Overwhelmed by choice and looking for advice

[old_eyes]

I last used a telescope in anger 40 years ago at school, borrowing their 6 inch Newtonian on a couple of occasions. I had started with astronomy borrowing my dad's 7 x 50 binoculars (of unknown origin), and enjoying what I could see from my central London back garden. It was a fairly restricted view because of houses and trees, but I remember the thrill of getting whole constellations like Delphinus or Corona Borealis into the field of view. Or seeing so many stars in the Pleiades. I still have the binoculars and used them to guide my children around the sky.

12 years ago I used my wife's birdwatching telescope to look at Hale-Bopp, and it left me with a feeling that I still wanted to own and use a telescope. A feeling that has grown.

Back when I was dreaming of telescopes, it was all fairly easy. You listened to Patrick Moore and understood that the choice was between a Newtonian and a refractor, that good refractors were expensive, that you needed twice the aperture on a reflector to match a refractor, and that whatever you chose, aperture was everything.

So now thinking seriously about a telescope, I find myself overwhelmed by choice that never existed before. I have looked at adverts, and read reviews, and browsed this site, and I am still unsure. So I would like to explain who I am and what I want to do, and hope that you can point me in the direction your experience tells you I should go.

I live in rural North Wales with pretty good views to the North, West and South - West (more blocked to the South - East and East). There are towns and main roads nearby, so there is quite a lot of light spill, but I have access to some fields that are darker.

I am most interested in deep-sky objects. I am not particularly interested at the moment in planetary or lunar observation in detail.

I travel a lot and am fairly time poor, and I live in a fairly cloudy and rainy part of the UK, so I need to be able to grab the chance to use a telescope when it comes. I don't want to waste a lot of time setting up. If the scope needs to cool down before use, I would like it to cool down quickly. If the optics need a lot of work to keep them aligned, that would be a problem.

I would love to have a go at imaging, but that is not my main goal.

I know my way around the sky reasonably well, so I don't need a computerised GO-TO mount to find things to look at, but the speed and convenience could be useful.

Would I be best off with a Newtonian, such as a Sky-Watcher Explorer 150 or 200, or an Orion Optics Europa 150 on a good solid mount such as a Sky-Watcher HEQ5? Or would a Matsukov Cassegrain like a Meade ETX 125 suit my need to grab opportunities better?

How good are computerised Alt-Azimuth mounts these days? I always feel drawn to an equatorial mount, because it seems a simpler system. Perhaps I am just being old-fashioned?

Does a computerised Alt-Azimuth mount make setting up the scope that much faster, and are they accurate enough to be really useful?

I haven't seriously considered a refractor, because I like the idea of good light gahtering and I am not interested in long focal lengths, but am I missing a trick? Would anyone suggest something like an Evostar 80ED as a good general purpose scope? Fluorite apochromats seem to be pretty expensive for the aperture.

I'd like to do something this winter, so any suggestions or comments gratefully received.

[nicnac]

i was in your shoes over the last few weeks!, i was researching anything and everything on telescopes i could lay my hands on.

After a while and a few questions posted on this forum i came to the conclusion a reflector would be the "happy medium"

Clear skies to you my friend

Regards,

Nick

[albedo0.39]

Welcome to SGL oldeyes... great story about how you found yourself here and I'm sure there are many people who have similar memories of borrowing dads binoculars to hunt the skies...

Regarding your choice and perhaps making some assumptions I think a modern Dobsonian is going to be a good choice. £ for £, this type of scope has a much larger aperture than the ones you have listed but there are some characteristics you need to be aware of.

The Dob is always going to be a very simple Atl-Az mount - and 80% of the time, without any guidance system so in this way you'll get to know the sky very well, very fast.

That's good.

