TO MOTOR OR NOT TO MOTOR ?

[moogy]

Firstly, Hello, pretty much a total newcomer to this scene, though, it has been something that i have known for a long time that i would do, hence my tiny bit of knowledge(who was it that said "a little bit of knowledge can be dangerous?) My girlfriend has known about this interest of mine for a while now, ever since i fell asleep on a very frosty night in my sleeping bag on the front lawn watching a meteor storm. i had been out there for about 3 hours!

So with this in mind and not knowing what to buy me for christmas, I ended up opening a national geographic 76mm reflector scope yesterday morning! "it had national geographic on it so i knew it was a good one" was her reply at seeing my expression! she paid £135ish for it!

Anyway, she understands now that i would like to take it back and put the money to a different scope. I spent a lot of yesterday researching what scope to buy and have decided on a sky watcher explorer 130. firstlight optics have them on their site now for £119, £20 less than being sold on ebay .

my question is (finally) is it worth paying the bit extra for the motor version, extra £30 (£149) and if the motor is worth having, is it worth getting the 130p supatrak auto at £189 ???

I dont mind spending the bit extra but is the extra £60 worth it for me who might only get out 2-4 days a month???

Any other scopes in this price range worth a look at?

I am really glad that she bought me the scope as i have been saying for years that i am going to buy one.

I have no street lights near me, closest is probably 2 miles away so have a good place to learn from.... right outside my house:)

Thank you for your help

[Kai]

To be fair i would not pay the extra for the moment , see how you get on with the scope and go from there. You can always add the motors at a later date if required.

The 130 is a very well thought of beginners scope and at £120 is very good value for money.

With the £30 i would get a copy of Turn Left at Orion for £16 from Amazon and a Skywatcher Led torch from FLO for a further £16 so you can read it in the dark.

HTH

Steve

[steppenwolf]

I agree with Steve above, smack on - the 130 is an excellent scope, especially in 130P guise (the 'P' stands for Parabolic mirror which is a good thing).

FLO would be my first choice of supplier for this and generally you should keep clear of Ebay for this type of purchase although they are great for most things!

Well done girlfriend, she has set you on an exciting course.

[Staffy]

Definitely go for the motorised one. If you don't then eventually you will wish you had and to retro fit a motor costs a lot more than buying it already attached. I know this cos that's what I ended up doing! The 130 is a great starter scope. The 130P should be even better.

[Bizibilder]

Don't spend £16 on a torch!! Just use an ordinary one (an LED torch will make the batteries last a lot longer) and either stick some transparent red plastic over the end or use some of your girlfriends nail varnish to paint the lens!! It works!! You can then spend your £16 on more Astro stuff (or your girlfriend?).

[brantuk]

The choice is yours of course, but for info the motors individually are around £75 for RA only, or £95 for RA and Dec. If you can get the scope with RA motor included for only an extra £30 then it would seem a good bargain - and would be very useful too.

I have owned a Supatrack auto (goto) in the past. It's alt/az and the mount/tripod alone was £189. If you have chance of getting one with scope included then that too would seem a bargain.

In fact I may want to know where you're getting these bargains cos I could do with saving a few bob myself lol

[moogy]

@ bizibilder... i already have a night vision head torch so thats £16 to spend on something else

@brantuk.... they are on the FLO site. sky watcher explorer, £119. sky watcher explorer M £149 and the explorer 130p supatrak auto £189......

they do seem good value especially as all i have read about them is positive remarks

[Capricorn]

I would go for the motors.

It might seem simple to twiddle a couple of knobs to move the scope but you have to have your eye at the eyepiece while the hands are wrapped round the scope and mount moving thing.

If you think that your girl friend may want to look then while you centre an object and swap places the object will move. Several times whatever it is will move before she can get to the eyepiece. Then comes the need to reacquire it by swapping to a longer eyepiece and swapping back to a smaller one and starting again.

Motors and a small handset make life a lot easier.

[moogy]

OK... so i think i am going to go for a motorised scope.......now do i go for the 130m at £149 or the 130p supatrak auto at £189? what will the 130p auto do that the 130m wont???? questions questions questions!!!

[Bizibilder]

I'm going to put a spanner in the works here and suggest a 150mm Dobsonian (A Newtonian telescope on a very simple mount). It is not motorised but you get the biggest aparture for your money. As you have a good dark site you will get good views of DSO's (Deep Sky Objects) as well as the Moon and Planets. Having to "nudge" the scope around will quickly become second nature as will learning the sky! With the Supertrak you are paying good money for a fancy mount (that has a small inbuilt computer) at the expense of scope size and quality. The 130 scopes are on the smaller type of mounts that are not particularly rigid.

I would go for the Dob with your budget and sky quality.

[bcfcciderhead]

My turn...I started with, and still use the 130P, after about 2 weeks of using (on a eq2 mount) i soon changed the mount to a supatrack, and sooo glad i did, moving the scope by a touch of a button on a cold night is so much better and takes secounds to set up, so yes go for the motor type or if you funds let you the supatrack mount, i have since upgraded it to goto all by getting a handset to plug straight into the mount, so more options open to you later on.

Then we come to a Dob....simple to use (my 130p comes 2nd now) and set up, better value for money as all the pennies go into the optics not the mount, so if you could get a 150mm aperture for the same money go for it and get a dob.

