Upgrade?

[Wikiastro]

I've been getting back into astronomy lately, after a few years away.

I'm purely visual, and have been completely analogue up to now - by choice.  I felt that doing things the hard way with a completely manual set-up and old school printed star charts would give me a good grounding and increase my skills, plus it gets me away from the computer that I spend most of my limited free time playing with.  I am now a competent star-hopper and can find DSOs and the like, most of the time!

I feel like it's time for an upgrade, and would like some advice.

I'm currently using a SW 150P on and eq3-2.  I think I've gone as far as I can with this, and it's been a brilliant first scope.  The question is - what's next?  I don't necessarily want to go down the route of astrophotography, so am happy staying visual.  The idea of GoTo appeals to me, as does motorised tracking.  I'd like to have better views as well, so a bigger aperture may be on the cards.  I also have regular access to incredible dark skies at my in-laws in Powys, so some portability is useful too.

Would a SW 200P on a HEQ-5 be much of an upgrade?  I've come across a 2nd hand one that appeals to me, but I'm unsure.  The HEQ-5 is the older model with motors, but for tracking only.  I think they may need upgrading to turn it into goto.

Does anyone have any thoughts on this?  I fear I may be overthinking and should just jump!

[John]

I can't advise on the GOTO side of things as I don't use it but I'm not sure that moving from a 6 inch aperture to an 8 inch will give you much in the way of improvements to the views ?

10 inches would give a more meaningful and longer lasting extra / deeper reach I think. That does present challenges if you want to stick with EQ mounting of course.

Maybe a GOTO 10 inch dobsonian ?

 

[Mr Spock]

1 minute ago, John said:

Maybe a GOTO 10 inch dobsonian ?

I was thinking the same. 

[Elp]

13 minutes ago, Wikiastro said:

portability

Define.

[Wikiastro]

3 minutes ago, Elp said:

Define.

It has to fit in the back of a large car to go to dark sky sites, including the regular trips to Wales to see family.

9 minutes ago, John said:

Maybe a GOTO 10 inch dobsonian ?

A large dob may pose problems for the above - it's not so much the size of the OTA, but the rocker box too.

I wondered about if the 6->8 inch upgrade would be meaningful, although the light gathering goes by the square of radius of the mirror - 3 = 9, 4 = 16.  That's almost double.

Another possibility would be to keep the OTA and get a better mount.  I have come across a second hand eq5 with an upgrade to make it goto for a decent price including the better tripod.

[Elp]

There's always the flextube goto dobs from SW. If you're not planning on doing long exposure imaging there's no real need for EQ unless you like finding objects via the RA/Dec system.

ES also do much larger dobs which can be dismantled.

Edited Tuesday at 09:10 by Elp

[Wikiastro]

7 minutes ago, Elp said:

There's always the flextube goto dobs from SW. If you're not planning on doing long exposure imaging there's no real need for EQ unless you like finding objects via the RA/Dec system.

ES also do much larger dobs which can be dismantled.

I've seen these big dobs, but they are getting a tad expensive, although I've not explored the 2nd hand market for these yet.  Maybe I'll widen the search.

[Xilman]

Dobs up to around 16" will go in the back of a hatchback in my experience, as long as the primary and secondary are separated by removable struts. Not a lot of room left over, though, for a family and their luggage.

My 10" SW Dob fits very easily into my Nissan Pulsar, which is not a big vehicle by any stretch.

 

[Xilman]

34 minutes ago, Wikiastro said:

A large dob may pose problems for the above - it's not so much the size of the OTA, but the rocker box too.

Low-profile rockerboxes can be very small. Take a look at this one, for instance.

https://www.rothervalleyoptics.co.uk/explore-scientific-ultra-light-16-dobsonian-telescope.html

(I coulldn't find one under 18" at FLO.)

[John]

1 hour ago, Wikiastro said:

It has to fit in the back of a large car to go to dark sky sites, including the regular trips to Wales to see family.

A large dob may pose problems for the above - it's not so much the size of the OTA, but the rocker box too.

I wondered about if the 6->8 inch upgrade would be meaningful, although the light gathering goes by the square of radius of the mirror - 3 = 9, 4 = 16.  That's almost double.

Another possibility would be to keep the OTA and get a better mount.  I have come across a second hand eq5 with an upgrade to make it goto for a decent price including the better tripod.

I used to fit my 12 inch F/5.3 solid tube dob in my Golf-size hatchback when going to star parties. I needed to fold one half of the split rear seat down to fit the tube in. The mount stood upright on the other side of the boot.

A flex-tube might not need the split seat folding down.

Those "double the light grasp" figures don't seem to translate into massive differences in observing in my experience. Subtle differences maybe.

[Elp]

8 minutes ago, John said:

Those "double the light grasp" figures don't seem to translate into massive differences in observing in my experience. Subtle differences maybe.