Regarding cool down times, the dob might have a larger mirror than a similarly priced electronic mount so in this case, you can alleviate this by leaving in the garage (where mine is now)

Refractors are good for splitting double stars, photography (if guided) and planetary visual work. However, for the same price as a decent refractor, you could get a much larger reflector (much less portable of course, and not up to any sort of photography unless you spend loads on an aftermarket guidance system) but since you mentioned your interest in Deep Sky Objects, then the 10" or even 12" would be my first choice

The final characteristic of the larger dobsonian is the short (low) Focal length or F#. Typically, scopes below F6 tend to have a much steeper light cone and as such ask for higher quality eyepieces to avoid poor edge of field images.

with an F10 refractor, you can usually avoid such EP's and still get excellent edge to edge correction

Anyhow, I'm sure others will have some good advice, so sit back and relax whilst the advice comes in. Take your time and tap into the wealth of know how on the site

Steve

[old_eyes]

i was in your shoes over the last few weeks!, i was researching anything and everything on telescopes i could lay my hands on.

After a while and a few questions posted on this forum i came to the conclusion a reflector would be the "happy medium"

Clear skies to you my friend

Regards,

Nick

Nick - what mount did you get? Equatorial, computerised GO-TO?

old_eyes

[Nick R]

I guess that you may live in N wales if its always wet and cloudy , I live in Sunny Rhyl

Quote..

Does a computerised Alt-Azimuth mount make setting up the scope that much faster, and are they accurate enough to be really useful?

I have one and after a few teething problems it is now very good

[acey]

My way back into the hobby was much like yours, and like you I grew up with the understanding that you got a Newtonian or a refractor, with an equatorial mount being the only "serious" kind.

Since those days the dobsonian revolution has happened: large-aperture Newtonians on a simple alt-az mount that sits on the ground and looks like it comes from IKEA.

For my first "grown-up" scope I got an 8-inch dobsonian and never regretted it.

Perfect for deep-sky viewing (Messiers, NGCs, you name it).

Very quick to set up (2 minutes or less).

Very quick to take down if rain comes.

Very easy to transport in an ordinary car to a dark site.

Very easy to use in a muddy field - no legs sinking into muddy ground (except perhaps yours).

Very comfortable to use: a camping stool will put you at the perfect height for viewing through an 8-inch.

Easy to track objects at powers up to about x300. Possible at higher power but you won't need that for deep-sky.

Good for moon and planets too (Jupiter's red spot, transiting moons, Saturn's rings, the disc of Uranus, etc etc)

Not great if you want to do imaging - but you don't want to do imaging.

Optics will most probably be adequately aligned when you receive the scope - and will stay that way when you take it in your car. After a year or so you might think about collimation (which is very easy - despite what you might read on this forum ).

I used my 8-inch for about 9 years and still hadn't run out of galaxies to see with it. I upgraded to a 12-inch dobsonian, which of course shows me even more, though with a bit more hassle - I'd recommend sticking with 8-inches to begin with, especially if you think you might ever want more aperture. If it's a scope for life then you might consider a 10-inch, though it'll be quite a bit heavier. When I first got the 8-inch I thought it was huge. From the point of view of future upgrade, 8 to 12 is well worth it but 10 to 12 isn't really.

If ever I upgrade again it will be to an 18-inch dobsonian.

These are the sort of scope that Herschel used, and if they were good enough for him then they're good enough for me.

[Astro_Baby]

Hi from me - I know where your coming from because like you I only returned to the hobby quite recently. The amount of kit available is staggering with features I could never have imagined every owning years ago.

I went for an 8" Newtonian on an EQ mount because thats what I always aspired to own years ago. For me its a throughly impractical set-up ebing time poor and miles from a dark sky location BUT I love it just the same.

[nicnac]

Nick - what mount did you get? Equatorial, computerised GO-TO?

old_eyes

As i see it the GO-TO system is a little "lazy", of course it has its perks but i prefer to earn my views if you catch my drift, a better sense of personal accomplishment.

Regards,

Nick

[robneath]

Agree Nicnac - cant beat knowing the sky.

