sky-watcher star discovery p150i wi-fi or celestron nexstar 6 slt, or...?

[tjsimonsen]

Hi,

I'm not necessarily new to astronomy, but definitely new to actually watching, I have decided to get my first real telescope. At the moment I'm mostly interested in Deep Sky, but I would of course like to observe details on the moon and planets too. As for astrophotography - perhaps down the road, but not now. After doing some reading I have realized that I need at least a 6'' reflector as well as a couple of different eye pieces. I live in medium light polluted suburbia, so the setup would need to be reasonably portable too. I can get into dark country (at least as dark as it gets in Denmark) within 30-45 minutes. 

Within my budget I have found two setups I'm considering.

One is Celestron Nexstar 6 SLT: https://www.firstlightoptics.com/slt-series/celestron-nexstar-6-slt.html

The other is sky-watcher star discovery p150i wi-fi: https://www.firstlightoptics.com/telescopes-in-stock/sky-watcher-star-discovery-150i.html

I'm leaning towards the Celestron, but I'm worried that the f10 focal ration is suboptimal for Deep Sky objects. Also, is 6'' enough for good Deep Sky watching? If portability wasn't an issue, I'd probably go for a 10'' Dobson. 

Any advice will be greatly appreciated.

[StargazerUK]

Hi,

I have the skywatcher star discovery 150i which is also my first real telescope. I love it.

It gives great views of the planets and moons and deep space objects can be viewed but they are quite faint. I am in a bortle 4 area so probably get much better views at a dark sky site.

The eyepieces that come with it are adequate to start with but you will definitely want to invest in some better quality ones. I bought the baader hyperion mark iv zoom eyepiece which is expensive but it's brilliant.

If you eventually want to go down the astrophotography route just bear in mind that you will struggle to get prime focus with a dslr, you would need to either use a barlow lens or better yet get a dedicated astro camera. I may be wrong but I think a lot of newtonian reflector scope suffer with prime focus unless they are built for imaging (i.e the skywatcher 150pds for example).

 

Unfortunately I can't comment on the celestron as I have never used one.

[Cosmic Geoff]

It depends exactly what usage you have in mind.  The C6 is more compact than the Star Discovery and being a SCT with a large range of focus will  accommodate a range of devices such as binoviewers, cameras, filter wheels etc more readily than the newtonian, which may prove useful in the future.

The narrow field of view of the SCT will be a drawback only on deep-sky objects that are bright enough to be seen easily and are big enough to fill up the Field of view, and asides from star clusters, there aren't many of those, especially if you are observing from a town.

As for the mounts, both mounts will work for visual use but will be a bit wobbly or limited for any kind of imaging. 

A bigger SCT (C8 SE) works well for viewing galaxies from a dark-sky site.  But a small 4" EVAA outfit works even better...

[tjsimonsen]

Thanks for your replies. I think the C6 has the edge still.

I have considered the Baader Hyperion IV 8-24. There are some stellar reviews out there.