Have i made the wrong choice?

[John Mckay]

Hi all, i bought a Sky watcher 10" dob in January, great scope but as a beginner i have only had the time to use it a few times, have seen the orion nebula, Saturn, the plaedes but not had the time to really use it to its potential, especially with a light polluted garden and very limited time to get to a dark sky. I really want to see DSO have not even seen a Galaxy yet!! Was thinking of maby giving up the dob and going for a Skymax 127 goto, is this a good choice? Especially for someone with limited time or should i stick with the dob and just persevere when time allows?

Thank you in advance.

[Bizibilder]

Stick with the dob and persevere!! When you DO observe, have a plan of what you want to look at and keep it simple!! Maybe only one target for a session to start with. Do you have a decent star atlas? You can download them and print off the relevent pages, also "Stellarium" and " Cartes du Ceil" are exellent.

For a start try some globular clusters. M3 is well placed at the moment and M13 is rising in the easternsky. These DSO's are comparitivly bright and easy to see (if you are aiming right!!), especially compared to some galaxies.

The other great help that i have recently bought is a Telrad finder - it really does make DSO hunting comparitivly easy!!

[Capricorn]

The 127 is a good general scope and the goto will make it quick to locate objects. So on limited time and (I am guessing) limited knowledge the 127 seems a good choice.

The "problem" being that after a year or so you will want a 10" dob for DSO's.

10" and above dobs are fine if you can use them efficently. But I would class them as a bit of a specialist area, along with imaging. They need knowledge and experience to be used to their best. So as a first scope I am doubtful of the mantra that aperture is everything. It is good if and only if it can be used, and as a first scope I have doubts.

You have 2 options and to be honest only you can make it. Switch to a 127 goto, or persevere with the Dob.

[Ant]

I agree, there is plenty to see with a 10" Dob.

Pick a target and look for it, hone your star hopping skills - they'll come in real handy. Before you know where you are you'll be able to goto numerous object without referring to maps etc.

M44 will be nice with Mars nearby. There are also some nice galaxies around at the moment.

The Skymax scopes are great (I have one), but they are not ideal for DSO's.

Ant

[part timer]

I would stick with what you have.

It won't make a difference which scope you have as to how much you observe. There is no such thing as the perfect compromise with telescopes and as your telescope is a good one just take the opportunities to use it as they come.

Lots of people change telescopes continually looking for their 'ideal' scope and I've never heard of anyone ever finding it!

In the end you'll be glad of the larger aperture on those occasions when you do get to use it.

[pvaz]

The GOTO will make it easier to locate objects, but then you won't have enough aperture to see many of them.

Plan you sessions in advance, buy a telrad finder (got mine of ebay cheap) and print some Messier telrad maps: Messier Maps

Use stellarium to pick a constallation that will be high enough in the sky, them print the map covering that area. Now ursa major is very well placed so print map 4 on that link.

Then brush up on your star hoping skills. The dob is the fastest design to setup. Once you learn to star hop efficiently you'll be bagging lot's of objects in short sessions. I'd stick with the dob!

[Mr Spock]

Dropping from 250 to 127 is massive. Right now M3 is a brilliant sight. In my 250mm I can see hundreds of stars. In a 127 all you will see is a faint fuzzy blob.

With the dob you have to learn to star hop. It's the real fun way of finding things, so much better than a goto.

Time and patience are your observing friends.

[Chris H]

Where do you keep your dob? If you can keep it in an unheated shed then cool down time is not really necessary and the 10" Dob can become a grab-and-go scope. That's how I use mine and I love it. Would never go smaller unless it's for an apo frac. Give it more time and try and get out whenever possible. Good luck.

[John]

Do stick with the 10" dob. Try and find easy to follow directions to some of the brighter deep sky objects and you will have a great time with it - for example the great globular cluster M13 in Hercules (well placed from around 11:00 pm at the moment) looks simpy superb with 10" of aperture but just "nice" with 5".

Messier 81 and 82 (Ursa Major) are good galaxies to hunt down - in a low power eyepiece you can see both in the same field of view - again they won't be anywhere near as impressive with a 5" scope.

Remember to wait for dark nights (ie: no moon shine) as deep sky objects and galaxies in particular do a "vanishing act" when the skies are not dark.

