First telescope purchase - am I missing anything?

[sneeka]

Well, after around six months of gazing at the skies with my binoculars (10x50, 15x70), I figured it's high time I bought a scope to take me deeper into the black abyss

Here's what I have on the order form so far:

Skywatcher Skyliner 250PX Dobsonian

Tal 2x barlow

Cheshire Collimating Eyepiece

Variable Polarizing Moon Filter

And I already have:

Red torch

Sky Atlas 2000.0

Pocket Sky Atlas

Turn Left at Orion

Various garden chairs

Is there anything else important I'm missing to start with?

I have the fortnight off work after this week, so I'm hoping to at least get one night where the sky is clear when I can spend some serious time outside. If not I suppose I'll just spend the whole two weeks learning to collimate

[stafford_stargazer]

too right there is "eyepieces"

[sneeka]

Yes, I think I'll wait until next payday before I start looking at other eyepieces

Hopefully the stock eyepieces that the scope comes with aren't that bad to start on.

[Astro_Baby]

Eyepieces - but I'd get some eyeball time in first and see how you go.

Dewshield - handy for keeping the optics dew free and also acting as a light shield for the mouth of the scope.

Patience and lots of it

[Ogri]

A Light Pollution Filter? Borrow one first to see if it helps you, if you can (one works brilliantly for me just for the available change in contrast, even with low light pollution - I got a 2" to fit to the front of the star diagonal).

EP cleaning kit?

Congrats on what seems to be a belter of a 'scope too!

[Vega]

Hi Sneeka

Great choice of scope. I have a 250px and its a cracker! I would recommend a wide field of view eyepeice for this scope from 32-40mm. I have a 2" 32mm and gives some brilliant starfield views. Also needed for the larger DSO's like Andromeda Galaxy, Pleiades etc

The only other recommendatioon is a free one.. download stellarium. Fantastic planetarium software if you dont already have it.

Matt

[RikM]

Rigel Quickfinder. Best £30 ever. Being able to find things faster means more observing time.

Rik

[kniclander]

great scope! re finders, my own experience is a correct image right angled finder makes starhopping much easier and is also good for your neck. I found an rdf less useful because, after a while, you get pretty good at just sighting down the barrel and you know where about you are in the sky. best advice is don't buy anything until you've used the scope for a bit and see what you need and don't buy a 2x barlow because the barlowed 25mm e/p will be close to the 10 and the supplied 10mm e/p won't stand being barlowed as it is not great quality and the resulting mag is too high for it (all IMHO of course... )

[yeti monster]

Rigel Quickfinder. Best £30 ever. Being able to find things faster means more observing time.

Rik

Or a Telrad..........

[Chris H]

I'll second or third a Telrad or a Rigel quikfinder one of these will really take a lot of frustration out of locating objects in the night sky.

[Plantins]

2 weeks off work, you may get a clear night, but with the purchase of new equipment I wouldn't bank on it!

[sneeka]

Cheers guys

Just wanted to know if I'd missed anything glaringly obvious before I hit the buy button. I suspect a red dot finder or a right-angled finder might be the next purchase though, going on the general consensus I'm guessing the stock finder isn't much cop?

2 weeks off work, you may get a clear night, but with the purchase of new equipment I wouldn't bank on it!

I'll stick a star chart on the front of the scope and just pretend then

Shame it looks like I missed out on Saturn as well. Ah well. Jupiter on the way.

[pvaz]

You can still pick up Saturn at early hours but it won't be as good as a couple of months ago.

[sardaukarr]

Rigel quick finder I brought was money well spent saved me loads of frustration:)

[LukeSkywatcher]

Regarding the dew shield and light pollution filter. The shield can be made out of a standard camping mat available in most camping/outdoors shops or even DIY stores like B&Q. The LPF..........can be bought cheaply too. The SkyWatcher LPF available from FLO does a REALLY good job. Cost........less then £30.

[LukeSkywatcher]

Cheers guys

Just wanted to know if I'd missed anything glaringly obvious before I hit the buy button. I suspect a red dot finder or a right-angled finder might be the next purchase though, going on the general consensus I'm guessing the stock finder isn't much cop?

I'll stick a star chart on the front of the scope and just pretend then

Shame it looks like I missed out on Saturn as well. Ah well. Jupiter on the way.

Saturn will be back towards the end of the year when the nights are dark. The rings will also be a little more open then they are right now. Now they are only 3 degrees open.

[sneeka]

Ok, telescope has been ordered, just gotta wait now. Very excited

I didn't bother with the barlow in the end, I figured the money might be better off going towards the inevitable next eyepiece.

*drums fingers impatiently*

Ooh look, clouds on Monday, and Tuesday....

[pvaz]

That's possibly a good choice, but I think you'll want either a barlow or a high power EP sooner then later so you can have a closer look on planets and the moon.

If you never looked through a scope, planets are really tiny, they look more or less like a pea at arms length, 200x is the minimum I like to use on them. I only set back to a lower mag when the conditions won't allow that much.

[brantuk]

If you end up getting 2" wide angle ep's you may eventually want a 2" barlow - just a though. And/or you might need a 1.25" to 2" adaptor - unless the scope comes with one.

These are just incidentals that can wait till you're accustomed to the scope but I found them very useful when I got 'em for mine

[sneeka]

That's possibly a good choice, but I think you'll want either a barlow or a high power EP sooner then later so you can have a closer look on planets and the moon.

Yeah, I thought maybe the 6mm TMB Planetary as a next eyepiece. That should give me 200x. I'm probably better off getting that than trying to barlow the stock eyepieces, as kniclander said.