Saturn for the first time & scope upgrade

[paulhereford]

Good morning all.

Viewed saturn for the first time last night through my Skywatcher 150P which made me feel like an excited kid.

I am thinking of upgrading my 150P (yes already) to something like the 8 - 10'' Skywatcher on a Dobsonian. Does anyone have any recommendations as to my next step? I am interested in viewing the planets, galaxies and DSO.

Many thanks

[bish]

I moved from a 150mm explorer to 200mm explorer. My experience is that the planets don't look too much different (although I never used them side by side) but you stand a better chance of finding the 'faint and fuzzies'. M13 seems to stand out as a DSO that was noticeably better in the bigger scope. If you really want to change and you are going to get a dob then you might as well go for the 10" Skywatcher. I've only used the 150mm and 200mm Skywatcher so am biased but think they are great scopes.

However, I did invest in some different eyepieces (better quality and different focal lengths) to get the most out of my 150mm and had many many hours use out of it.

[John]

Generally you need to increase aperture by more than 2" to see a really noticable difference so, if you can go to a 10", as Bish says, that would be a good upgrade.

[acey]

If you want to see a really significant difference on DSOs then go for an aperture increase of at least 50 per cent (i.e. 150mm to 10"). You'll see an even bigger difference if you're able to take your present scope any place that's a full magnitude darker than your present observing location. On planets you won't necessarily see any better with larger aperture - optical quality and scope design are the most important factors. But you'll certainly notice the increase in weight and bulk of scope.

You obviously enjoyed your first view of Saturn with the 6" so I'd say stick with that for the time being and have fun with it. Astronomy is all about the "wow factor", and you've got that already. Like bish says, if you want to upgrade something then start with your eyepieces. Try a TeleVue plossl or TMB planetary.

[paulhereford]

Thank you very much for your responses. Very much appreciated. I think I will stick with the 6'' 150P for the time being as it is a great scope....I think I am getting a little greedy and need to walk before I can run so will experiment with different eye pieces etc before upgrading. I am relearning the sky quite quickly and have also looked at GOTO so when I do upgrade it will be for a 10'' with GOTO possibly.

[John]

Thank you very much for your responses. Very much appreciated. I think I will stick with the 6'' 150P for the time being as it is a great scope....I think I am getting a little greedy and need to walk before I can run so will experiment with different eye pieces etc before upgrading. I am relearning the sky quite quickly and have also looked at GOTO so when I do upgrade it will be for a 10'' with GOTO possibly.

Its great to learn how to squeeze the best performance from what you have before upgrading - it's something that's taken me rather a long time (and too many scopes ) to learn.

Then, when you do move up you a) better appreciate the increased capability and have the ability to really exploit it

Like I said though, I'm not the best one "preach" on this