[phattanglo]

John, no way have you made the wrong choice you lucky so and so!

You can make object location easier for yourself if you are prepared to do a little diy.

search SGL for diy setting circles and the Wixey inclinometer.

These can be used with a star map or Stellarium for example to put you near enough to an object to spot it in a widefield eyepiece and then centre it for the eyepiece of your choice.

Honestly the little bit of extra work you have to do compared to goto will be massively worth it the first time you look through the eyepiece.

Just my opinion but I know which I would choose.

[ash]

Hi John

as it has been said just be a little more patient and you will reap the rewards.

Hunting for the object is half the funa nd it makes it that much better when you do find it:)

Andy

[digitaldave]

The GOTO will make it easier to locate objects, but then you won't have enough aperture to see many of them.

Plan you sessions in advance, buy a telrad finder (got mine of ebay cheap) and print some Messier telrad maps: Messier Maps

Use stellarium to pick a constallation that will be high enough in the sky, them print the map covering that area. Now ursa major is very well placed so print map 4 on that link.

Then brush up on your star hoping skills. The dob is the fastest design to setup. Once you learn to star hop efficiently you'll be bagging lot's of objects in short sessions. I'd stick with the dob!

Paulo,

Those Telrad charts are a bit of a revelation for me - it makes it look quite easy to find stuff with a Telrad finder. I'm going to have to look in to them now...

Thanks,

Dave.

[Astro_Baby]

I am going to dissent on this one - its all well and good having massive aperture but if your on a limited time budget and dont know the sky then that massive aperture will show a massive nothing.

Its very tempting to advice beginners to get the biggest aperture and give it a lot of large about learning the sky but if your time limited (like me for instance) and live in light pollution hell (like me again) and suffer from month on end of poor seeing weather (like most of us) its kind of touigh to learn the sky. Its not easy anyway and if your trying to do it on the basis of half an hour every 6 months it wont ever happen.

M3 being sharp - I dont think so - I was out last night in a field near Guildford and using an 8" I saw a faint fuzzy blob courtesy of city lights.

I'm not saying ditch the dob right away but I would advise that of time really is tight it may be the wrong scope for you - aperture is important but in practical terms it cant be the ONLY consideration. If you find you dont use the Dob then having 10" of mirror sat in a shed may be a waste of time and you just may be happier with a smaller scope.

Hang out for a bit - go to a star party or public event (I was at one last night) and you will get a look through other scopes and that may guide your choice better.

[Moonshane]

I'd follow the other guys and recommend you stick with what you have - it's a great scope.

the Telrad is the one bit of kit that made life easier for me too and is in my view essential with a dob but good for all scopes (except maybe goto!).

use the lowest power you have at it will still be adequate (and possibly the best) for galaxies and globular clusters. if you don't have it get Turn Left at Orion. I am not very experienced and literally went through nearly all the spring stuff in one night. see my recent post http://stargazerslounge.com/observing-deep-sky/101508-best-night-so-far.html which was another good night I had recently. This will give you some targets which should be readily found. I am lucky in that my garden faces almost due east so I can see lots.

good luck with the hunt.

I might try the setting circle and wixey idea myself as I have heard a few mention this recently. even with just a wixey, if you know you are roughly in the right place and at the right declination then you can swing left and right a bit and latch onto the target I expect.

[Bizibilder]

Dave - if you have "Carte du Ceil" you can make your own "Telrad" charts for any object that you like - just set the "target rings" to those of the Telrad and print off whatever you want!

[robhal9000]

Hi,

Keep the Dob AND buy a little tracking or goto scope, the skymax 127 is a highly regarded scope. If you get into this astro lark then you are going to want to start using the dob within a few months. I think a big dob is an ideal second scope if on a limited budget, so take the cash hit now and store it away for a few months and get something you will use. The skymax can be your quick grab and go kit once you start using your dob.

If you don't get into it, sell both on SGL. I think they would be queueing up for a barely used Mak and Dob.

[great_bear]

I've been reading this forum getting more and more angry with the ignorant replies to John's question! It's clear that an awful lot of people - even experienced ones - haven't got a bleedin' clue what can really be seen in terms of DSO from a heavily light-polluted garden.

