Which telescope to buy (£400 budget)

[jaygsy]

I would like to buy my first telescope and have a budget of £400. What would you recommend? Thanks

[Doc]

With your budget this is what I would buy...

Dobsonians - Skywatcher Skyliner 250PX Dobsonian

[albedo0.39]

Hi there jaygsy. At £400, you have pretty wide choice of scopes that will have you satisfied for years.

However, before you go too much further, and to allow people to give advice that will be closer to the mark, perhaps you could think about the following

Would you like to take images with your scope ?

Are you physically fit enough to handle a scope into the boot of a car if you had to ? - i.e. is portability critical ?

Are you starting from scratch or do you have some of the essential accessories (atlas, torches, eyepieces etc) ?

Would you be willing to consider 2nd hand ?

What do you wish to observe ? Star Fields, clusters ? Galaxies ? Planets ? The Moon ?

Once you can post answers to these sorts of questions, I have no doubt you will not be short of excellent advice here on SGL.

Rgds

Steve

[pvaz]

I would go with the one recommended by Mick.

However there are lots of telescopes out there and some are better suited if you can't lift heavy stuff or if you want a portable setup to take to a dark location. So if you can share a bit of the conditions you'll have to observe, the type of objects you want to see and whether it needs to be portable or not, we can advice something specifically for your needs. You can also have them fully manual (less extras needed) or capable of pointing them selfs to whatever you wish to observe.

A dobsodian, like the one suggested, will give you the most light gathering capability for the less money possible (no other 10" scope costs as little) and that will allow you to see much fainter objects.

[mdstuart]

I am with the Dob if you want to see faint objects visually..

Mark

[jaygsy]

Hi guys, Thanks for all the advise so far. Below are the answers to some of the questions :-)

Would you like to take images with your scope ?

- Not sure, this maybe something I will look into but all of the stuff i have read seem to suggest that you need to buy some serious (costly) kit to get the best results.

Are you physically fit enough to handle a scope into the boot of a car if you had to ? - i.e. is portability critical ?

- I am in reasonable shape but I live on an island so not sure where I would take it :-)

Are you starting from scratch or do you have some of the essential accessories (atlas, torches, eyepieces etc) ?

- Starting from scratch

Would you be willing to consider 2nd hand ?

- I would like to buy new

What do you wish to observe ? Star Fields, clusters ? Galaxies ? Planets ? The Moon ?

- As much as possible, just seeing the planets will be fantastic :-)

Thanks once again. Jas

[insomnia]

In that case the 10" dobsonian is the weapon of choice.

[albedo0.39]

agree - the best you can get as a big a dobsonian as you can muster.

[pvaz]

If your backyard doesn't have much light pollution then you can get a dob.

Either the 10" recommended or the smaller 8" version that will leave you spare cash for the essential extras. Personally I'd go for the largest aperture you can afford and latter add some extras as possible.

Take a look at this really nice video so you can see how big this things are:

Or this one with a 10" dob from another brand:

[Muddy Rutter]

A few weeks ago I bought my first 'scope for £399 and it is a Celestron Omni XLT 120, which is a 5" refractor. I looked long and hard at a 10" Dobsonian but went for this beast in the end.

There are inevitably a lot of pros and cons for any type of 'scope but this is what I like about it:

Upsides:

• It was relatively reasonable in price
  
• It had a good right up in Backyard Astronomers Handbook (do get a copy it will save you a lot of grief and money)
  
• It looks great - sorry but it does
  
• It can be upgraded but the basics are all sound
  
• I can use it with my digital camera for what I call astrophotography
  
• A CCD camera is available if I want to get a bit more involved in very basic imaging
  
• This 'scope would not be redundant if I moved on to imaging as I would probably by a different 'scope for the that particular job.
  
• A motor kit is available for the mount
  
• It is supposed to be quite forgiving on eyepieces so I could save some money by buying budget priced EP's
  
• It is portable but not exactly grab and go. The tube is big but I have got used to it.
  
• A lot of kit for your money
  

Downsides:

• Tripod a bit wobbly for the mount but still workable. I am working on converting a wooden surveyor's tripod at the moment.
  
• Not always user friendly and I have been on my knees before now to view objects high in the sky but the new tripod will help there.
  
• Refractors like this are supposed to suffer from chromatic abberation but I find that this is only noticeable with the Moon and I then use the adapted lens cap to reduce the light transmission and it seems fine. (A standard feature)
  

See here for details on FLO's site:

Omni XLT Series - Celestron Omni XLT 120

This review of the bigger 6" model is relevant:

Astromart Reviews - CELESTRON OMNI XLT 150R

Shane on this site has one and rates it highly.

Hope this helps,

Best wishes

Nick

PS: As Shane says - Be kind with your comments as I am a Newbie!

[brantuk]

Another consideration not mentioned so far is wether you feel happy to push the scope around manually to follow objects, or if autotracking would be useful. Most scopes can be upgraded with motors that keep the object in the ep once you've located it.

Just a thought - but I personally find tracking invaluable