescope

Or more likely a recent light-weight mount and a small remote computer (or network lead to inside) with a mid-range dso/planetary camera with the scope(s) of your choice. More on this later if that's the way you think you are looking.

Given the UK weather then depending on your PC skills and patience may be the image post-processing would be just as interesting for you.

Steve

 

 

[Xilman]

I really don't know how much hassle Tezz wants, nor how many friends he has willing to lug delicate equipment around at night, both before and after observing sessions. Especially, after, which could well be after most normal people's bed time.

With that in mind, I would definitely consider subscribing to an internet-connected robotic telescope. Robots do >90% of the donkey work and there are people who have the knowledge of how to do the rest. The scopes tend to be located in clearer darker skies and (something many do not really think about) closer to the equator than the UK. The last means you can observe much more of the sky.

A search on "remote telescope", "robotic telescope", "internet telescope" will dig up a number of providers for you to check out. A good rummage around will turn up dozens, catering for all interests, experience levels and budgets. By and large, £4K (or the equivalent €4500 or $4500) will get you really quite a lot, including much larger apertures (up to at least 0.5m), multiple filter sets, high sensitive cameras, rock solid mounts and tracking, etc.

The first term gave https://telescope.live/home and several others on the first page of results.

The second gave https://www.virtualtelescope.eu/ .

The third gave https://www.slooh.com/everyone and others.

I know personally several people who use SLOOH, some of them BAA members who use it as part of their research programs. The SLOOH north telescopes are on Tenerife, just a short ferry ride from here, and the southern ones are in Chile. Both much closer to the equator and both under much better skies than the UK.

Disclaimer: I do not use a robotic telescope, other than one which is sited next to my observatory in La Palma. That scope is owned and run by a guy who lives in Cheshire. He lets me use it occasionally when I am in the UK and can not access my own facility. I have no business interest in any of the outfits mentioned above.

Paul

[SteveNickolls]

Thanks for your post. 

There's a lot to take on board when you are new to a hobby that can go many ways.  While £4k is a lot of money it can be eaten away very quickly in this hobby, so caution. I'm sure members here will be able to give you steers where to go that you can think over.

I would raise the question of considering security for your equipment outside especially if it is positioned and viewable from a road or other property.

Cheers,

Steve

[tezz]

Sorry for the late reply.

 

@dweller25 Hi. My friend is making a thing like a condom that will be fitted to the wall out side. So if it rains I just pull a pin and down it comes:)

@Cosmic Geoff It has wifi that connects to the sky portal app that works on my Fold and my PC.

@mikeDnight The scope will go in the bedroom in the summer were it is cool. I could put a fan in there if needed. I would like to look at the moon and about anything else. If I wanted pictures of mars ect. I would go to NASA and get one. Maybe I will find something that no one else has? 

 

And thank you for the other reply's. They have been very useful.

I had my Evolution 9.25 come this morning.

And I have ordered these which will be here tomorrow.

ASI 585MC I need some filters if someone knows of a place.

Celestron Universal Piggyback Mount

Celestron Dew Shield DX for C9.25 & C11

Celestron Focus Motor 

Celestron Nikon T-Ring

Celestron X-Cell LX 2x Barlow lens

If anyone can add to this I would be grateful.

[StevieDvd]

Did you get the model with the Celestron Starsense option, that will align/set the date & location of the mount automatically on each startup. It does need an initial setup alignment so it is facing the same sky portion as the scope.

[dweller25]

1 hour ago, tezz said:

Sorry for the late reply.

@dweller25 Hi. My friend is making a thing like a condom that will be fitted to the wall out side. So if it rains I just pull a pin and down it comes

Brilliant, just make sure it’s got no holes in it 🤣🤣

[Stu1smartcookie]

Hi , Tezz , 

Welcome to the hobby . And congratulations on your purchase . Everyone has their own opinions but i'm sure we all wish you well with your chosen scope. It seems like you have a clear objective . One thing is certain , you will not be short of friendly and invaluable advice . 

Clear Skies