The answer is - virtually nothing!

I'm quite happy with city targets like moon, planets and doubles - so there's still astronomy to be done - but DSO? Forget it! Even M13 is just a puff of barely-detectable smoke in the middle of the viewfinder. M81? M82? Can't say I ever saw them for sure. The only galaxy that's there for definite is Andromeda.

I wasted months under the misinformed advice of some people on this forum trying to "learn" the night sky when there's no sky at my location to speak of! Then, at my first session at a dark sky site, my precious time was lost because I was swamped by the unexpected millions of stars!

The truth is, you'll have no idea how appallingly bad the Central London night sky is until you've personally had to search for targets in it. It's got nothing to do with experience; finder-circles won't help you if the view is empty - that's right empty! No stars - nothing - for huge swathes of the sky! Don't make the mistake of thinking aperture will help - it won't. Light pollution filters help dig a little deeper - but only a little.

Conversely, nothing can quite prepare you for the overwhelming views of space that you get from a dark sky site - where every peek shows a view that's overflowing with beautiful stars.

A dob is fine if you live under good skies and want to look at deeper targets than a small scope can handle - but where do you stop? There will always be yet more galaxies and more nebulae further and further away, and unless you want to get into the American habit of treating astronomy like a competitive sport, I don't really see the point of it all.

Once you've seen a selection of classic deep-sky objects from a dark-sky site, you realise how futile it is trying to observe them from a light-polluted environment: You might be able to confirm they exist, but they're hardly worth looking at.

From a light-polluted environment then, a smaller scope is a better choice. It acknowledges that you've accepted that galaxy-hunting is a waste of time, it provides more than ample viewing of moon, planets and double stars and - most importantly of all - is readily portable to take on holiday to a dark-sky site.

Since light-polluted gardens do not provide ample experience for learning the night sky, GoTo is extremely useful for holiday use where you'll see so many stars that you don't know where to begin looking. When you're packing a lot of viewing into just a couple of night's observation, goto is well worth the small amount of time needed to set it up. Personally, I've found that - contrary to people's assertions on this forum (opinions incidentally that I used to repeat to others!) that goto has greatly helped - rather than hindered - my learning of the night sky.

So John, my honest answer to your question is that yes - I do believe that the 127 Mak will better serve your needs, provided that you take the opportunity to take it to dark sites from time to time, where the GoTo will earn its keep. At home too you may find it more fun to use, and it will track the planets for you, and it will help you find double stars which can be good targets in a light-polluted environment.

As for the dob itself, best to hang onto it for now if you can. If you find that - in a couple of years time - it's not being used, then you can decide what to do at that time.

Hope that helps.

[Moonshane]

I have never experienced a London LP'd sky (thankfully) but live in between Stockport and Manchester in an area which is one of the worst categories according to a LP map I looked at recently. In my garden I can certainly see lots of detail in some DSO's and distinctly see many others. They are far more obvious and more detailed in my dob than in my 120mm refractor. Eg, I was able to resolve hundreds of stars on M3 recently with the dob but only got a hint of this with the refractor. I also get better images of planets with the dob than with the refractor. This is is the sort of thing I was basing my own comments on. Also, I consider my own 12" dob as portable so assumed a 10" would be more so.

never been to a dark site but hope so soon and will be good to see what it's like!

[great_bear]

never been to a dark site but hope so soon

Oh - make it a priority!

But have a long think first about what you'll want to look at. If the conditions are good you'll want to see a few things that are impossible to view from other places. At a dark sky sight, the whole pathway through the milky way is so amazing that you can get lost in its beauty for hours, missing out on specific targets. Ironically, some star clusters can actually be harder to spot from a dark site, since they're disguised amongst so many other stars.

The only downside of going to a dark sky site is that you may find that afterwards (like me) you'll not want to look at any DSO from a heavily light-polluted area again.

[part timer]

I've been reading this forum getting more and more angry with the ignorant replies to John's question! It's clear that an awful lot of people - even experienced ones - haven't got a bleedin' clue what can really be seen in terms of DSO from a heavily light-polluted garden.

The answer is - virtually nothing!

This is nonsense, plain and simple.

