Would love some advice on my first purchase

[PhotoFiend]

Hi everyone

I am seriously considering making my first astronomical purchase but perhaps strangely I'm not looking for a telescope.

I was at first, but the more I have thought about it and thought about my uses for it I think I would be far better with a spotting scope.

My reasons for thinking that way are:

I don't have a huge amount of space to store it

I love the binoculars I have now (Leica Trinovid 10x42) and love being able to use them in the day

I like the thought of being able to take it away on holiday with me

I have a good view from my window and could keep a spotting scope on a tripod for day and night views (though I will take it outside at night!)

I am very keen on having a go at digiscoping

Deep sky objects whilst very interesting to me aren't as big a draw as the moon and planets

I don't have very deep pockets at the moment and can't afford the £600-£700 for a Nikon scope and eyepiece.

I started by looking really basic at the Celestron C70 as I liked the zoom on it and how compact the scope is. Then I read that the eyepiece seems to be relatively low quality and significanty darkens and softens at longer zooms but could be upgraded.

Whilst I was reading reviews about it someone posted that they saw Saturns rings using it which I was blown away with (I haven't seen them yet - the most I have seen is Jupiters moons through my binos), that's exactly what I'm after and I had no idea that a spotting scope was capable of it.

In my research I came across the excellent article on magnification from Telescope House and they mention that these views of Saturn are possible with a 50x zoom, can anyone tell me what sort of quality of image I could expect from a spotting scope (or the various diameter lenses).

From there I have done more reading...and got more confused.

Some of the larger Celestron scopes have a larger diameter lens which would be great for letting more light in but not as long a zoom. I am interested in the fact that with Celestron it seems easy to buy extras such as extra eyepieces, a moon filter and T mount for connecting my camera.

I have also spotted a Revelation spotting scope with a 100mm lens for not a huge amount of money...I don't know what the quality of this scope would be like or what extras I could get for it.

Would anyone with some knowledge and experience be able to point me in the right direction please?

I'm based in the UK by the way.

Many thanks.

[michael.h.f.wilkinson]

A former colleague of mine got a Celestron 100 ED spotting scope and is very pleased with it. I had a quick (day-time) look and it is a nice piece of kit. He has used it for astronomical stuff and is pleased with it.

[PhotoFiend]

Thanks very much for your reply, unfortunately a model like that is way out of my price range.

I certainly couldn't look at models over £200 and less if I can get away with it.

[ollypenrice]

... then I would buy secod hand.

You like your Trinovids? No surprizes there!!!

I think that astro scopes make good spotters with a cheap erecting prism but spotters don't make great astro scopes. Eyepieces, irregular shapes that are hared to sight along...

But in a Nikon 60 birder, a good one, I could see the rings of Saturn, albeit very small, at 45 times.

On this forum I bought an old but near perfect TeleVue Pronto for about two hundred pounds.

Olly