Right then,

I’m becoming increasingly fascinated by the night sky since installing Stellarium and from the window of my spare room I’m currently getting a fantastic view to the south with Jupiter tracking across the early evening sky and the Winter Hexagon in all its glory a bit later (Sirius about to rise in the SE).

Being in town, light pollution is a bit of an issue but I’m keen on a decent quality stargazing telescope which would let me see some detail in the planets and perhaps the more prominent nebulas.

Pretty clueless really so what would be a good starting point? What magnification? Finding scope necessary?

Budget, say £200

Cheers,

SC

Friend at work has been researching this recently. I believe they’ve gone for the watcher 130p 650f. Comes in just under your budget and seems very well reviewed.

Telescope house

Good deals here

Just bought a made lx off eBay. Now need a manual to understand the manual……

I’ve just looked at that “watcher 130p 650f” looks excellent. I bought a similar second second hand telescope 10 years ago….cost me way more than that!! And didn’t have any auto-tracking nonsense. That’s a bargain IMO.

Girth is more important than length (I mean magnification) if you want to see far off/faint objects (galaxies/nebulae). Yes you should get a finder scope if you want to see these.

A good old fashioned pair of big binoculars is a good a starting point as any.

Thanks for pointers guys.

Sky Watcher 130p does look excellent.

OK, get a Dobsonian reflector and buy second hand – don’t buy new under any circs. Telescopes do not inherently suffer from wear and tear like bikes or cars so second hand is pretty safe. Google astrobuysell UK – that’s what everyone uses. Don’t worry about a fancy equatorial/motorised mount unless you’re into photography – in which case increase your budget x15. For £200 you could probably get a good 200mm dobsonian. That will show you some amazing stuff (I only use a 150mm newtonian on an equatorial mount and that’s cracking). Procure Wil Tirion’s charts (I think that’s the name) and “Turn Left at Orion” if you’re just starting out, and you’re good to go. Also consider trying to find a telescope with a good finderscope, i.e. at least 50mm – makes all the difference – though if it’s otherwise a good deal, 30mm is probably OK.

Purchased a Celestron Nexstar 4SE a month ago and I’m very happy with it. Its only a 4″ jobie, but looking at stuff like Jupiter is amazing.

Got the 4SE as the motorized mount allows reasonably good photo capabilities. Was a bit pricey at £360 but its a lovely bit of kit.
This astronomy malarky is very addictive.

also

– magnification doesn’t matter – you can change this with different eyepieces. You want to make sure it comes with a 25mm eyepiece for all round use. A 15mm is nice too, for planets, and a 40mm for wide angle which helps you initially find stuff. To calculate magnification (it doesn’t matter though), divide the focal length of the telescope by that of the eyepiece, e.g. a scope 1000mm long with a 25mm magnifies 40x. You use a wide angle lens for galaxies and nebulae and higher magnification for planets and the moon.

– you need a finder scope – and good charts too

– Winter is best – most stuff to see, clearest darkest skies; summer is also good but it never gets really dark

– don’t buy a telescope that’s too short. Divide the focal length by the aperture. The number shouldn’t be below 6 or the image will be very fuzzy.

– don’t buy a refractor. Buy a reflector.

– if you’re really looking to get into it in a big way, don’t get something smaller than 150mm. As I say if you buy a used dobsonian you can probably get a 200mm for about £175. You’ll need the extra aperture if you’re doing it in an urban area. Dobsonians are also more readily transportable than newtonians with equatorial mounts.

*returns to geek cave*

Wow! Top geekery there jhw!

I’m liking all the advice apart from the “only need motorised mount for photography” bit since astro-photography is one thing I’d be very interested in.

I’m assuming that the motorised mount will keep the scope fixed on the same spot automatically. How much of a problem would this cause with manual alt/azi controls? I’m assuming I can get a t-mount for my SLR which will essentially turn the scope into a big lens. At large magnifications, do deep space objects move “quickly” enough to blur over a fraction of a second exposure?

I had a look at Astrobuysell this morning (I want to get some stuff myself too!) and there’s not very much, but I did see this ad, put up a few weeks ago – it looks like a great deal (£100 for a 110mm reflector) and would be a nice starter scope. I only went through the first few pages but the best thing to do might be just to go through like 30 pages of this stuff, doing a wordsearch for “Dobsonian” on each one. But Dobsonians are no good for astrophotography – for this you might just want to buy one of the newer telescopes with a good motor, but they’re £££

http://www.astrobuysell.com/uk/propview.php?view=38704

The only thing is that as you say it doesn’t come with a motor. Some of the old Russian “Tal” and “Siberia” 110mm and 150mm reflectors did come with motors but they were quite unreliable (mine never worked). Google/ebay Tal or Siberia telescope, they go for very cheap now and are really well made (except for the motor!).

That’s exactly it, the motor moves the telescope so it stays aimed at the same point in the sky. But your telescope has to be perfectly aligned to the north star for this to work properly, and it has to be a good motor. It’s very difficult to do – I never got it quite right! You either screw your camera onto the eyepiece (effectively using the telescope as an enormous telephoto) for deep sky shots – the objects generally move too quickly though, hence the need for a motor, so you have to use a low magnification if there’s no motor – or, another thing you can do is mount the camera on the telescope tube, switch the motor on, and then hold the lens open for like 30 minutes, and you get amazing pictures of the entire sky.

I’m droning now but you get the idea!

Not sure if its what you are after but I have a Celestron Astromaster 130EQ here that I bought with the intention of getting back into stargazing (used to do it as a kid) but it has been used once and has since sat unused due to neighbour issues.

Its in very good condition indeed, great for a starter. I have a couple of books too. The only thing I dont have is the original packaging (savaged by the cats).

If you are interested then let me know. Looking for well under £100 for it.

Creg – ygm.

Stuartie, this is perhaps a tad over budget. My girlfiend’s dad is a NASA optics specialist who had a hand in its desgn.