Telescope advice for a Novice

[bikermike]

Hello,

I have always been facinated by astronomy and after watching the
StarGazing live programmes recently I'm considering buying a
telescope.

I had a Tasco telescope about 15 years ago but found it very difficult
to view anything except the Moon!

I would mainly want to look at the planets also any Galaxies if that's
possible especially Andromeda.

I have a budget of about £200 would this buy me a reasonable scope?

I have seen a couple of Skywatcher scopes that seem ok :- Skywatcher
Explorer-130-900 and a SkyWatcher-Skyhawk-114-1000 also a Celestron
Astromaster 130EQ

Would these be ok for a beginner?

Any advice would be most welcome! :o)

Mike.

[Robin Scagell]

Hi Mike,

You can get a good starter scope for about £200. Sky-Watcher are generally a good make, as is Celestron, so you are definitely on the right lines. But I would avoid the Skyhawk 114, because I think it's a complete waste of time. It contains an extra Barlow-type lens of rather low quality to boost the focal length up to 1000 mm so the result is that you don't get good views at high power because of the extra lens, and you can't use it for low powers because of the extra lens. There are similar scopes from other manufacturers, and the supposed advantage is that you get 1000 mm focal length with a short tube, but in my view they aren't worth having.

The Explorer 130 and the Celeston equivalent are popular scopes, and I know that the Sky-Watcher gives good images for its price, but many beginners find that the equatorial mount is a pain. If you think you can cope with it, it offers the chance of tracking a planet using a single slow motion, which is good. The 130M at £179 or thereabouts has a motor as well, which gives the equatorial mount a real purpose, and you could do simple astrophotography by piggybacking a camera on the mount (bu not photographing through the scope -- that isn't so feasible).

But for your budget you can get a 150 mm Sky-Watcher Dobsonian (£199). No motors and no equatorial mount, but a larger aperture, and for me larger aperture is always worth having. That's the sort of scope that Jonathon Ross was shown in preference to his more complicated computerised scopes. Though I have to say that all he needed to do was to read the manual -- the Celestron Sky-Align Go To is very simple to set up though outside your budget.

A 150 mm (6-inch) will show you real detail on planets when they are high in the sky, and will also show a wide range of deep-sky objects. 

Incidentally, if you join the Society for Popular Astronomy (www.popastro.com) you can get a 5% discount from several suppliers, which will virtually pay for the £16 annual subscription when purchasing a scope -- and you get excellent value from SPA membership in itself. But then I would say that as I am Vice President....

Robin Scagell

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[prateek aindley]

Hi Mike... As Robin suggested Sky Watcher is a good option for starter.. Depending where u are based the prices of telescopes vary..

I am in India Mumbai and i have a Skywatcher 6 " reflector GO TO mount equatorial.... Its better to start with a reflector as they are cheaper than Refractors and SCT... also depends what you are interested in... Planetary observations or Deep sky... I would suggest a 6" reflector Skywatcher.. Celestron.. Orion... whichever you may go for.. all the above are pretty descent and within your budget.. So get one and have fun... Let me know what you bought...

Rgds

Prateek Nath Aindley