Newbie question on equipment choice

[gadget man]

Hi Guys and sorry if I appear a little clueless here but I would appreciate your advice.

I have a real cheapy Tasco telescope that I bought my son when he was 8 (he's 17 now) and I was showing my 11 year old daughter Jupiter last weekend (or attemting too) but as it has so much play and shake it was impossible and it got me thinking about getting as decent telescope as it's something that I have always had an interest in.

After reading several threads and internet reviews I have norrowed my search down to the choice of a few and I would appreciate any help and advice you can offer.

Originally I started looking at a budget of around £200-£250 and had more a less settled on the Skywatcher 130P Synscan but my only reservation was the size. Then after more reading, I found the Celestron Nexstar 130 SLT which seems to be of slightly higher quality a much easier to set up goto system and a 2 year guarentee, but again still quite bulky in size and this would also mean an increase in my budget to £318.

So that got me thinking if I was spending that much, how about the Celestron Nexstar 4SE as it seems to be another step up in quality and much more compact and versitile... Or something closer to my budget could be the Celestron Nexstar 90 SLT Maksutov, convienient size, easy to use goto and more inline with my budget!

So I guess my question is which do you think is the better option in the above, as a newbie will i benefit from the slt being able to just goto object in a breeze or should I just start with going for a larger size without a 'goto' something like the Skywatcher Exploere 150P EQ3-2 that i've seen for £260 (more inline with my original budget)?

I don't expect to become an avid keen stargazer, more of a recreational one, but I do appreciate you get what you pay for.

I thought I had decided but the more I read the more confused I have become so your comment would be appreciated guys

[richbyers]

Hi and welcome

for a start goto on a 4inch scope isnt really worth the cash- most of the stuff it will point at will be empty space (not literally, you wont have the power to resolve anything)

my advice is get a dobsonian http://www.firstlightoptics.com/proddetail.php?prod=dobsky200 (i say this alot) in my opinion it is the simplest, best value for money into stargazing.

All you do is point and look. i know it wont show you where things are but goto scopes are so expensive

rich

[kris h]

I would say with your budget you should have a look at the

skywatcher 200p Dob from FLO for £ 265 great scope for the moon

& planets ,clusters but for a Goto a Nexstar 4 se is a good scope

too but DSO wont be like they are in pictures with most scopes but

most people on here say a Dob is a great scope and very easy to

use hope i was a tiny bit helpful

[Moonshane]

hi there

both of the scopes you have mentioned will give great views but can you please confirm where you are roughly i.e. what the light pollution is like?

if it's not too bad then you might find an ideal scope is a dobsonian as you'll get a lot more light gathering for your money and it's a really simple and intuitive scope to use. much less setting up time although you'd need to let it cool for maybe an hour before a session. in this time you can collimate it, which is pretty simple with the right tools. this would also give you the ability to grow a bit with the scope and would probably be the right sort of size for your daughter (although she'd need a hand with setting up etc).

if LP is really bad eg London then you might be better with GOTO but in the lower end scopes, the money all goes into the electronics and not the optics.

personally I'd suggest initially the 8" Skywatcher at about £265 new eg Dobsonians - Skywatcher Skyliner 200P Dobsonian however the 6" version would also be excellent Dobsonians - Skywatcher Skyliner 150P Dobsonian at about £179 new.

you can download star maps off the internet but initially either of the above would give great views of the moon and planets (which you can see even in very bad LP). you'd be sure to see saturn's rings and moons, jupiters belts and moons and polar caps on Mars when it's in view.

You'd need to budget for a couple of decent eyepieces in due course - you could try TMB Planetary's or Paradigm / Discovery eyepieces which are both very good and sell for maybe £35 approx. once you get past 50 posts on here you can begin to seek out used bargains on this forum. well worth considering.

finally, it might be worth initially trying to sort out the scope / mount you have. try checking all fixings are tight and maybe add some washers behind the nuts.

if the optcs are OK it may be worth a try - you could probably make a dobsonian type mount for this scope really easily. I'd suggest the lower powers though for the scope in question - again some eyepieces as referred to above might improve this scope tremendously too and this might be the best first move if you can sort out the / a decent mount.

hope this helps.

[Moonshane]

ha ha - I see we all agreed thankfully! may be best to see what the refractor nuts say (I have both but much prefer my (admittedly a lot larger) dob.

[gadget man]

Thanks for all your comments guys, its appreciated.

I do live close to Doncaster town centre so LP would be a fair issue I expect, although I am a few miles out of town in a village.

So my thinking from your replies are that the goto's aren't worth the expense and something like the Skywatcher 200P Dobsonian would be money better spent?

A question about the Dob, (and I know this may seem a daft question) but doesn't it have a mount for a tripod? or is it a sort of table top affair? I'm just going from the picyurtes as I've never actually seen one.

