Planet scope?

[puregeordie]

Hello people, Is this scope below any good for planets, Or should I go for the Skywatcher 150P?

Skywatcher 150PL,

EQ3/2 with 4 week old dual axis motors,

25mm and 10mm Eyepieces supplied with Scope,

X2 Deluxe Barlow with camera thread,

Antares 1 1/4 0.5 Focal reducer,

Antares 1 1/4 Moon Filter. All for £170!

I know it is a basic Q. But thought I'd just ask anyways.

Ta

[arad85]

PL is better for the planets (longer focal length = greater magnification with any given eyepiece)

[puregeordie]

Thanks Arad.

[puregeordie]

Hello again, what about this mount: EQ3/2 with 4 week old dual axis motors, Would this be OK for a beginner in this feild.

I know their are better and more expensive ones but I would be just starting out. Wanting to view and be mesmerised looking at the planets.

Thnaks again.

[John]

Hello again, what about this mount: EQ3/2 with 4 week old dual axis motors, Would this be OK for a beginner in this feild.

I know their are better and more expensive ones but I would be just starting out. Wanting to view and be mesmerised looking at the planets.

Thnaks again.

That mount would be OK if it has the steel pipe legs rather than the aluminumn legs - the latter type flex too much for a 6" F/8 tube assembly in my opinion. The fact that it's got the dual axis motors is very useful for high power planetary viewing though so it might be worth getting and then upgrading the tripod legs if necessary. It all depends on what it's costing though - you can pick up a driven EQ5 / CG5 for not a lot of money these days which would be more stable with that scope.

John

[puregeordie]

Hi John Thanks for your quick responce. This is the scope below in Q.

http://stargazerslounge.com/sale/92676-skywatcher-150pl-motored-eq3-2-bits.html

It is for sale and I think I may buy if its thr right one for a beginner, looking at the planets!.

Let me know

Thanks again.

Simon

[arad85]

It will be fine for what you want. Don't expect quite as much detail as you can see in the imaging section though. They are built up from many hundreds (usually) of frames and averaged to build up the details...

You should see banding on Jupiter and rings around saturn with that though

[arad85]

... although Johns comment is probably a good one. Having said that, it's a reasonable price with the motors...

[puregeordie]

Thanks again Lads for your input.

Much appreciated.

Simon

[jimhaleysscomet]

Only Saturn and Jupiter (and mars for a month every few years) show detail and all planets are tiny. Mercury and Venus show phases like the moon but that is it. Uranus and Neptune are VERY small. Most people bore of looking at only planets fairly quickly. Are you sure you are not one of them?

For visual use a 6-8" dob is more stable and has more aperture. For Visual use, it will work better for planets AND all the deep space objects. Aperture rules (the more the better up to 10" when portability becomes an issue). Focal length (FL) is also very important for planets. FL = 36" is about minimum. FL = 48" gives 30% larger images.

[puregeordie]

Only Saturn and Jupiter (and mars for a month every few years) show detail and all planets are tiny. Mercury and Venus show phases like the moon but that is it. Uranus and Neptune are VERY small. Most people bore of looking at only planets fairly quickly. Are you sure you are not one of them?

For visual use a 6-8" dob is more stable and has more aperture. For Visual use, it will work better for planets AND all the deep space objects. Aperture rules (the more the better up to 10" when portability becomes an issue). Focal length (FL) is also very important for planets. FL = 36" is about minimum. FL = 48" gives 30% larger images.

I see your point, If like you say I get bored then is it still a good/resonable scope for DSO as well. A scope for general observing is what I would like I guess! The scope in Q. is a Telescope Focal Length: 1200mm (f/8)

Thank you.

[TheThing]

Most people bore of looking at only planets fairly quickly. Are you sure you are not one of them?

I've never met anyone who admits to that! If you tire of looking at the planets, you must be tired of life. And that's without even mentioning the moon....

The 150 is a great starter scope and good for the more advanced too. It'll show you plenty of objects to keep you interested. Don't be put off by any suggestions that it's only a planetary scope as you will see plenty of DSOs as well (depending on seeing, LP etc!)

[puregeordie]

I've never met anyone who admits to that! If you tire of looking at the planets, you must be tired of life. And that's without even mentioning the moon....

The 150 is a great starter scope and good for the more advanced too. It'll show you plenty of objects to keep you interested. Don't be put off by any suggestions that it's only a planetary scope as you will see plenty of DSOs as well (depending on seeing, LP etc!)

Thanks for that "TheThing".

I think I've made my mind up.

