Skywatcher 250p plus????

[Dil]

I plan to buy a Skywatcher 250p fairly soon and was wondering about other odds and ends I might need. I've been reading lots of posts in this forum and picked up lots of ideas. I'm thinking of getting a Telrad or similar, a Wixey and a 2x Barlow lens. Any comments? Am I right in thinking that FLO would be a good company to buy from?

[John]

FLO are a good company to buy from - they get excellent feedback on this forum.

I usually recommend a cheshire collimator and a good guide book and then to use the scope a few times before buying additional accessories - there is just so much choice that it's all too easy to get stuff which does not actually move the hobby forward for you.

With a bit of experience with the scope your buying decisions will be much better informed.

Have a chat to the folks at FLO - they are very friendly and won't give you any "hard sell".

[Chris H]

As John says but I also reckon a Telrad would make life a lot easier for you.

[Astro_Baby]

Get a dewshield or make one....dew is the big killer for a newtonian scope.

[Geno]

I agree with the above. The Telrad was the first thing I bought makes life much easier for finding things.

I use a collimation cap made out of an old 35mm film container and a laser collimator for collimation which after a couple of uses gets much easier, AB above has an excellent guide to collimation on her website.

As many have done on this site I made a dew shield out of an old camping mat which stops the secondary mirror dewing up.