I generally agree with this having tried visual in a number of apertures, but I think it's more so the resolving capacity as it increases by aperture, you're also usually increasing the focal length too, but yes, very incremental, seeing then also becomes more of an issue.

[M40]

Always one to offer an outside of the box alternative..... have you considered trying eeva with your telescope on a goto mount? Using something like a zwo 290mm with a flip mirror you could switch between eeva and visual. You don't need an asiair but with its plate solving ability, it does speed up things especially in our cloud limited skies. The heq5 can just about handle a 200p, so your 150p should work well. Food for thought. All the best.

[Captain Scarlet]

I would disagree that a 150 => 200 upgrade won’t be worth it, particularly in dark skies. In badly LP’d skies, 150 is probably your limit in terms of being able to detect fuzzies, which rules out 200 or anything bigger. But in dark skies, my 200 easily and noticeably outperformed a 150p I was keeping for a broinlaw. Similarly, I recently got a pair of 18x70 binoculars, Nikon Astroluxes whose objectives are achromatic doublets. My prior Astro bins were Zeiss Conquest HD 15x56. The 25% difference in aperture (56% in area) translates into a dramatic difference in what I can see, in 21.8 skies.

Cheers, Magnus

Edited Tuesday at 12:07 by Captain Scarlet

[Paz]

8 hours ago, Xilman said:

Dobs up to around 16" will go in the back of a hatchback in my experience, as long as the primary and secondary are separated by removable struts. Not a lot of room left over, though, for a family and their luggage.

 

A holiday at a dark site and having to choose whether to take the family or a 16" scope??? 😬

[Elp]

22 minutes ago, Paz said:

A holiday at a dark site and having to choose whether to take the family or a 16" scope??? 😬

One is less hassle than the other.

[John]

Getting under dark skies is very beneficial - I recall an SGL star party when I had a 6 inch scope and the skies were pretty dark. The 6 inch was showing galaxies quite nicely that my 10 inch struggled to show at all from my garden at home.

 

[Elp]

I basically can't see nothing DSO at home bortle 7, a larger aperture will only show zoomed in LP for me. But dark skies are completely different, actually saw M101 quite clearly recently through a 6 inch.

[Wikiastro]

The scope that prompted this thread was this one:  

https://www.rothervalleyoptics.co.uk/second-hand-skywatcher-heq5-with-explorer-200p.html

It is about the limit of what I can afford.  I'm beginning to think that it may not be that much of an upgrade thanks to everyone's advice.

I then looked at this, but I've missed out on this - just been sold.

Looks like I'll keep looking.  Thanks for the advice everyone.

[Clarkey]

13 hours ago, Wikiastro said:

Would a SW 200P on a HEQ-5 be much of an upgrade

Personally, I would avoid a big Newtonian on an equatorial mount. Eyepiece always ends up in awful positions. Either a Newtonian on an alt-az or a straight through scope on an equatorial mount. Much easier.

[Geoff Lister]

On 30/07/2024 at 09:30, Wikiastro said:

I'm currently using a SW 150P on and eq3-2.

Would it be possible to use this existing mount with a Synscan handset? If this works, this would give you full GoTo.

Geoff

[Cosmic Geoff]

On 30/07/2024 at 09:30, Wikiastro said:

Would a SW 200P on a HEQ-5 be much of an upgrade? 

Some years ago I had a 200mm f5 Newtonian on an EQ-5 for visual use.  I thought this setup was awful and I could not get rid of it quickly enough. The eyepiece got into odd positions, sometimes high off the ground. I found it extremely difficult to find anything with it.

I bought a used Celestron C8 SE (SCT) which is much easier to handle, has GoTo and had a better optical performance on double stars than the Newtonian. It also performed very well on faint galaxies when I took it to a dark skies site.

I suggest you do likewise.

[PeterStudz]

You can get a simple, reliable PushTo via smartphone app. I use an app called PS Align Pro which includes a PushTo feature. I’ve been using it for about 2 yrs now and once synced to a known target it has never failed to locate on object within the FOV of a low power eyepiece. I think it’s brilliant. There’s also an app called AstrpHopper, that does similar, although I haven’t tried it.

For visual tracking on my 8” Dob I use an EQ platform. Mine is homemade and cost about £85. It was made from the excellent instructions on this site and is good for any Dob up to 10”, possibly 12”. Really simple to make and simple to use. The only power tool that I used and needed was an electric drill. If you don’t want to make one you can always just buy a platform. 

[John]

Apart from simplicity and low cost, the dobsonian mount does a great job of holding a large, fat, heavy optical tube steady enough for high magnifications to be employed. Goodness knows what the cost / weight / bulk would have been of an equatorial mount that would have held my 12 inch F/5.3 optical tube steady enough for 400x - 500x to be a practical proposition when conditions / target allowed. The 18mm plywood dobsonian mount managed that for around £200 build costs and 10kg in weight.

 

Edited Thursday at 17:11 by John