Telescope for astronomy and wildlife

[teresa]

As a complete novice to telescopes, could someone please tell me the best telescope for use for astonomy and for wildlife-watching. Budget around £300 - £400. Thanks!

[roundycat]

have a look on Opticron's web site. Some of their birding scopes are brilliant. I have used one as a grab and go for ages, now use a Zeiss Diascope 85T* which is a bit over your budget.

Dennis

[Psychobilly]

Sky at Night did a group test of 100mm spotting scopes In the latest issue...

Peter....

[The Warthog]

A spotting scope of about 100mm will do a good job, but is still a terrestrial scope at heart. You will need a more solid mount for astronomy than these things usually come with. My experience with a photo tripod and my 65mm Mak is that it is too wobbly for really satisfactory astronomy.

[brianb]

My experience with a photo tripod and my 65mm Mak is that it is too wobbly for really satisfactory astronomy.

This does depend hugely on the photo tripod. Tripods can have three attributes - affordable, carryable, steady - but rarely more than one and never all three.

I have a Manfrotto 028B which is perfectly satisfactory to carry an 80mm f/6 refractor using either the 501V (fluid video) or 393 (monopod gimbal) head. In fact the 393 will carry much more than that, I can get sharp images of the Moon even using the Canon 400mm f/2.8L (6 Kg) with a 2x tele-extender though that combination is way too much for the 501.

[Astro_Baby]

Well something like a Celestron Nexstar 4SE would probably be good as well - 90mm Maksutov on an electronic alt/az mount. More optimised for astronomy but a good scope for birding I would have thought ( I know nothing about birding by the way ).

Some bird spotters use a 90mm Mak so I would have thought the Nexstar 4SE or something similar would be good.

[ringz]

Just remember to ask about the minimum focus distance before you decide to buy or you might end up with something that can only focus way into the distance

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Martyn

[TheThing]

I have an Opticron 85mm which is excellent for birding and pretty good as a grab and go for astronomy too.

The problem with the S@N review recently, is that it concentrated solely on using the scopes for astronomical purposes and not a combination. No one buys a spotting scope just for astronomy, so the review is IMHO a waste of paper! A 100mm spotting scope is a bit too unwiedly for dragging round the fields!