New Scope Advice

[macusermike]

Hi, Just bought my first scope last week, after a lot of thought about which one to buy and also asking for advice on the forum I decided to go for (with some help from my flexible friend) a 10" SkyWatcher 250 - HEQ5 (What a beast). I was surprised at the size,I thought it would be big but wow!. Anyway, what I would like to ask is what type of lenses do you guys recommend? It came with a 10mm, 25mm and a 2x Barlow. I would love to be able to see some detail on the planets, Jupiter, Saturn etc and also view Galaxies, nebula if possible. Any advice would be great.

Thanks

Mike

[Kaptain Klevtsov]

With the bits that came with it you'll be able to see all of those.

Saturn rises in the early hours but is getting better, M33 should be high enough and big enough for you and you should still be able to catch M27 and M57 before they set. Finding the things is the hard bit, do you have goto or do you use charts or what?

Captain Chaos

[macusermike]

Hi, I dont have GoTo, im just going by a star chart out of this months Sky at Night mag. The hard thing I find is aligning the scope, my garden is south facing so I cant see Polaris . As I look the image goes by quite quick so I loose it. Suppose I will get better with practice.

Mike

[GordonCopestake]

You can use a compass to align your scope north but it wont be as accurate as using polaris. Your HEQ5 mount has tracking motors so once you are aligned north you should find that your targets dont whizz by quite so fast (perfect alignment will mean that they dont move at all)

Unfortunatly you've missed jupiter till next year, but saturn is coming around and is in the south east in the early morning. A south facing garden will help you as all the interesting stuff is to the south!

I would advise that you buy a planisphere and a good book like "turn left at orion" and perhaps "Stargazing with a telescope" both very cheap from amazon.

Good luck!

[FLO]

what I would like to ask is what type of lenses do you guys recommend? It came with a 10mm, 25mm and a 2x Barlow.

Hi Mike,

Congrats on your new scope.

You will find a Planisphere (a big one), a copy of StarryNight software, a two inch Wide-field 30-40mm eyepiece and a Red-Dot finder very useful.

Hope that helps.

[macusermike]

Hi thanks for the advice everyone. Very helpfull. I will add your suggestions to my 'things to buy' list.

cheers

mike

[Caz]

I have to sing the praises of 'Starrynight', its a priceless bit of software.... 8)

Caz

[GordonCopestake]

I have to sing the praises of 'Starrynight', its a priceless bit of software.... 8)

Caz

£38?