Your best astro buy under £50

[Luke]

It's really exciting when you get a flash scope or mount or eyepiece, but I've been really chuffed with some of the less expensive gear lately. What's your favourite bit of astro goodness you got for less than fifty smackers?

For me it's probably the Rigel Quickfinder. It's solved the problems I had doing daft things like aligning to the wrong star!

[ollypenrice]

In my case astronomy books, but maybe that doesn't count as gear? But with ABE books second hand bookshop search engine you can find anything. For a few quid I found an old copy of Hubble's In The Realm of the Nebulae and spent the next few evenings in a one-to-one with the great man. Amazing when you think about it.

But gear proper? Binoculars, maybe.

Olly

[skywatcher1701]

I got a Atik2C ccd camera for smack on £50, using it as a guide camera...not to bad does the job!

[Nexus 6]

No contest. Bresser 10x50 binoculars. £25.00 from Telescope House. Payback from enjoyment of, understanding and appreciating the night sky. Priceless

Alan

[A McEwan]

10.5mm TeleVue Plossl, boxed with caps. 2nd-hand. £15!

[russ]

Meade 4000 6.7mm Ultra Wide for £30 ...... near Nagler quality for the price of cheap plossl. I love it to bits and ranks as possibly my best eyepiece buy to date.

Had some other good buys for under £50:

Revelation 15x70 for £45

Meade 10x50 for £9.99

Bresser 70 for £49.99

Antares 7mm Ortho for £5

TMB clones for £36

I did buy a Nagler T1 4.8mm for £48 in 2002 which i couldn't believe at the time. But as it turned out, i didn't like it as an eyepiece. So not such a good buy.

[yeti monster]

My wee Skymax 90, a rather decent travel scope, 50 earth quidses on ye olde baye of fleas.

[Dave S]

My Tamron f5.6 500mm catadioptric lens.

£35 s/h from the local camera shop.

Dave...

[Psychobilly]

HEQ-5 Syntrek minus tripod and counter weights £5...

Now effectively a PRO - using the controller from the EQ3 Pro and it sits on a pier...

Billy...

[Dave S]

HEQ-5 Syntrek minus tripod and counter weights £5...

Now effectively a PRO - using the controller from the EQ3 Pro and it sits on a pier...

Billy...

Show off!

Dave...

[Psychobilly]

It was a good day....

My first ever liquidation auction and ended up with 8 pages of receipts...

Billy...

[Dave S]

Nice.

I used to do auctions. You can get allsorts of great stuff really cheap.

Dave...

[jgs001]

A few really ...

Skymax 102 £50

Bresser 10x50 £12

Celestron 15x70 £49

eq1 and motor drive plus fittings and bits for a pole scope etc £49 makes a good little widefield travel mount.

[ajg]

Easy. Celestron 15x70 binos when FLO had them on offer for £49.

[John]

My Antares 1.6x 2" barlow lens. Superb Japanese optics - just £30, delivered !.

[Dai150PL]

A 32mm TV Plossl from another SGL member for £50.

[brantuk]

12V 45ah leisure battery for £3 comes in pretty useful. Had several nice ep's under £50 (including Televues). Nothing as flash as a five quid heq5 though lol

[Starjumper]

Lidl telescope for my grandsons xmas.

John

[marcdearn]

Rigel quickfinder for me too....

I think would have given up without it

[callisto]

Telrad Dew Shield, £3 from AstroBoot .

[nightfisher]

celestron 15x70 bins from flo

gso 32mm plossl £15 from here

[Nillchill]

I bought my SW130 on FleaBay for £49 incl eypieces, motor, etc.

best £49 I ever spent.

[Ags]

My TS Planetary eyepieces from Modern Astronomy for £49 each. THey've done exactly what I wanted them to do. You can get cheaper TMB clones, but the TS ones have a good reputation.

[Beulah]

It's got to be the Phillips webcam with IR filter and nosepeice, plus materials to do the LX mod.

[dmahon]

I have two:

1) 12mm illumitated plossl @ £39.49, whcih makes my GOTO setup absolutely spot on - once I have set up with this, I can connect my cameras and control everything from the computer.

2) 12m active USB cable with built in 4 port hub @ £16.16 means I can do it from inside the house or garage.