[adamsp123]

If you have the funds a nice newtonian or ED refractor on a goto mount, especially if you do consider imaging, because if you do get the imaging bug the mount is the most important thing.

I am in the goto camp, if you can afford it, I know the sky but for faint DSOs a goto saves so much time.

[jgs001]

Hi old_eyes, welcome to SGL. Something to consider if you are looking to possibly get into imaging, the goto mounts, like the HEQ5 and EQ6 in either syntrek or synscan form (the handcontrollers are different, the syntrek doesn't have goto), from what I understand at least, have better drive mechanisms and better mount electronics than their non goto cousins. The better drive trains would stand you in good stead.

The Computerised AltAz mounts seem to me to be pretty good. Once I'd worked out my setup routine and sorted a decent power supply, the alignment and goto worked well every time. But, they are not ideal for imaging.

As to the scope, I only have experience of refractors and a mak, so can't really offer much advice. The 80ED scopes on the HEQ5/6 make excellent imaging setups though.

[dweller25]

Hello Old_Eyes and welcome to SGL.

In your shoes I would buy a Skywatcher 8" F/6 Dobsonian. I have one and it is a really good all-rounder. I fitted a £5 fan on the back and it cools in 30mins MAX. Collimation is easy, carrying is easy, setting up is easy and finding objects is easy. I find my Dob is excellent on the planets which is always a good test of optical quality and it has enough light grasp for deep sky. They are very cheap too. Well recommended.

You can always add tube rings to it later (as I did) and put it on an equatorial mount.

A good supplier of these scopes is First Light Optics - see the header at the top of this page. If you phone Steve at FLO he will give you great advice.

As to the other scopes you mention :-

Maksutovs are VERY slow to cool down in winter and a 5" Mak would be no match for an 8" Dob.

Refractors are nice and my favourite type of scope (I'm visual planetary) but you would need at least a 6" refractor to match an 8" Dob - and a big mount to match.

The modern goto's are great and very accurate but you seem to enjoy the simplicity of using binoculars which you will also get with a dob.

Sometimes by the time I have set up my Equatorial mount, weights, OTA, electronics etc and cooled the scope down the clouds have rolled in !!!!

Clear skies and good luck.

[acey]

One other advantage of the dob that I forgot to mention:

No electrics, no power needed, nothing to go wrong.

GOTO suits some people and not others. I've tried it and I prefer a map. GOTO will certainly save time - but this is a hobby, not a race.

I believe one-arcminute accuracy is considered very high for GOTO, in practice it'll usually be lower (and just getting the required DSO in the field of view is considered a success). If I'm trying to identify five galaxies in the middle of a field of view 10 arcminutes across (e.g. Stephan's Quintet), that's not good enough. A map such as SkyAtlas 2000 will get me to the right bit of sky, and a more detailed map (such as Uranometria, or something free off the internet) will show me exactly which galaxy is which.

All depends what you want to do, how much you want to see, how much you want to know what it is that you're seeing, etc. And how much you're turned on by technology, or alternatively by simplicity.

[ngwillym]

To GOTO or not GOtO that is the question. I started in the 60's with a tabletop mounted Charles Frank 4" reflector and like a lot of you learned my way around the sky, and could star hop with the best of them.

now though, being time poor, I also needed something that is quick to set up and get me to the objects I want to see quickly - so I now have (courtesy of a company bonus) an observatory - therefore no setup time and a GOTO, so that I can maximise my OBSERVING time, not my searching time - I'm lucky if I can get 2 -3 hours week - even when it is clear

[old_eyes]

I guess that you may live in N wales if its always wet and cloudy , I live in Sunny Rhyl

Quote..

Does a computerised Alt-Azimuth mount make setting up the scope that much faster, and are they accurate enough to be really useful?

I have one and after a few teething problems it is now very good

Dear Nick R,

Since I live just outside Holywell, we share pretty much the same weather, although your ice-cream shops are better.

