1st Impressions?

[Lazzy]

As a guy who is yet to invest in his first telescope, this forum only seems to really lack one thing - real feedback after purchase. This would have to be structured somehow - potentially asking information such as....

1) Brand and model bought

2) What did you plan to observe with your scope?

3) Did the sights through your scope match your expectations?

4) Do you now plan to buy accessories to enhance your purchase?

There are plenty of posts from newbies who do not know where to start - like any "interest" the options are almost limitless, but a fair number of people come here and suggest telescopes they have found. What most people are looking for is honest opinions on what are scientific equipment, but those who post regularly are generally those with 10/12" scopes - not models which a newcomer would normally be buying!

Appreciate that there is a fair amount of feedback mixed into the forums, but no obvious place to find reviews from newbies on their important purchases

[Merlin66]

Fair comment...

Unfortunately it's up to the new user to give that feedback....

Maybe this post will encourage the new owners to prepare a brief "review" of their new scope and mounting.....

I don't think the "regulars" are the people with 10" + scopes- you'll find lots of posts from users who have 60mm or 80mm refractors and/ or 5" reflectors...

I be interested in hearing the results v's expectations.....

Ken

[John]

You make a good point but, as Ken says, the forum relies on people taking the time to post their experiences. Some do and some don't. Clearly your 3rd question is the key one here but in reality there are many factors which affect what you actually see many of which are nothing to do with the equipment. Its really not easy to judge whether the views were poor or the expectations were too high when you are new to a hobby

[Demonperformer]

Well, both of my scopes are new to me within the last six months, so I suppose that is fairly close.

Celestron 6SE [current FLO price £749]: This was very much a serious upgrade from Meade ETX80, which was nice, but limited in my light-polluted front garden. Basically bought to 'expand' my viewing, without any definite plans as to what direction that would take.

My first planetary views [which happened to be Jupiter and Uranus] blew me away. Have to say that from a visual point of view it is in a different galaxy to the ETX80 [which I am pleased about considering the outlay:)]. My personal passion is open clusters and the 'classics' give wonderful views, large enough fov to get them all in, large enough magnification to be really quite impressive. My first globular clusters and the Ring nebula have been awe-inspiring [to me].

I quickly bought a neximage webcam to image planets and have since bought a mintron to start to get to grips with dso's. Pleased with the first results from both. Some posts of SGL have received generally encouraging responses from far more experienced imagers than I.

The one thing I felt it lacked was a large enough fov to be able to image my open clusters. Hence the Celestron 102SLT [currently £349 at FLO]. With this I get a 0.5 degree fov with the mintron and have been really pleased with the results. I use this on the SE mount, rather than the one sold with it, which I gather leaves a little to be desired in the stability department [i bought it second hand as OTA only].

The limitation I notice most is the field rotation due to being an alt-az mount. Am currently looking at getting a decent eq mount when I have saved enough. This is not a problem with visual obs, but avi's of over 10 mins show definite star trails.

One thing I personally hate [and I am about to get shouted down by every other member of SGL] is the red dot finder. I spend more time trying to find the red dot than I do anything else. Usually I just give up and scan the sky through the telescope eyepiece until I find my alignment stars and don't use the finder at all. I am in the process of buying a small 'normal' finderscope. I only ever use it for alignment anyway so it does not need to be great for me, just useable. I know there are lots of people on the forum who think RDFs are great, but this is my personal opinion based on my experience.

I suppose the one other thing I can add is a few words about the Meade ETX80. This can be summed up with the comment excellent optics but the mount is ... shall I say, less than wonderful. This was the first scope to actually get me outside observing on a regular basis, so I suppose it did a good job that way, but I can hardly say I would recommend it as a cost-efficient scope for someone starting the hobby. I now only use if for solar observing WITH APPROPRIATE [thousand oaks] FILTER.

Not sure if this is what you were after, but I post it for what it is worth. [Cost you nothing, and is probably worth every penny:D:D].