Time for my first telescope, portable and around 300 £

[dweller25]

A four inch triplet refractor will take around an hour to cool down when taken outside from indoors.

A four inch doublet refractor will take around 30 minutes.

A five inch doublet will take around an hour.

A five inch Mak will take at least one hour, maybe more to cool. I used to unscrew the front off my 127 Skymax to release the warm air faster. The Skymax 127 will match the views of an 85mm refractor on the planets.

[jaqob]

A four inch triplet refractor will take around an hour to cool down when taken outside from indoors.

A four inch doublet refractor will take around 30 minutes.

A five inch doublet will take around an hour.

A five inch Mak will take at least one hour, maybe more to cool. I used to unscrew the front off my 127 Skymax to release the warm air faster. The Skymax 127 will match the views of an 85mm refractor on the planets.

Thanks

But whats the difference between cold (or same temperature as the surrounding) and not? Is it a big difference?

[dweller25]

If the scope is not cooled to the outside temperature planetary views will look mushy and lack contrast.

[nightfisher]

I have an evostar 120mm f8 and i have to travel due to light pollution and unsuitable garden.

The evostar is great for observing and i find it travels well, however, you will need a good mount for it to be stable, i had a eq3 that ended up in poor state of repair so i picked up an eq5 and that does a good job.

With hindsight, for transporting i would have gone for an evo 102mm, as less cromatic aboration and only 20mm less aperture

[vlebo]

These are good all rounders and pretty portable as my eleven year old niece has one and she takes it in and out of the house on her own fully assembled

Reflectors - Skywatcher Explorer 130P SupaTrak AUTO

and the rest of your cash can go on a collimator and a decent eyepiece or two.

Vlebo

[jaqob]

Is it an crazy idea to but an Skymax 127 OTA and a AZ3 (on aluminium tripod)? If the mount can cope with the tube, it seems like a nice grab and go combination to start with, and the mount is cheap enough to replace when I have the money and space for a EQ5 or better.

[AndyG63]

Worth remembering that you could leave the weights for an EQ mount in the car - and maybe the tripod too. A tube with a - for example - 5" mirror isn't too much hassle to carry around.

Andy

[Astro_Baby]

How about this for an even nuttier idea - hang around until a TAL100 comes up on ebay with its original wooden mount, The whole lot is quite light relatively, reasonably hardy and if put in a decent bag would be durable enough. You could probably look to pick one up for no more than £250 and it would provide;

Reasonable portability

No requirement for power

Decent planetary views and under a dark sky good DSO views as well

Its a thing of beauty - looks the business - a modern classic

Quite hardy as an instriment and would come with decent accessories

Would outlive almost any other telescope and quite probably its owner as well

For planets and the moon perhaps the best for the money

They come up on ebay periodically for anywhere between £150 and £300.

I'll decalre my interest I am a fan of these but you know thinking about the requirements of portability and price theres no reason one of these scopes couldnt meet the criteria.

[jonathan]

I would second Astro-Baby's suggestion of a 4SE - the SCTs are surprisingly compact for great performance, they do for size what Newtonian reflectors do for value for money. Of course, a 4SE does not have to be on a Goto mount, I imagine it should fit on an EQ3-2 quite happily so you wouldn't need to lug around a power tank (for the Goto).

I have the 8SE which uses the same Goto mount as the 6SE, it is heavy and I wouldn't want to carry it down steps very often, but the 4SE should be half the size and (in theory) half the weight of the 8SE, easily manageable up some steps, I would say, and might sit on the passenger seat of a car when the mount is taken off the tripod. Another good thing about the 4SE, you could probably get away with just a dew shield and not bother with a dew heater, the smaller telescopes cool down quicker and are less prone to dew (or so I read).

Having seen just how large the SkyWatcher reflectors are in a shop once I had to discount them as too big for me to handle and store. The 8SE takes up hardly any room at all by comparison.

[sixela]

A dob is to[o] big and to[o] heavy.

150mm StarBlast? 130mm Skywatcher Heritage?

Not all Dobs are big and heavy.

[sixela]

Cool down time, how big issue is this?

Depends on the thickness of the mirror (for mirror scopes --refractor doublets cool down fast, in fact the problem is that they continue to cool until they cool the ambient air under the dew point and dew up! Also, the exact image aberrations they produce while they cool are less troublesome)

And on whether you've installed a fan at the back.

Realistically, a 6" Newt with a fan requires roughly 15-20 minutes before it delivers the best views; an 8" Newt usually requires 30 minutes. If you don't have a fan, think "an hour", or if the temperatures keep dropping through the night "never". Of course, fans can be DIY affairs --on my 114mm Starblast, I frequently just point it straight up and simply put a 120mm PC fan powered by a 12V jump starter battery on top for 15 minutes. But the best thing is a small fan at the back with three rubber bands (and possibly something fancier, like a baffle around the fan etc. etc.); that also lets you observe while the fan is running.

Of course, you can watch objects requiring less magnification first (or exclusively). It's mainly important when looking at small objects (moon, planets, planetary nebulae,...) or if you really dislike blurry stars when you look at open clusters etc. (or at anything if your sense of aesthetics is too well developed ).