I live in the centre of one the UK's worst city's for light pollution. I have six enormous flood lights shining directly into my back garden. I have a major shopping street within 30m of my house and normal street lights in all other directions. I also have the neighbours bedroom light shining directly onto my observing space at all times as he refuses to close his curtains.

I routinely observe deep sky objects down to about magnitude 9 with my six inch Newtonian. This includes Galaxies, planetary nebulae, globular's, emission nebulae and open clusters. It takes time and patience. I enjoy tracking comets and all other relativly faint objects.

I may add that I have poor eyesight and each time she joins me my wife is able see much more than I can.

I am sick of people being told they can't see things from the city. Dark skies are very much more impressive but it is simply untrue that most objects are not visible and impressive from the city.

With a 10" dob the list of objects visible is enormous and very satisfying.

[ollypenrice]

This, I think, is one of the oddest sentences I have ever encountered on the forum;

Then, at my first session at a dark sky site, my precious time was lost because I was swamped by the unexpected millions of stars!

'The Universe is wasting my time!' Great Bear, we have all had this. I have had experienced guests come up quietly and say, 'Er, Olly, this is embarrassing but - well - which one's Polaris??'

To use a Dob you have to prepare in advance what you aim to seek out. You try to memorize the constellation in which the object lies, then the area around it. You then plan a Star Hop route to get to it from a bright star that you will be able to see. If you observe five objects in a session, that's a lot. It is not about instant gratification.

As for getting to a dark site and setting up, I would prefer to take a Dob than any EQ however small. If you go by car then a 10 inch should be easy enough and setting up means putting it on the floor. No aligning, no real levelling, just up and away. But, but, you do not zap away as with the telly's remote. Let's be dead clear about this. I have spent nearly two hours searching for a small planetary with Alan Longstaff and failed to find the ruddy thing, but we had a laugh about it.

Clearly (and this seems awfully like common sense) if you can't see any stars from your garden then, no, you cannot expect to navigate to deep sky objects.

A little Mak will give good views of the moon and planets but even at a dark site the DSOs are faint.

Olly

[great_bear]

This, I think, is one of the oddest sentences I have ever encountered on the forum;

Then, at my first session at a dark sky site, my precious time was lost because I was swamped by the unexpected millions of stars!

That's because you haven't thought it through properly.

That's why you fail to understand it.

Let me explain: If you in a light-polluted area, you only have the bare-bones of stars to navigate by. You never get the chance to practice star-hopping on regular basis, and for those targets which you have practiced it for, when you get to a dark sky site you may as well throw your notes out the window for all the good they'll do you when your reference points are swamped amongst dozens of other stars.

It comes as a total shock how peppered the sky is with stars at a dark-sky site. It's unexpected when your experience comes from living in a city. What aspect of that are you having difficulty understanding? Why do you find that odd?

Given the context, my comment is neither an odd - nor an unreasonable - thing to say.

[GuillermoBarrancos]

Given the context, my comment is neither an odd - nor an unreasonable - thing to say.

I think it has more to do with the way you say it.

If you are extremely unlucky that your backyard is so heavily poluted, that you are hardly able to see a single star.

Well, then it really doesn't matter what kind of scope you have anyway.

Even a GoTo mount isn't going to help you, as you still need to be able to align the mount. Or GoTo will simply not work!

So again. If you are in an extremely light poluted area. Just stick to planets, the moon and the sun. And safe DSO's for times you are able to get out to a dark site.

When it comes to the OP. It just seems he has great trouble reading the sky... and then a GoTo isn't going to help him much, as he still needs to be able to find reference stars for alignment.

So in the end. For him it comes down to learning to read the sky and be patient.

[great_bear]

This is nonsense, plain and simple.

Other people's knowledge and experience may differ to yours.

I am sick of people being told they can't see things from the city.

Perhaps all those people have good reason for saying so? Don't take it as an assertion of what's possible from your location - since you're luckily not having difficulties. But you have no actual knowledge of local conditions here, so you're not qualified to make authoritive comments on what's visible.

[part timer]

Ok,

I don't thinks it's fair of any of us to continue this conversation on this particular thread. A specific question was asked and several of us have wandered into our own little argument, which is unrelated to it.

I think the argument is worth having though so I'll start a different thread in another section.