Interested that you have a Meade ETX, which was one of the options on my list. How quickly are you able to start observing with this, and how much fun are you having?

old_eyes

[old_eyes]

Agree Nicnac - cant beat knowing the sky.

Rob - and I certainly want to know the skies better, just thinking that GO-TO might be useful.

How do you like your Skywatcher 150, and do you find the EQ3 mount strong enough for it?

How quick can you set it up?

Thanks

old_eyes

[old_eyes]

Hi old_eyes, welcome to SGL. Something to consider if you are looking to possibly get into imaging, the goto mounts, like the HEQ5 and EQ6 in either syntrek or synscan form (the handcontrollers are different, the syntrek doesn't have goto), from what I understand at least, have better drive mechanisms and better mount electronics than their non goto cousins. The better drive trains would stand you in good stead.

The Computerised AltAz mounts seem to me to be pretty good. Once I'd worked out my setup routine and sorted a decent power supply, the alignment and goto worked well every time. But, they are not ideal for imaging.

As to the scope, I only have experience of refractors and a mak, so can't really offer much advice. The 80ED scopes on the HEQ5/6 make excellent imaging setups though.

Thanks John. I see you have the HEQ5 syntrek. Do I understand the specification correctly; the syntrek has motors to slew and track the telescope, but without the ability to go straight to a specific sky location which is in the GO-TO synscan version? Do you just steer by eye or do you have RA and Decl numbers to get you in the right area?

old_eyes

[DaveS]

There are RA and Dec circles, though not to the precision we used to get. Probably good enough to get you to a finder FOV.

I think (Being a snob!) you would need something in the Losmandy league for really good circles.

Dave

[old_eyes]

Hello Old_Eyes and welcome to SGL.

In your shoes I would buy a Skywatcher 8" F/6 Dobsonian. I have one and it is a really good all-rounder. I fitted a £5 fan on the back and it cools in 30mins MAX. Collimation is easy, carrying is easy, setting up is easy and finding objects is easy. I find my Dob is excellent on the planets which is always a good test of optical quality and it has enough light grasp for deep sky. They are very cheap too. Well recommended.

You can always add tube rings to it later (as I did) and put it on an equatorial mount.

A good supplier of these scopes is First Light Optics - see the header at the top of this page. If you phone Steve at FLO he will give you great advice.

As to the other scopes you mention :-

Maksutovs are VERY slow to cool down in winter and a 5" Mak would be no match for an 8" Dob.

Refractors are nice and my favourite type of scope (I'm visual planetary) but you would need at least a 6" refractor to match an 8" Dob - and a big mount to match.

The modern goto's are great and very accurate but you seem to enjoy the simplicity of using binoculars which you will also get with a dob.

Sometimes by the time I have set up my Equatorial mount, weights, OTA, electronics etc and cooled the scope down the clouds have rolled in !!!!

Clear skies and good luck.

Thanks. I will certainly follow up with First Light Optics, they sound like a good bunch of people for advice.

I must confess I hadn't really considered a Dob, but so many have mentioned it as an option I need to think about it. Not sure why I didn't have them on my list. I guess when I first heard of them they we still very much in the DIY domain. And you have to admit they don't look all that stable at first sight. But clearly there are some great (and expensive) systems out there. I like the Skywatcher FlexTube concept, because it packs into a smaller and less obtrusive package, but does anyone know if they really snap back into alignment when opened?

Also, how quickly do they settle down after you move or knock them?

I see that you can now get them with tracking motors, GOTO and all sorts, but it seems to me that for a similar price you could have an equatorial mount.