[Black Knight]

Dobs come on their own alt-az (altitude-azimuth) mounts, so no, you don't need a tripod. I'm not a Dob person myself, so I don't know how most dob users set theirs up - whether or not they stand them on a small "table" or not. Maybe something high enough to allow you to comfortably look through an eyepiece, I don't know. The 8" dob linked to above has a focal length of 1200mm, meaning the tube will be over 1.2 metres in length!

http://www.firstlightoptics.com/proddetail.php?prod=dobsky200

[Moonshane]

well I live about 4 miles from Stockport and 9 miles from Manchester so I reckon you LP will be less intense than mine. I'd definitely go for the dob.

another things is that dobs by their nature are so much more stable than many other cheaper mounts. I can move mine about at high power (perhaps 400x) and it hardly wobbles at all. some of the other mounts on a tripod certainly wobble for substantially longer.

you are quite right that the cheaper GOTOs can be good but the value is in the system not what you look through.

a dobsonian mount is set on the ground and acts like a lazy susan turntable affair for left right movement and the tube sits in a bracket for up and down movement. literally lift the whole thing and carry out in either one or two pieces, wait for it to cool, check collimation and you're off. the tube on both of these scopes is about 1.2m long so you can gauge the height based on this; you'll probably need to observe on a stool. both will fit across the back seat of a car if you fancied getting out to a darker site. the 6" will be able to cope with cheaper eyepieces better and will need collimating less often BUT the 8" will satisfy you for longer. the eyepieces that come with them will be OK but you'll soon hanker for slightly better ones and probably a better barlow (possibly also a wide angle eyepiece and a red dot finder / Telrad). if you pushed you budget to £300 you'd get the 8" new plus maybe a red dot finder. you can then add further items if you settle into the hobby. if you buy used though, you could save a lot of money and sell for not much less than you pay. make sure you ask on here though if you buy used and think you've found a good one (on eg Ebay) there are some lemons about and we'll do our best to help you avoid them.

[gadget man]

lol ..Oh ok, not exactly space saving or compact then!

[Moonshane]

oh, a moon filter would be good too - it gets a little intense through a good scope.

[Moonshane]

lol ..Oh ok, not exactly space saving or compact then!

actually yes! my 12" dob takes up less floor space than my refractor, tripod and all the gubbins that goes with it!

[gadget man]

actually yes! my 12" dob takes up less floor space than my refractor, tripod and all the gubbins that goes with it!

Oh really! ok, well it looks like a Dobsomian could be a better choice for me then, thanks for all your help guys.

[Moonshane]

good luck mate - main thing is use it and enjoy it (when the clouds clear - if they ever do!)

[gadget man]

Oh and one last thing, ... I said I was a newbie, when you say "will need collimating" what is collimating?

[klytus]

Hey! gadget man, a Doncastrian like myself, welcome to SGL mate. Their a great crowd here so don't hestitate to ask. As for LP i live in Bentley (its ok big village so vague enough re location) and i had a brilliant view of Jupiter and its moons night of 15th August though i hope to get out to the sticks and have a better look at some point. Again big welcome,nice to find someone from my home town

[gadget man]

Thanks for the Welcome Steve.

I'm actually in Adwick le Street so not far from you.

I've actually managed to buy today an almost new (still boxed) Nexstar 4SE for £285

So I felt I couldn't pass up on that deal.

Cheers

[nicnac]

me thinks you will be happy with that one, good reviews.

have you downloaded stallarium yet (its free ware, just google it) it will show you whats in your skies in real time.

jupiter is one for the next few days, just hope the clouds stay away from us west yorkies tonight

oh, check out the moon too if you get the chance, you should get some decent detail along the terminator (the line between the shadows and the light)

[Daryl]

Oh and one last thing, ... I said I was a newbie, when you say "will need collimating" what is collimating?

basically... aligning the optical parts of your telescope so you get as good an image as possible, though I think is has to be done in a certain order.

A wide range of tools are available to do this job such as these listed on FLO website

http://firstlightoptics.com/products.php?cat=59

[gadget man]

I haven't downloaded stallarium, I wasn't aware of that, but I will now though, thank's for that

[Moonshane]

sorry I missed the collimating question. I see someone else answered you.

it's a lot easier in the scope you have than a newtonian.

[gadget man]

I googled it and found some youtube video's on how to colimate, but thanks anyway.

For my 1st scope I'm liking the small amount of space the Nexstar 4se will take and the fact it's an easy to use Goto system and at the price I've paid, i think I've done ok?

My next questions will be, what barlow and addition eyepieces would you recommend?

[Moonshane]

sounds like a decent deal!

you'll be really happy with this, especially for double stars, planets and lunar.

at f13 you will get away with using almost any eyepieces but with such a long focal length scope, you'll need to keep the eyepiece focal length longer. also try and buy wider field eyepieces so you get more sky in the eyepiece. see what you have with the scope first. I'd suggest an eyepiece of not less than 8mm and at the other end (assuming you have a 1.25" diagonal) maybe a 32mm plossl. I tend to steer away from barlows etc but if you wanted one, FLO sell a good TAL one for about £30. others say they are very good.

[gadget man]

Ok thaks for that.

It comes with a 25mm Eyepiece 31.7mm but that's all so thats not a great magnification from my reckoning so think I will need a couple more eyepieces.

What exactly is the difference in a Plossl and other eyepieces? (sorry if that's a daft question).

[brantuk]

The scope focal length is 1325mm so the 25mm gives 53x mag and the 31.7mm gives about 42x mag. UK skies allow up to about 200x in good seeing conditions wich is between an 8mm and 6mm for your scope.

Plossl's usually give a 50 degree width of field. wide angle ep's can give 60 degrees and super wide or ultra wide over 70 degrees. An Ethos will give 100 degrees but will cost considerably more than the scope.

It all depends what you're looking at. For dso's a wide angle low power is better whereas higher power narrower fields may be good for moon and planets. It also depends on the quality of ep - some ep's aren't as crisp to the edge as better quality ep's. Also longer focal lengths are more forgiving of low quality ep's than short focal lengths.

There's quite a lot to consider buying ep's - including personal preference. I'd suggest borrowing and trying ep's from friends at local observing sessions and star parties to get an ide of what you want.

Hope that helps

[Moonshane]

GM I am not sure where you are but if near Manchester you'd be welcome to come round with your scope and try mine sometime. I have the ones listed below.