Total beginner Please help !

[ziggystardust]

Hi everyone, this is the first forum i have joined so i hpoe that i am doing things right. I have decided to buy the other half a telescope, we spend every night outside in the garden and wonder what we are looking at in the sky. I would love to have some advice about which telescope would be the best buy as i do not know where to start. We live in Harrow so there is quite a lot of light pollution around. My budget would be about £200. Could anyone help please? Many thanks Ziggy :-)

[richbyers]

look at a dobsonian telescope- great for beginner maybe this Dobsonians - Skywatcher Skyliner 150P Dobsonian

easy to set up and no complications!

will give good views of deep skies objects, planets and stunning views of the moon!

rich

[themos]

Hello and welcome! The Moon and the planets are the obvious objects to concentrate on at the start. Have you looked at any telescopes yet?

[darkly]

Download "Stellarium" to your PC (it comes in Linux and Apple flavours too)

Stellarium

It's free, dead easy to use and will help you find all sorts of stuff

The other thing I find really helpful is the book "Turn left at Orion" you can easy get a copy from Amazon and it's not expensive

I'll let the more cleverer peeps here help you with the scope as I only have proper knowledge of the one I own.

Have fun

[CGolder]

the heritage 130p might be a good choice for you, wouldn't be too far behind the 150p in aperture with the added bonus of being portable to "get away" to a darker site

[brantuk]

The 130P or the 150P with RA motor on an eq mount would be my preferred choice with that budget. The first will leave a bob or two for mandatory accessories (power, ep's, collimator, etc) and the second will give views of more objects but a bit less for extras.

Beware of where you will use it, whether or not it needs to be portable, light pollution, size. weight and storage. Have a good look at second hand before buying brand new - you'll get a lot more for your money and if bought from other astronomers you will mostly find it's well looked after.

Hope that helps

[Sirius_Starseed]

I would personally go for either the Skywatcher 150P on an EQ mount with an RA motor, or the Skywatcher 130P SynScan AZ GOTO. The latter may be over your £200 budget but I got mine second hand for a total of £155. The reason I suggest the 130P AZ GOTO is because it makes star hoping so much easier. If you're a total newbie like me and don't know where things are in the sky then a GOTO will do the job for you. That's unless you want to star hop yourself, of course. The 150P is obviously bigger aperture so you will get better views of DSO, but the benefits of starting out with a GOTO mount is you can update to bigger things later on such as the Skywatcher MAK 127 and still keep your original GOTO mount, all you need to buy is the MAK 127 OTA. Well this is my plan anyway.

You've got some good advice to go on from others too..... now it's just the hard part, making your choice

Good luck!!!

[steveangel]

I can't rate the GOTO systems highly enough. My Celestron scope is extremely easy to setup and with the help of Stellarium (mentioned above) quickly helps you learn where everything is in the sky.

The only other thing you would deffinetly need with a GOTO scope is a power supply, but these can be picked up at minimal cost from maplins and always seem to be on offer

3in1 Portable Jumpstarter : InCar Battery Chargers and Compressors : Maplin

Hope this helps

Steve

[glowjet]

Hi Ziggy,

A very warm welcome to SGL, hope you enjoy the forum.

John,

[Rossco72]

Hi Ziggy,

Don't be afraid to save money buying second hand, there are bargins to be had. That said, avoid Seben and similar internet only rubbish, it will only put you off. Stick to Skywatcher, Celestron, Meade, even maybe GSO. Premium brands like Televue, Takahashi, Astro Physics etc will be Wayyyyy out of your budget, but very decent Skywatcher or GSO scopes could be had

A Dobsonian will easily be the simplest to start with and give you the most mirror for your money. (larger the diameter, more you can see)

Welcome to the forum and ask away....

[spaceboy]

Hi Ziggy

What ever you do, don't fall into the trap of 525 x magnification Telescopes (usually junk) found in argos and the like.

Magnification is not an issue when purchasing a telescope. Appature (size of the objective end) quality of the optics and a sturdy mount are the all important factor.

Finding objects in a light polluted sky can be difficult for 2 reasons. 1) Your viewing site may be so light polluted you will never see the items you are looking for due to the subtle glow you get from Nebula, Galaxys. 2) There will be next to no stars in the sky to help star hop to targets. I find where I am you get little more that 3.5 magnatude stars (naked eye) which means I spend a lot of time just searching for what I want to look at.

I have read a review that for light polluted areas a telescope of no more than 5" appature is neccessary. (remember to deduct for secondary obstructions) Anything bigger just captures the glow of artificial light and washes out the contrast your image anyway.

Skywatcher 150P on an EQ mount (£280) is an excellent telescope and will offer good appature for a light polluted viewing location. You will have to know your way around the sky but if polar aligned most EQ mounts have setting circles that can get you roughly where you want to be (with a bit of practice). Will be good for planets and most objects in the sky but the search for the deeper sky objects will soon get frustrating as there is no saying what you are looking for would even be visible with your equipment or give location.

Skywatcher MAK 127 GOTO (£350) Has also had good reviews from this site for good viewing experience and also has the advantage of finding objects for you (initial setting up of goto telescopes can be a chore) Once you are confident it can find objects, choose 2 or 3 you know and see if it finds them and if so you can then try it on the ones you can't find. If you don't see the galaxy it can mean your location may be to light polluted and you can move onto the next item on your list with no real time wasted.

Multi coated 20x80 Binoculars (£170) Are easily transportable to dark skies and no further accessories are required. Camera mounts are cheaply available to mount binoculars (adapter needed) should you choose. Although they will never compete with a telescope you can view star cluster, some nebula and make out the disc of planets. Again you would have to learn the skies. Most amatures have a pair of binoculars as they offer a wide FOV and can be easily set up for them nights when there are only breaks in the cloud. With binoculars is if you do loose interest, binoculars can be used for more than stargazing and should you sell you have a wider market to sell to.

Dobsonian 150p (£199) Offer a lot of telescope for the money.(more money for quality EP's) Can be a little disapointing to a beginner as some modifications are neccessary to get it just right. Nudging of the telescope if stiff can mean chasing the flicker of light flying past the EP view for several seconds . Good knowledge of the sky is also neccessary and as there are no setting circles of any kind as standard. Benefits are they are cheap, easy to set up, transportable and a sturdy mount.

The best recommendation for any beginner is to buy second hand (make sure you check optics and mirrors) as you get more for your money and if you decide it wasn't for you there is less money lost.

Hope this helps