Telescopes

[ohoward]

Hi,

There seem to be alot of knowledgeable people on these boards and I'm after a little advice on telescopes.

I have a budget of approxiamately £500 for an astronomical telescope, but as an amateur find the whole field confusing. I have managed to come up with a couple of likely candidates that fit my budget, as well as meeting the criteria that they must have a GOTO mount and some sort of auto alignment.

Meade ETX 90

Celestron Nexstar 4 SE

Any advice on these two 'scopes, plus suggestions on others that meet my criteria grarefully recieved.

Thanks.

[graham.myers]

I have a nexstar 5. Havent used it this year but when its out its quite good. eats batteries though so you will need a weatherproof power extension as the overnight dew can be quite mean to any electrical sockets

[Jenn]

My husband and I have just decided to go into astronomy.

At first we bought a new Celestron Nexstar 60 SLT cheap on Ebay just to have a play outside with. It arrived yesterday so we haven't had a chance to play with it yet.

But we started to read into things (as you do ) and it took all but 2 days for us to buy a Celestron Nexstar 4
It's due to arrive today or tomorrow so I can't tell you yet if it's great but according to reviews it's a good one.

The Meade ones are more expensive than the Celestron ones but apparently it's all because of the name. Also people say the Meade GOTO is useless (I can't personally comment on that though) hence why we went for Celestron.

One thing you may went to include in your purchases are decent eyepieces and diagonal. Plossl eyepieces apparently make a whole world of difference compared to cheap ones.

We'll be trying to take pictures so we also got camera adapters and might have to get an SLR camera or the Celestron CCD camera.

[Jenn]

Originally Posted by graham.myers

I have a nexstar 5. Havent used it this year but when its out its quite good. eats batteries though so you will need a weatherproof power extension as the overnight dew can be quite mean to any electrical sockets

You can get a Celestron Power Tank, 12v Power Supply for aroun £40.

[ohoward]

Originally Posted by Jenn

One thing you may went to include in your purchases are decent eyepieces and diagonal. Plossl eyepieces apparently make a whole world of difference compared to cheap ones.

This is one of the reasons I am considering the Meade. At the moment you get a free 12 piece eyepiece set worth £400 with any ETX at most retailers. I too have heard about the problems with Meade's Autostar, seems a bit hit and miss to me.

On the other hand the Celestrons offer larger apertures at around the same price, but eyepieces will set me back another few hundred, and I'd like to get up and running for £500.

Thanks for info and advice so far.

[graham.myers]

At the time I bought the cele 5 I wanted a Meade - this is 5 ir 6 years ago. However a shop in the florida mall was having a going out of business sale and the celestron was around 1/2 price so I couldnt resist

I bought only 2 or 3 eye pieces from a shop in Newcastle - I'll try and dig out the website if they have one

The plossls were not expensive - maybe £29 - I only spent about £90 tops

[Jenn]

We bought our eyepiece from this guy http://www.skysthelimit.org.uk/

He's on Ebay as well under skies_unlimited. He was very helpful and friendly. Received good advice.

The Nexstar 4 you should be able to get for £325-£340 so it leaves you with £175 to buy accessories which is plenty enough. We paid £45 in total for a Plossl eyepiece, a 2x Barlow and a camera T ring.
Or you can buy the Celestron EyeOpener Eyepiece/Filter accessory kit for about £120.

All in all both options come to about the same price so it's a choice between the goto systems and also the size as the Meade is 90mm and the Celestron 102mm.

[Steve N]

Originally Posted by ohoward

........There seem to be alot of knowledgeable people on these boards and I'm after a little advice on telescopes........

If you are anywhere near Cambridge this place Here is worth a visit.
The staff are very helpful.

[ohoward]

Thanks for the help so far.

I'm also now considering the Celestron Nexstar 130 STL and the Skywatcher Explorer 130PM.

I never thought I'd have so much trouble choosing a scope, although i am now leaning more in favour of the Celestron Nexstar 4SE.