Hmm! This is a stern test of my inner gadget freak. How much do I want the sheer geeky cleverness of an motorised equatorial, compared with a fast easy to use fun telescope that looks like an elongated cement mixer?

old_eyes

[old_eyes]

To GOTO or not GOtO that is the question. I started in the 60's with a tabletop mounted Charles Frank 4" reflector and like a lot of you learned my way around the sky, and could star hop with the best of them.

now though, being time poor, I also needed something that is quick to set up and get me to the objects I want to see quickly - so I now have (courtesy of a company bonus) an observatory - therefore no setup time and a GOTO, so that I can maximise my OBSERVING time, not my searching time - I'm lucky if I can get 2 -3 hours week - even when it is clear

Yes limited observing time is one of my main issues. Like the idea of an observatory, but could probably not sneak it past the family whilst the house needs re-rendering. I guess with an observatory, everything is aligned, cool and ready when you want it. That would be nice.

old_eyes

[old_eyes]

There are RA and Dec circles, though not to the precision we used to get. Probably good enough to get you to a finder FOV.

I think (Being a snob!) you would need something in the Losmandy league for really good circles.

Dave

Thanks Dave - I think finder would be close enough to be useful.

old_eyes

[jgs001]

Thanks John. I see you have the HEQ5 syntrek. Do I understand the specification correctly; the syntrek has motors to slew and track the telescope, but without the ability to go straight to a specific sky location which is in the GO-TO synscan version? Do you just steer by eye or do you have RA and Decl numbers to get you in the right area?

old_eyes

The hand controller allows you to slew by eye ... Although for the cost of £18 in cable I made the scope full goto by connecting it to my laptop with eqmod and Carte du Ciel both of which are free. The mount has exactly the same drives and electronics as the SynScan but has a much cheaper hand controller

[ollypenrice]

When I had read your first post it seemed to have Dob written all over it. Are they stable? You bet they are - if properly made. If I bang my head on ours it's my head that vibrates, though it is a big scope. They are great mounts, simple and reliable, easy to move and steer and very free from vibration. The point about them is that they can handle a big telescope for a very modest cost. Alt-Az Go To is a nice visual sytem but ony for small telescopes. You wouldn't want to be humping a 10 inch version outside whereas a 10 inch Dob is very straightforward.

For lovely pinpoint stars it is refractor every time, including the fairly cheap Chinese apos, but you won't get far into the realm of the nebulae with these.

Could you get to an astro soc somewhere and try a Dob?

Olly

[Nick R]

Dear Nick R,

Since I live just outside Holywell, we share pretty much the same weather, although your ice-cream shops are better.

Interested that you have a Meade ETX, which was one of the options on my list. How quickly are you able to start observing with this, and how much fun are you having?

old_eyes

It takes 5 min sto set up and be observing having lots of fun mate ,i would say it is 95 %accurate at finding what i want to observe ,. a few minor issues at first which i soon sorted , but now feel that it is time to up grade as i would spend every night on it if it was clear enough ,your more than welcome to come and have a peep some time

[Capricorn]

A goto will take 10-15 minutes to set up and that depends on knowing what to do and having everything you need and having it convenient.

The Mak's are good but the field of view is narrow so unless aligned fairly well I have found that the alignment stars are not in the field of view. Which kind of mucks up the process. Trying to find out if I can nail an RDF to mine, bought a 40mm EP for the biggest possible FoV.

Dob's do have the light gathering but after that it is all down to you. You have to point them, nudge them round and then comes the little mentioned aspect of collimation. The mirror is not insignificant both in cool down and in weight, so picking it up and moving it has to be considered.

You mentioned an HEQ5, I have one and that is not lightweight either.

As a general purpose scope on balance a 6 inch newtonian or 4 inch refractor. If weight and transport is important then a 105, 125 goto and suitable power supply - NOT batteries. A goto is a scope in a box. It is all there and driving a scope by motors, goto or not, makes everything easier. They do need setting up and aligning.

If a refractor is not out of the question then one thing I keep reading is the number of people that regret selling their 80mm ED refractors (whatever make). So they seem to fill a much liked gap.

By now you will have been told: Dob, Newtonian, Mak, Refractor, goto, motorised, manual. Bet that it hasn't cleared anything up:D:D:D:D Wonder where the Binocular boys are;)