What's a good beginner telescope?

[ollypenrice]

You only need the drive for imaging but this would be planetary webcam imaging. Deep sky is another story.

Olly

[prbaxter]

there's £1.20 difference between the skywatcher 150P and the 150PL.

is the difference just the size of the tube? does this make a dofference?

[malc-c]

I'm no expert, but the magnification of an object is given by the focal length of a given eyepiece divided into the focal length of the telescope. Thus a longer focal length would give a higher magnification with the same eyepiece. However there are limits and trade off of image quality at extreme magnifications. The shorter focal length is going to be faster too in terms of exposures. Telescopes are like camera lenses, in that (I think this is correct) if you take the aperture and divide that into the focal length you get the f ratio. Thus an f5 will require a shorter exposure when taking a picture than an f10 (I'm guessing half as much).

At the end of the day, it's really what you want to look at, what conditions you are observing under and where you want to progress to that will dictate what scope you get for your budget. The 150P on an EQ-3 has been suggested, and the 150PL is an option for that £1.20 difference. You can always upgrade the mount at a later stage, maybe after you have saved up, or whatever your personal circumstances permit. I would suggest getting a motor for the RA axis, even if viewing at the eyepiece. This will give you a tracking option and is ideal if you want to try imaging through the scope. It also saves having to manually track the object by turning the RA adjustment by hand. Again, as funds permit, or birthdays and christmas comes round, slowly upgrade the DEC motor and possibly the goto computer IF that's the direction your want to in.

Hope that helps