Ta:)

[John]

Like most astro objects, the more time you put in to observing the planets, the more you will get out of them. Ok the rings of Saturn, Jupiters 4 brightest moons and a couple of cloud belts are relatively easy to spot but features like the Cassini division, the Great Red Spot, surface shading on Mars are much more subtle and don't jump out at you even with fairly large scopes.

It's taken me years and many scope changes to really understand this - it's spending time at the eyepiece in all sorts of viewing conditions, getting your eye used to spotting subtle contrast differences, choosing the eyepiece to suit the conditions (rather than the theoretical maximum of the scope !) and making the most of often very short lived (like a few seconds sometimes) windows of excellent seeing, that really bring the rewards.

It's a fantastic hobby but visual astronomy, with one or two exceptions, is not a pastime of "quick wins" I've found. I respect it even more for that actually ......

John

[puregeordie]

Another Q. This would be used for an eight year old as well.

here: http://stargazerslounge.com/sale/92676-skywatcher-150pl-motored-eq3-2-bits.html

Am I being a bit optimistic with this kind of mount as I know by reading posts it is not an easy mount to play with.

Ta

Simon.

[russ]

The mount itself works well and very easy to use. It's long Newtonians and EQ mounts when put together that makes things a little awkward for viewing, that's all. You can twist the tube within the rings to place the eyepiece better but this is not easy when the tube is wet, cold and slippery. Depending on the object, the eyepiece can be very high and could pose problems for an 8 year old.

But for the planets, the eyepiece is usually in a good place and the tube twisted to make things quite comfortable for your son.

I have had that tube twice and the EQ3 four times. I would recommend the Skywatcher Autofocuser as an upgrade. Means you don't need to touch the tube while focusing and makes life much easier.

The 150PL itself is a stonking bit of kit and i've had some of the best planetary views with it. Saturn last year with my 150PL was better than a friends C8 and on a par with a much more pricey Skymax 150 Pro.

The deepsky is also very pleasing. M42 looked good and all globular clusters were very nice (M13 nicely resolved).

[puregeordie]

Thanks Russ, Your talking me into it mate!

Wish me luck whatever I do. Brrrrrrrrrrrriliant. Damn cold in it!

[russ]

I don't think you'll regret it. You could pay a lot lot more and not have any better views of the solar system.

The main thing is this: That is a good price for that setup. It will give you hours of enjoyment, blow your socks off on some targets. And at the end of it when you want something bigger, you'll recoup nearly all your money. I would give that setup, for £200, a double thumbs up!

win win situation.

Yeah it's cold

[TheThing]

Yep, I second what russ has to say!

[geordieskies]

a 200mm mirror will gather 77% more light than the 150mm

First Light Optics - Skywatcher Skyliner 200P Dobsonian

hope this helps

[umadog]

When the chips are down, any scope with a good mirror is good for planets. Short focal length eyepieces nowadays have long eye-relief, so I don't see why telescope focal length is a factor in choosing a "planetary scope." Similarly, good barlows exist now. In fact, I'm not sure why focal length is particularly relevant. Focal ratio, on the other hand, might be. Fast scopes (i.e. f/5 and faster) rapidly become harder to make and so it's possible you'll be getting better mirrors if the scope is slower. This is really just a guess, though. I don't know how the mirror quality from Synta and GSO varies with focal ratio. Also, there are fewer optical aberrations in slower scopes. It's cheaper to get views if the scope is f/6 or faster. That's not say that fast scopes can't work just as well, they can, it just may cost more. Finally, there's the issue of secondary obstruction. What you need to know is that an obstruction <20% by diameter is undetectable. i.e. the obstruction will contribute no noticeable diffraction (other than the spider vanes). A well designed f/4 or f/5 can quite conceivably have an obstruction under 20%. Obstructions up to about 25% can affect images in theory, but since scopes are generally seeing-limited the obstruction probably isn't a big deal here. The consequence of the obstruction accelerates as you approach 30% (e.g. in SCTs). Still, however, good planetary views are possible (particularly in a larger scope). The obstruction basically means that there is more diffraction present then there would otherwise be. So a 12" SCT, say, may have a relatively large obstruction but you're starting from a large aperture in the first place. Consequently, a good view is still possible. At the end of the day, anything with an obstruction below 25% is fine. Below 20% is best.

Tracking makes a big difference for planetary observing once you're starting to go above about 100x. My solar scope has no tracking and I don't miss it, since I'm usually observing at 50 x to 75 x. On planets, however, where I'm at 200 x to 250 x, I really appreciate the driven mount.