Newbie to astronomy wanting some advice.

[snyper1982]

Hi all, I bought my daughter(she is 5) a telescope for christmas, It is a venture RX-9. The optics seem to be decent(well at least as far as I can tell), but the mount leaves a lot to be desired. First off, for what we use it for, we don't need an EQ mount, as it is more trouble than it is worth because we have no plans of getting into imaging, and it just makes it harder to find anything. I was hoping to find a fairly cheap alt-az goto mount, but I have no idea where to even start looking.

Also, if we don't end up finding a good fairly cheap goto mount, is there any pointers on finding objects with a eq mount?

[Cornelius Varley]

How much do you wish to pay for an alt-az goto mount?

Peter

[snyper1982]

I don't know. How much should I be looking to pay? I was hoping to get the best bang for the buck. No more than like $200 hopefully. Also, I am assuming if I get a new mount, that I will most likely have to get new tube rings and adapters for the mount right?

I was also reading about using the setting circles on EQ mounts last night. Well the setting circles on the mount that came with the scope are horrible. The declination circle, isn't fixed, so I don't even know how to go about using them. Also, the right ascension circle, isn't adjustable.

If I can't find a decent goto in my price range, what is a good EQ or alt-az mount that has setting circles, so I can use celestial coordinates to find objects?

I really want to show my little girl Jupiter and Mars, so any help would be greatly appreciated.

[Astro_Baby]

If the scope is this one RX-9 then I suspect it would be a tough job. MOst Alt/Az GoTos wont cope with such a long tube.

You could try and stiffen the mount up a bit by having the mount at its lowest setting and adding a bit of weight to the accessory tray.

Setting circles on most mounts arent great. Even the venerable HEQ5 and EQ6 have terrible setting circles which is why most people 'starhop' rather than use them.

The only Alt/Az GoTo I can think of would be the Skywatcher one but I really doubt it would cope with a long tube (the tube will catch on the mount when looking up) and you may end up needing new tube rings and a dovetail. The Skywatcher Alt/Az is about £190 but you could buy a whole 5" telescope on the AltAz for about £220 so I would doubt it would be worth it. You may as well just replace the whole scope.

EQ mounts can be tough to begin with and for young childern I'd suggest an Alt/Az as its easier for them to get to grips with. You could always mount the scope possibly on a simple Alt/Az non GoTo like this one Skywatcher - Skywatcher AZ3

That might be a good halfway house.

[snyper1982]

Yup, that's the one. The scope itself, seems to be decent. I mean it shows a good image of the moon when I look at it. It is just the mount that leaves a lot to be desired.

As far as what I am looking for, it doesn't have to be a alt/az goto. If the alt/az mounts won't accept an OTA that long, then I will have to go with a EQ goto. I mainly want the goto feature. If I can't find an affordable one, then I will probably go with a good eq mount with good setting rings. I just want something that will get me fairly close to the object rather than trying to get behind the scope, and eyeball it, as I am doing now. Also, when I was looking at how to polar align am eq mount, I saw some that had a spotting scope along the polar axis with for aligning it with polaris, that seems like it would be cool, as you could quickly get the polar alignment done. With the scope I have now, there is no way to get an accurate polar alignment, as the latitude scale doesn't have enough graduations to get the lat setting right, and I would only be able to eyeball a northerly direction with a compass. It also has an extremely loose fitting mount from the scope to mount, so even if I had the mount aligned perfectl, I would not be sure the the OTA is sitting flush with mount itself.

The spotter scope also sucks on the RX9. I would like to find one that has an eye piece that comes out at 90 degrees, so I don't have to try to become a contortionist to look through it when the scope is pointing in some awkward direction.

[John]

As far as I can see the lowest cost EQ GOTO mount (the EQ3-2 GOTO) costs around £350 or so new. For a lot less than that you can buy a larger aperture scope on an GOTO alt-az mount and not have all the hassle of finding tube rings to fit your current scope, buying and fitting a dovetail bar to fix it onto the EQ3-2 mount. In addition the new scope would come with a couple of eyepieces which I reckon would be better than the ones with your current scope and a usable finder scope as well.

Perhaps you should make the most of the RX-9 as it is now, possibly investing in a couple of better eyepieces (£40 in total) to get the best out of the optics. If the interest stays with your daughter then you can consider moving up to a more capable instrument.

[snyper1982]

I found the meade ds-2000 mount. It is $229. It looks perfect. It is an alt-az, even comes with goto function, magnetic north sensor, level sensor, and internal clock. Only thing is, I can get the mount and scope(ds-2114, 4.5" same size as the current scope) for $246. It is a refurbised model, but that shouldn't matter. Or I can even step up to the DS-2130(5") for only $269...

I am going to look around some more and see if I can find just the mount for cheaper than $229.

Anyone have any experience with these mounts?

[ollypenrice]

You seem dead set on a GoTo mount. In a word of caution there are quite a few posts on here from people finding it hard to get any sense out of these mounts and they are often not all that reliable with cheap electronics. Plenty of posts along those lines as well. Of course, there are plenty that do what their owners want as well. I'm just pointing out what I've seen and heard (which is quite a lot because I run an astronomy B and B.)