[moogy]

My life seemed so easy until moments ago!!! ha ha

Could you point me in the right direction for a 150 for my budget? the ones i seem to find are nearer the £250 mark!

[bcfcciderhead]

try this beauty

Dobsonians - Skywatcher Skyliner 150P Dobsonian

[moogy]

Thanks....that does seem good value for the extra mirror size. I notice that the 150p dobsonian comes with a "direct slr camera connection" i would of thought due to the nature of the dobsonians they arent ideal for photography??

[bcfcciderhead]

I think (being a non photo type of guy)the main problem with the dob is that it can't track an object, so taking photos of planets would be very hard, but are you going to go down that road? if not that dont worry, i have some good shots of the moon by just putting a camera upto the eyepiece

[Astro_Baby]

I' d get the motor but that's mostly cos when I am looking at stuff I can't be bothered constantly pushing a scope, I like to look and let the hardware do the work. That's especially true for planets where I find a manual scope near impossible to work with. Them planets don't Half move along nippy like when your at high power.

[umadog]

It's a personal choice, but as others have said, if it came to the choice I would choose a Dob with greater aperture over the motor. Bigger mirror will show you more. Pushing a scope by hand isn't a big deal.

[brantuk]

Some people do get on well with dobs and "push to" is no problem for them. But some don't, and can't wait to upgrade to motors/goto. There's no doubt however they are great vfm £'s per aperture.

A 150P will show you a fair bit more (deeper sky) than a 130P (I started with a 150P EQ3-2) and it's definitely a better place to begin if budget allows. And you can upgrade with an RA motor at a later stage. A direct dslr connection on a polar aligned EQ mount is a much better option for photography, even a tracking dob will not be as good.

As for set up - to me both types are as easy. Sure the EQ needs to be "learn'ed" a bit more than a dob but both are like riding a bike - once mastered, it's a 5 mins piece of cake and the difference really is inconsequential.

The choice here is actually quite easy. If you ever want to do AP then a 130P with EQ mount and RA motor is the way to go. If you can stretch the budget to a 150P then better still. If you don't intend photography - then a 150P on a dob mount is best value - or a manual 150P EQ if you can stretch the budget a bit.

You'd need to try both first to decide if "push to" suits you, or if axis cable/knobs would be more appropriate. For that I'd suggest joining a local astro society or find a very friendly retailer.

[moogy]

Again, thank you.

I think i will see if there are any localish people who might help.

My xmas pressie can go back and i can keep the money in my new piggy bank until i know what is best for me...until then i think i will get my spotter scope and binoculars out and order myself "turn left at orion"

[brantuk]

That's a great idea - binocs and a spotter are a great way to go. I actually began with binocs (strictly speaking) and spent three months reading and using them before buying a scope.

If you haven't allready - download "Stellarium" - it's free and very good for learning the sky. I have TLAO and it's a highly recommended book.

Meantime feel free to ask any questions that occur to you along the way, and we'll help you get there sooner or later - if you can hint as to rough geographic location we might be able to find you a local astro group

[Quatermass]

Having started with the 130p with out a motor then taken it back to upgrade to the sky watcher explorer 200p with out a motor and an EQ5 mount THEN getting a RA motor drive at half price on these forums heres what I think...

The 13Op is a lovely little scope and with an RA drive will make life easy when your observing say Jupiter as you wont have to keep twiddling knobs to keep it in view. With this set up you can relax and enjoy the night sky and you can even take some nice shots of the moon with a small webcam or as I did just strapping my camera phone to the lens with a rubber band!

All well and good if your happy with just that for now. However a few weeks later I was itching for more and spent another 200 quid upgrading to the 200p sky watcher... much much better. Bottom line here is when the bug bites your wallet will soon empty so dont rush. If I had to go back in time with future me I would be going to buy the sky watcher 200p with dual drive and the eq5 mount but having said all that the 130p is a very tidy little telescope and worth every penny and with the addition of an RA drive would be ideal to start with. Your call but hey you can allways buy more gear later!

[acey]

Astronomers managed perfectly well without motors for hundreds of years, and thousands still do so today. If you can afford it then it's nice to have, if it means going without something else then you need to prioritise. Most amateurs end up buying everything that's going, then find they have lots of stuff they don't really need.

I do all my observing with manually operated alt-az scopes (dobs or small tripod-mounted scopes). Worked fine for Herschel and works fine for me. But Herschel never took photographs and neither do I.

My first serious scope was an 8-inch dob and I now use a 12". If I could go back in time I'd buy the 8-inch dob again, learn to use it just like I did, then upgrade just like I did.

[RobH]

Go for the motor!

Especially at high magnification, trying to manually guide is a pain. You end up concentrating on keeping the object in view, not looking at it.

I had non-motorised scopes from when I started in the '60s until 2006. The first night with a scope that tracked was a revelation to me

Cheers

Rob

[Quatermass]

Its the imaging photographing question really if I was not at all intrested in astrophotography then everthing would be dead simple but once you start getting intrested in photographing everthing gets much more complicated as I soon found out. Aceys dead right though getting to know the sky and enjoying the hobby does not require a ton of gear. I just love gadget though lol.

[UtterChaos23]

Ahh man! .. How frustrating ... I read the whole thread and still don't know what you ended up with

Moogy - what was the outcome?

James