Beginner advice

[Monkian]

Hi everyone, I'm considering getting my first telescope and thought I'd run everything by you guys to see if I've understood all the advice I've read.

I want to avoid maintenance or collimation as it might put me off if I didn't know what I was doing. I also need it to be very portable so I was looking at Maksukovs. Are they relatively easy to set up for a beginner?

I'm concentrating on the advice that the best scope is the one you use the most so a simple to set up and portable one would be best for me. I've got my eye on the Skymax 127 so would anyone recommend it to me?

I live in Portsmouth so will see if I can make it along to any local clubs. HantsAstro looks like a great place to start.

Cheers, Ollie

[Breakintheclouds]

Hi Ollie,

Welcome to the forum. Yes, a scope like that would be nice and simple and low-maintenance. But don't let collimation scare you. I well remember how daunting it all sounds, especially when you're reading about it online and find guide after guide, but it's really not that hard.

Whatever you choose, I wish you good luck with it. Just be prepared for about 6 weeks of cloud starting on whatever day you get your scope!

Ian

[Monkian]

Thanks Ian, I'm probably going to go for it with the manual EQ mount. Having a computer find objects for you is very clever but I'd rather learn to do it myself for now. I imagine it being far more rewarding.

I'm trying to figure out the size of the scope to see if it'd fit into a flight case I already have. The aperture is 127mm so it's obviously a little wider than that. The focal length is 1500mm but it's a Mak so the physical length of it will be a little over a third of that, say 550mm. Have I understood this properly?

Thanks, Ollie

[Breakintheclouds]

Yes, that sounds about right. I guess you can figure on the length being a bit over half 1500mm. If you want to be more certain, I'm sure if you look around on a couple of online shops' websites, or Skywatcher's website, you'll find one that has the dimensions.

[BenM]

The long focal length scope you're mentioning has a very narrow field of view which makes finding things extremely difficult, especially for a beginner that doesn't know the sky intimately already. It has a small aperature, equivalent to about 100mm of unobstructed aperature so you cannot expect high powers (you'll just get difficult, tiny exit pupils and a dim view).

I just finished trying a Celestron 127mm Schmidt Cassegrain. It's similar to a Maksutov but has a slightly larger central obstruction and a much lighter corrector lens. Visually, there's hardly any difference you could sense without instruments. With it, I had no trouble finding things I knew the location of. Otherwise, I felt it was like trying to find my way around a dimly lit room by peering through a drink straw. It maxed out around 103X with a high-end Ethos eyepiece. 225x with another Ethos was functional but didn't give anything 103x couldn't. A long focal length scope like this should be ideal for high power viewing but the aperature is simply insufficient.

The smaller 3.5" Mak Cas scopes were more popular before well corrected refractors became available for reasonable cost. I believe a good 80mm refractor with a flourite crystal element will do much better than a 90mm Mak Cas. It also offers the possibility of wider fields and is still quite compact.

[Monkian]

Thanks for the interesting advice. I was also considering a compact refractor like the Startravel 102. I was slightly put off by the short focal length which I understand would be worse for viewing the moon and planets. While I'm obviously extremely keen to see the planets, I can imagine wanting to move on to deep sky objects before long. It seems to me that you need to decide which you're more interested in or go for a compromise.

I live in Portsmouth so light pollution is very bad. I think I'd have better luck seeing planets and I'll have to travel to see most deep sky objects. I did however had some great views from the garden last night just with some average binoculars.

I might reconsider the refractor since it's about half the price anyway. Maybe I'm over-thinking it for my first scope and will go for the cheaper option if it should give some good views.

Thanks, Ollie

[Monkian]

Hmm since you've said not to worry about collimation I'm now looking at reflectors and like I've heard, you get a lot more for your money. I had just dismissed them so thanks for the advice. I'll try to look up some guides.

I seem to be changing my mind every couple of days as I learn more so I'll do plenty of research before ordering.

Ollie

[brantuk]

Yup - if your mind keeps changing it means you need more knowledge to make a sensible choice in this game lol.

Some scopes are good for planets, others for dso's, and there's a third category for imaging. Unfortunately there's no one scope that does all three equally well. The most important thing for imaging is the mount. And to make a good job of dso's you need two scopes bolted together - one for imaging and one for guiding.

For observing only, a good sized aperture newtonian is ideal. For imaging planets a long focal length Mak or Sct are hard to beat. Imaging dso's a short focal ratio wide field appo is the scope of choice. You can also play around with reducers, flatteners and barlows to make one scope simulate another. Then there's cameras, webcam for planets, dslr or ccd for dso's.

Portability is only one issue, collimation you can't escape from with most scopes. If we knew more about what you want to do with it then it would help us to make recommendations

[G2EWS]

....I seem to be changing my mind every couple of days as I learn more so I'll do plenty of research before ordering....

Hi Ollie,

Join the club! I keep changing my plans and thought I had sorted it until I met NickH last night who pointed out the error of my ways! Oh how much money I was wasting. Thanks Nick!

So armed with my new list and meeting Nick at Astrofest on Friday I may just be coming home a bit earlier than I expected to buy, with all that is required!

Unlike you I want my set up to be totally automatic so I can actually see what I am taking photos of rather than spending a lot of time trying to find it! Hopefully with time I will know my nebulas from galaxies

Best regards

Chris

[Monkian]

I think like anyone's who's been interested in space their whole life, I wish I could see everything! While planets and even the moon will be fascinating to begin with, I'll probably get very into DSOs pretty quickly if I can see them. So I'm thinking a focal ratio of about 5-8.

I'm really enjoying learning all this so thanks everyone! I'll definitely have done a ton of research by the time I get one.

Ollie