It really is not that hard to learn the sky, starting with the basics. There are free planetirum software packages available, planispheres to give you a rough idea of where things are and more or less detailed sky atlasses. I would steer away from anything too small. Big is easier in the dark. Use a red light to read them so as to help your night vision.

Mars - honestly, if it there you can't miss it. I don't know your observing location but it is a VERY bright and distinctly orange point of light close the Sickle of Leo at the moment. Again, Jupiter is so bright when it is around that you only need the roughest idea of where it is for there to be no possibility of error. It appears in the darkening sky long before the stars. That's one easy way to tell a planet.

I hope your little girl likes what she sees. Children sometimes find it easier to cover their 'spare' eye with a hand rather than try to close it, I 've found.

Let me know where you observe from and I'll look upsome timings and locations for Mars.

Is there an astronomical society near you? It's pretty likely, I'd say.

Olly

[yeti monster]

I would have thought a manual, alt-az mount would be simplest and easiest for a youngster to come to terms with, not needing to much thought to keep the scope trained on the target, and thus keeping the attention levels up.

Learning the sky is great, I have no hankering for goto, I imagine that it taks the fun out of finding stuff anyway. True, for a youngster, being able to home in a target instantly would be more interesting, but the cost of a reliable set up must be quite significant.

[snyper1982]

You seem dead set on a GoTo mount. In a word of caution there are quite a few posts on here from people finding it hard to get any sense out of these mounts and they are often not all that reliable with cheap electronics. Plenty of posts along those lines as well. Of course, there are plenty that do what their owners want as well. I'm just pointing out what I've seen and heard (which is quite a lot because I run an astronomy B and B.)

It really is not that hard to learn the sky, starting with the basics. There are free planetirum software packages available, planispheres to give you a rough idea of where things are and more or less detailed sky atlasses. I would steer away from anything too small. Big is easier in the dark. Use a red light to read them so as to help your night vision.

Mars - honestly, if it there you can't miss it. I don't know your observing location but it is a VERY bright and distinctly orange point of light close the Sickle of Leo at the moment. Again, Jupiter is so bright when it is around that you only need the roughest idea of where it is for there to be no possibility of error. It appears in the darkening sky long before the stars. That's one easy way to tell a planet.

I hope your little girl likes what she sees. Children sometimes find it easier to cover their 'spare' eye with a hand rather than try to close it, I 've found.

Let me know where you observe from and I'll look upsome timings and locations for Mars.

Is there an astronomical society near you? It's pretty likely, I'd say.

Olly

Well I want the goto for ease of use for her. I mean she is still learning to read, and count to a hundred and things like that. Aiming an equatorial mount is a bit much for her at this age. As for me, I don't mind learning a new hobby. I have already learned quite a bit. It is just that the eq mount that came with the scope is pretty much wothless. I wouldn't mind getting a decent EQ mount that is nice and sturdy, has a scope along the polar axis for doing the polar alignment, and has decent setting circles. I would also like to spend no more than around $100.

I saw mars the other night, it dind look as good as I though it was going to. I couldn't see any detail at all. Maybe the optics aren't as decent as I originally thought.

We live near Modesto, Ca. I have no clue about an astronomical society.

[Astro_Baby]

POlar alignment isnst as simple as you think - or rather its not hard but there are plenty of beginners on boards who cant make it work.

A reliable solid mount would be something like the EQ3-2 but the problem is going to be by the time you have paid out for a dovetail, tube rings etc the cost is going to be about the same as just buying a whole new scope.

[snyper1982]

Well that sucks. What about the mount I mentioned above? Anyone have any experoence with it? The Ds-2000 series mount? For around $200, it seems like an awesome deal. As for polar alignment, it is pretty simple. If you have a mount that has a hole along the polar axis where you can use a polar alignment scope, it makes it even easier. Because then all you have to do is align polaris with the overlay of polaris made into the alignment scope.

[brantuk]

Hi Snyper - it may be worthwhile getting in touch with your local astro society (certainly worth a visit on an observing night). Try this link which I think is in you vicinity:

Astronomy Clubs: Stanislaus Amateur Astronomers

Cheers

[Cornelius Varley]

Well that sucks. What about the mount I mentioned above? Anyone have any experoence with it? The Ds-2000 series mount? For around $200, it seems like an awesome deal. As for polar alignment, it is pretty simple. If you have a mount that has a hole along the polar axis where you can use a polar alignment scope, it makes it even easier. Because then all you have to do is align polaris with the overlay of polaris made into the alignment scope.

Looking at the manual for the ds2000 series mount it appears Meade have used a proprietary clamshell type attachment for the telescope, rather than a standard vixen universal type dovetail. Using this mount on a telescope not designed for it may not be an option. The DS2130 looks to be a good buy at $269.

Polar aligning is easy,as you say, it is just some people do find it difficult, much as using an equatorial mount and using setting circles.

Peter

[oceanheadted]

Snyper,

polar alignment for visual isn't too tricky, just point the axis of the mount North. You only need to get very picky with it if you are imaging. There's plenty of stuff on the internet how to do it.

I find GOTO isn't as good as you imagine - you need to spend extra time aligning the scope to the sky before you get any where (and also know which are the alignment stars). The biggest step forward I made was getting a Red dot finder which I found much easier to use than the sighing scope that came with my telescope.