Beginner recommendation

[RFaber]

Hi,

My son's birthday is coming up, and I plan to gift him a new telescope. He currently has a 3d-printed "Hadley" telescope, which has been great fun and learning, but he would like something a bit better and more stable.

We live in a fairly light-polluted area, so it would be nice to have something that is not too hard to transport, but he would probably mostly be using it from our backyard.

I have been looking at telescopes like "Sky-Watcher Skyliner Flextube 250P", "Sky-Watcher Skyliner 200P Flextube SynScan Go-To" and "Celestron StarSense Explorer 10"".

I am not quite sure about how important the go-to features are. He has been spending a bit too much time finding objects compared to observing them with his current telescope, but perhaps that is just due to the instability of the mount? I would guess that would be much better with the Dobsonian mount?

Any recommendations? He is 18 years old.

Cheers,
Rasmus.

[RT65CB-SWL]

Hi @RFaber / Rasmus (plus son) and welcome to SGL. 

In my opinion a ‘Dobsonian’ would be the best value. With larger ‘Newtonian’ you would need a very stable mount and that may cost the same as or more than the OTA.

Another point worth mentioning is the finder and focusser do get to some awkward angles when mounted on an EQ mount.

Edited April 17 by RT65CB-SWL

[Budgie1]

I don't know what you budget is or whether your son is only interested in observing but, just to throw a techy slant on things, what about the ZWO SeeStar S50?

It comes with a tripod, is mobile and run off an app on a mobile phone. It has the Go-To function and can take images of your targets.

Just something else to consider as an option.

[AstroMuni]

36 minutes ago, RFaber said:

I am not quite sure about how important the go-to features are. He has been spending a bit too much time finding objects compared to observing them with his current telescope, but perhaps that is just due to the instability of the mount?

Welcome to the forum 🙂 

There are 2 challenges - finding the object in the first place & tracking and keeping the object in the centre of your view. The finder scope/telrad along with software such as Stellarium can help with the first challenge. The second one needs a sturdy mount &/or a tracker. If you spend money on a Go-To mount it will help tackle both.

[PhilB61]

Don't underestimate the size of the telescope, all the ones you have listed are fairly large and will take up a fair bit of space both in storage and transport. Obviously I don't know your circumstances, so it might not be an issue, especially if you have a garage or shed for storage, but just something to consider.

I think any of those scopes would give great views, and especially if you can get to a dark site.

[Albir phil]

1 hour ago, RFaber said:

Hi,

My son's birthday is coming up, and I plan to gift him a new telescope. He currently has a 3d-printed "Hadley" telescope, which has been great fun and learning, but he would like something a bit better and more stable.

We live in a fairly light-polluted area, so it would be nice to have something that is not too hard to transport, but he would probably mostly be using it from our backyard.

I have been looking at telescopes like "Sky-Watcher Skyliner Flextube 250P", "Sky-Watcher Skyliner 200P Flextube SynScan Go-To" and "Celestron StarSense Explorer 10"".

I am not quite sure about how important the go-to features are. He has been spending a bit too much time finding objects compared to observing them with his current telescope, but perhaps that is just due to the instability of the mount? I would guess that would be much better with the Dobsonian mount?

Any recommendations? He is 18 years old.

Cheers,
Rasmus.

First thing I would advise is look at the zwo see star 50 and some of the images taken with it. It  might be a good option,it's so easy to use and find lots of DSO.

[PeterStudz]

The ZWO Seestar S50 is new and interesting and worth considering if your son is OK with, and will enjoy, looking at things on a screen.  

There’s a general assumption that the younger generation all love tech. My 12 yr old daughter is well into mobiles, tablets and social media etc, but she’s not interested in something like the Seestar. She wants to observe through an eyepiece. 

Not sure on your transport. The Dobs that you listed are all surprisingly big. We have an Skywatcher 200p and with the back seats down it just fits into our car. Of course that means that only two of us can travel with the telescope. 

If you are in a light polluted area you might find that anything larger than a 200mm doesn’t give you much of an advantage for DSO - beyond that point it can just magnify the light pollution. The planets and the moon are a different matter as they are bright, so light pollution isn’t such an issue.

Edited April 16 by PeterStudz

[Elp]

Depends on what they want to observe. You'll struggle immensely to see any hint of DSO targets in a light pollution environment. Solar system, star clusters, double stars etc no problem. Usually a good planetary scope and a general browsing the sky scope are two different pieces of equipment hence the first sentence.

 

[Ricochet]

I don’t find tracking with a dob that difficult a task so I suspect that something with a push to system like the Starsense dobs will be fine instead of a full go to system. With regards to size the weight can be off putting long term so a dob without motors might get more use. Ed Ting estimates that once the initial excitement has worn off an 8” will get used twice as often as a 10”. 
 

I also suspect that this is something best not given as a surprise as your son may already have his own idea as to which direction he wants to go in terms of upgrading. 

[Spile]

I can recommend an 8” manual Dobsonian for a number of reasons and I chose mine some years ago because…

• I was interested in visual astronomy. I wanted to observe in real-time.
• I wanted the largest proportion of my budget to be spent on the mirror and focuser so that I got great, pleasing views with no colour distortion.
• I wanted a mount that was secure and stable so I didn’t get shaky views.
• I wanted a telescope that would be capable of viewing solar system objects, binary stars and where possible, Dark Sky Objects.
• I needed a telescope that I could point and observe and was quick to set up. I didn’t want to spend time aligning a polar or computerised mount. 
• I wanted a telescope that I could upgrade.

I have the Skywatcher 200P but it has cost me money to upgrade it to the specification as the GSO equivalent so that is what I would recommend you get.

[900SL]

Celestron do some interesting 'starsense' models, that work in conjunction with a mobile phone to find objects in the night sky. Useful for beginners in LP areas

[RFaber]

Thanks a lot for all the advice. The ZWO Seestar S50 looked really interesting, but I took note of the advice to actually ask my son, and he ended up prefering the Sky-Watcher Skyliner Flextube 250P. He really wanted the manual experience rather than the automation.