Jenn, once you have used your scope I'd really appreciate some ideas of what can be seen with it, maybe some images as you are going to be photographing as well.

Thanks.

[graham.myers]

one thing I found with my nexstar 5 was what you could actually see. its not a very powerful scope and obviously the 4 is the next step down.

The expectations after seeing some great hubble pictures were high and its somewhat of a comedown with a 5"er or 4"er

I could resolves the rings of Saturn and see the great spot on jupiter. I can make out the orion nebula etc. I never really looked at the moon ao cant comment on the quality of looking at that.

For photography though, some of the stunning pictures you see are heavily processed and bare no resemblence to the original images even the Hubble sends back. A lot of the pictures you see are an amalgamation of several wavelengths -light, infra-red, X-Ray and then falsely coloured.

[Jenn]

I'll probably be having a go this weekend weather permitting (scope arriving today hopefully) so I'll let you know my first impressions.

I won't be doing pictures just yet though as I haven't decided on the imaging equipment to get.
There are people who have some pictures though:
Moon
Mars

Photos of various things with various telescopes Many are with very good telescopes but you might find a few with the telescopes you are considering.

[Nimby]

There are all levels of seriousness about astronomy.
A first telescope is a difficult choice.
If you are serious about observing planets then you should look at the Orion UK website and consider a quality 6" Newtonian from them.
Mirror 'scopes smaller than 6" have been ignored for years by keen amateurs.
A 4" or 6" refractor is worth having but not a reflector in these sizes. The mirror/reflector type has the disadvantage of a large secondary mirror blocking the light. The lens/refractor type has none.
That said, you do get the smaller computerized thing to find the planets and other objects for you.
Just a shame that the quality of the image and its brightness are so limited.
Ideally you want a bigger telescope that does the pointing. That costs more money.
The aperture (diameter of the lens or mirror) is the vital statistic in providing the necessary resolving power to see fine detail on the planets.
The bigger mirror or lens also provides enough light to see galaxies and nebulae more clearly.
The problem is that bigger telescopes are bulkier, heavier and usually much more expensive for the same quality.
The quality of the optics is even more important than the size of the optics.
The simple 6" high quality Newtonian reflector buys you the the best compromise of price:aperture as a starter telescope.
It still needs you to point it at a dark sky with which you are totally unfamiliar.

[ohoward]

Originally Posted by graham.myers

one thing I found with my nexstar 5 was what you could actually see. its not a very powerful scope and obviously the 4 is the next step down.

The expectations after seeing some great hubble pictures were high and its somewhat of a comedown with a 5"er or 4"er

I could resolves the rings of Saturn and see the great spot on jupiter. I can make out the orion nebula etc. I never really looked at the moon ao cant comment on the quality of looking at that.

For photography though, some of the stunning pictures you see are heavily processed and bare no resemblence to the original images even the Hubble sends back. A lot of the pictures you see are an amalgamation of several wavelengths -light, infra-red, X-Ray and then falsely coloured.

I'm certainly not expecting to see anything like what Hubble can produce! If anything, my expectations are quite low: being able to see the ice caps on Mars, resolve the rings of Saturn and see the Great Red spot on Jupiter, as well as some of the brighter DSOs will be enough for me!

Nimby, I have tasken a look at the Orion site and unfortunately they are overpriced for my moderate budget. Some of the Vixen instruments they are selling there are beautiful though. I do appreciate your input.

Also added to the list is the Skywatcher Skymax 127. Surely the list should be getting shorter?

[Jenn]

Originally Posted by ohoward

Also added to the list is the Skywatcher Skymax 127. Surely the list should be getting shorter?

Do the Skywatcher have a goto mount?

[ohoward]

Hi Jenn,

No GOTO on those particular Skywatchers but they do have motorised tracking/slew. I am somewhat tempted to sacrifice GOTO for larger aperture, despite my previous efforts at finding objects manually being a complete disaster.

Alot of purists would no doubt have my guts for garters for saying this but I am kind of after 'instant gratification' and I feel I could learn the night sky just as well with GOTO, the option of using it would be nice.