Telescope choice for an Amateur

[td1976]

Really have enjoyed all the information available on Iceinspace.
I purchased a 114mm Saxon Reflector about a year back, which at the time was probably the best thing I had bought myself in years. I am out with it every possible night, and after receiving a few tips from another member (Bojan) even had the joy of traveling outside the city to a recommended spot to observe the night sky.
Only problem for me is now that I have seen whats out there, I really want to see more of it! I have been looking around for something with a little more power, and came across a 200mm Saxon Reflector for about $1000.00.
Could someone please give me their opinion on this sort of telescope? I know that the Saxon telescopes are really one of the cheaper telescopes on the market, and probably not the best quality, but being such an amateur all i see is the fact the the aperture is so much bigger than my current 114mm version.
Am i really just wasting my money on this thing, or is it something that I should really consider (as long as i get a dual axis motor drive)?
Any assistance would be greatly appreciated.

Tim

[pw]

You can buy a 200mm Dobsonian mount reflector for $400 to $500, I got a Bintel branded one, but GSO is apparently the manufacturer of most of them. Great scope for visual use if you don't need/want the tracking and goto features. Not so good for photography, but good for visual observing. See link below for an example, this is what I bought and I love it.
http://www.bintel.com.au/Telescopes/Dobsonian/Bintel-BT202-B-8--Dobsonian/72/productview.aspx

[raymo]

Hi Tim, It is impossible to help you choose without more information
about your situation, your areas of interest etc: for instance, why do
you want dual axis drives? Are you wanting to do any imaging with
your next scope, or happy to just observe. Is your present scope
driven or manually operated? Does size, weight, ease of operation,
set up and take down time matter to you.
The simple matter is that once you move up to 8"or larger
scopes, it's a whole different ball game. An 8"equatorially mounted
scope will weigh any

where between 25 and 40kg, and requires a
set up procedure to be followed. You can't just pick it up and pop
outside with it, except for the most casual observing.
If you are only interested in observing, you will want as
much aperture as you can afford, You can get a 10" collapsible
dobsonian for $699 delivered, which , with the right 2" eyepieces
will blow you away, if you don't mind operating it manually.
If you are young and strong you can get a 12"dob for $899.
Finally, the 8"scope you referred to, is, I imagine,
equatorially mounted. larger Newts on equatorial mounts are
quite cumbersome; you have to keep rotating the tube to put the eyepiece into a comfortable position, and when you do that the tube tends to slide downwards which puts the assembly out of balance.
In other words you need to be dedicated to use one.
I'd wait and do some serious research before you buy.
Hope this helped
raymo

[Wavytone]

Hi Tim,

In essence:

1. Aperture rules, limited by budget and portability.

2. Unless you are serious about plunging into astrophotography, forget equatorial mounts and stick to altazimuth or dobsonians.

There are essentially four kinds:

a) fully electronic GOTO telescopes which are motorised in 2 axes, these can slew to an object and track it; convenient but it makes you lazy and you'll never learn the sky properly;

b) PUSH-TO, where the scope is equipped with encoders that measure its position. A handset tells you whether to push the scope up/down or left/right to find a particular object. This is quite common with larger dobsonians; the two most popular sets of electronics are Servo-Cat or Sky Commander. Good, IMHO.

c) a modern variation on the above two involves the integration of an iPad (or similar) so that the telescope position is displayed accurately on an app on the iPad. It is also possible to have this integrated with a motorised mount so that selecting an object will make the telescope slew to it.

d) MANUAL, this is the old-school telescope, where the mount has minimal electronics and you use a star map and finder scope to find your way visually.

I'm an old-school manual kind of guy as IMHO this way you learn more of the night sky especially if you are observing often. But I appreciate (c) and am finally seriously considering a mount with all the bells and whistles as I don't get out as often as I'd like, and my observing time is limited.