Advice on buying my second telescope

[Distorted Vision]

Hi,

I'm assuming that alot of beginners ask for advice on buying a telescope here. A little bit about my experiences in amateur astronomy. I was also interested in astronomy when I was younger (I'm 31 now). My parents bought me a Bresser Telescope like the one in the photo attached. I was always disappointed with it - I found it difficult to use and was never able to see anything apart from looking at the moon. I quickly lost interest and it found its way into the loft.

I recently took bought a Canon EOS 450D DSLR and last night I took a photograph of the full moon. I was therefore thinking about getting interested in astronomy again. I started to research telescopes and had a friendly chat with Ted at Telescope House this afternoon. I'm considering purchasing a Meade LXD75 SNT 10" UHTC with a view to mostly using it for astrophotography.

I have a few concerns. Will I be again disappointed like I was with my childhood Bresser? Will I really be able to obtain images like I see in the beautiful galleries produced by amateur photographers or does the UK skies not permit this. I know it sounds trivial but the telescope is expensive and we seem to rarely get good clear skies and weather. The telescope looks large and heavy. There are far too many obstructions from neighbouring houses but the Liverpool Astronomical Society holds weekly meetings at the Pex Hill Observatory which is less than 1 mile from my home so I was planning on taking it there. Does the GOTO function really work well in practice?

Look forward to hearing from you all.

[Hawklord]

You are very lucky to have an excellent society just on your doorstep. Why not try out a few of the members scopes at their meetings and see which ones are best suited to your needs?

[arad85]

Yup. What Hawklord says. Go and inhabit your local astro soc for a couple of weeks and see what all the fuss is about. Get your head around wide angle dobserving (yes, that's Dobserving ) vs refractor or SCT observing. There are far too many tradeoffs for us to tell you what you should be buying and looking through, only experience tells you what you need to know. Trust me, been there, got the T-shirt (and a few 'scopes) to proove it...

[russ]

As the others have said, go visit the astro club first. Get a feel for the different scopes and perhaps get a better idea of what you want.

I would have some serious concerns about the scope you have already shortlisted. Having owned the 6" LXD75 and used an 8" Newt on the LXD75 mount, I would say that Meade are highly optimistic about mounting the 10" SN on that mount. The 8" is at the limit of that mount for visual use. The 6" SN is perfectly suited to that mount for imaging.

It was a good mount though working within it's limits. I found the LXD75 worked best with a 80mm Apo and the DSLR. The GOTO was flawless. And it had a handy feature to reduce the noise while slewing.

[jimhaleysscomet]

I agree with those above. See some big scopes in action first (the one at which you are looking takes some real dedication). Your scope is big enough that you could definitely use it to learn the night sky. Were I in your shoes, I would start by putting a telrad on it, downloading a few maps (skymaps.com), and visiting the astro club. After a few months, you will have a much better idea how you want to spend your money.

Another option is to get the book Nightwatch by Dickinson. It will really jumpstart your return to astronomy.

[Astro_Baby]

I'd really take a pause here if astroimaging is your thing. Its highly complex and almost a black art and so many beginners seem to get discouraged with it. It seems to be a very complex bit of the hobby and potentially expensive too.

Given that you are anxious to avoid disappointment I would really suggest you get down to the astro society and perhaps read a few magazines or books in the meantime and see what the issues are for photography.

[David Galvin]

Hold on to your money and visit the L.A.S at Pex Hill, have a chat with the gang and bring your scope with you.

Check out what NoelinLiverpool thought about his visit. Oh and now he knows how to use his GOTO too.

[oceanheadted]

I'd echo everything everbody else has said. Astrophotography's a big hole to throw money and time into and a 10" SNT will be quite a big beast to play with. I have seen a few of them for sale second hand ("only used 3 times") so I suspect people buy them and find they got a bit more than they bargained for.

[jazzmeister]

Hi,

I have the LXD75 10" SNT.

Good points: Great optics, fantastic views with this aperture.

Bad points: Forget the LXD75 mount with this size scope, I stuggled for a year and even sent it back to Meade, but even then it never worked with the GOTO reliably, and it always sounded like it was straining when slewing.

Also the focuser is Rubbish, so be prepared to put up with that or invest in a better focuser.

I saw the light and mounted my scope on Skywatcher EQ6Pro and what a difference this has made to my enjoyment of my scope. Definitely reccommend this scope with the EQ6Pro mount for photography and visual.

[Vega]

I too highly recommend the EQ6 Pro Mount. A wonderfull peice of kit to use for astro-photography and observing alike. A mount for life (regardless of which scope you using) IMO. If you're not so bothered about visual observing then you might want to consider a slightly smaller scope as aperture isn't so important for photography (camera's can compensate quite easily). After using my 250px, I quickly realised a 6" or 8" could still produce images of the same quality and without the added hurdles of handling the larger 10". However, for me, my observing is just as important and after all... aperture is king in that department! .

Matt