just starting... help

[pryer11]

Hi everyone im just starting out and iam very interested in looking up in the sky and seeing lots of things. Ive been looking at a few telescopes, the celestron nexstar 6se and the Celestron NexStar 8se, there is a massive price difference between the two, about 1000 dollars more for the 8se, are these telescopes any good and would i be happy with either one of them. any help in deciding would be great. Thanks

[Somnium]

really depends on what you want to do with it, visual, deep sky astrophotography, planetary imaging ... my advice would be to go to a star party and have a look through some different telescopes before you commit to buying one.

[pryer11]

Ok thanks mate, yea im not to sure. Im keen to look at anything, saturn, Jupiter, stars. Yea it would be good to look through some and see what they are like.

[Somnium]

Definitely try before you buy, amateur astronomers are a special bunch, we love to show people our scopes. I am not sure where you are but a quick google search will lead you to a local astronomy club and they will likely have regular ( monthly ) star parties you can head out to. Go to one soon to get an image of Saturn before we lose all the planets behind the sun

[pryer11]

Ok many thanks mate, iam from newcastle n.s.w. do you know much about the telescopes i mentioned?

[BeanerSA]

They are really good, but expensive options for visual astronomy. They are expensive because of the type of telescope. The are a Scmidt-Cassesgrain, which means that they have a rather expensive corrector lens on the front of them. They are also expensive because of the GOTO mounts. The 8" will give you 70% more light gathering powering than the 6".

There are much cheaper options for beginner scopes, such as 6/8/10 dobsonian, but you need to do all the hard work yourself to find stuff. They are much easier to setup though. You drop them on the ground and start observing.

If you are interested in astrophotography, you can pretty much forget about either of these styles, and look towards something with an EQ mount.

I hope that gives you something to think about. Also, have a look through /r/telescopes on reddit.

https://www.reddit.com/r/telescopes/search?q=celestron+6se&restrict_sr=on

[pryer11]

Awesome thanks for that. Thanks for the help, ill take a look at that.

[Somnium]

i have never used those in particular but a few things to note
they are alt az mounted meaning that they are easy to set up for the night (no polar alignment) but will not be good for deep sky photography because the image will rotate in the field of view throughout the night
the aperture is good, quite large, but the f ratio is 10 meaning that deep sky objects will appear quite dim.
these kinds of scopes are pretty good for planetary imaging and viewing though. they have a large aperture, long focal length and a small central obstruction (caused by the secondary mirror)
that is just a few thoughts. everyone is after something different and the problem with starting out is that sometimes you don't know what you are interested in. this is not the kind of scope i would buy, but that is because i like deep sky imaging. others might love them. try before you buy :)

[pryer11]

So with deep sky imaging, what am i likely to see? Yea it is pretty hard starting out, its easy to get lost. I want to see saturn and Jupiter, stuff like that. Im not up to speed with the mounts and all that stuff, but if im going to buy something and spend money id like to make it a good telescope and something ill have for a long time.

[Somnium]

for deep sky viewing, no matter what scope you get, you will see grey fuzzies. the detail and brightness of the fuzzies will depend on how big the aperture is and how long the focal length is. it is difficult to say get X scope it will last you for 10 years if you don't know what direction you want to take. the 8se might very well serve your purposes for 10 years, but if you have any interest in getting fantastic images (like those you see on these forums) of nebulae and galaxies then this will not serve you for very long.

[pryer11]

Ah ok then, ok well my budget is 3000 max. Any scopes you can recommend would be great, the computer ones that align automatically sound good for me. You have been very helpful cheers

[raymo]

Unless you have bottomless pockets you will not get a scope that finds objects automatically. Computerised scopes [aka "Go To scopes"]
still have to be taken through an alignment routine, so the scope has a starting point to work from. You can't just plonk it down and dial in
Saturn or whatever.
Having said that, the 6SE and 8SE have a very simple routine to go through, and the 8 would satisfy most people for some years, but as
has already been stated, it is not suitable for serious imaging.
For quality imaging you need an equatorial mount, and these have to be accurately aligned with the South Celestial Pole if long exposures are wanted, in other words, more preparation.
You really need to try out some scope types before spending
significant money.
raymo

[pryer11]

Ok then, yea will definitely try before i buy. Thanks

[rustigsmed]

Andrews communications have for sale NEQ6 mount (equatorial mount) with a 10" Newtonian on sale for $2599 that includes a bunch of accessories.

I'd probably go for the AZ EQ6 (which is both alt azimuth and equatorial - alt az is good for visual and equatorial for imaging) $2299, then grab an 8 or 10" newt to go ontop ($470-$750).

[pryer11]

Ok, starting to get confused. I will check andrews communications out.

[BeanerSA]

I think that's pretty typical when shopping for a scope!

[Somnium]

Yeah, until you see and play around with refractors, newtonians, sct's, dobsonians, eq mounts, alt az mounts and all the rest then it is difficult to understand what is best for you

[daine042]

Your welcome to have a go of my gso 6 inch rc once im all set up again. Im just up the hunter expressway in singleton

[astroboof]

Just stand back a while.

It's actually really simple, once you have identified what it is you think you need to do for yourself, or with or for those around you.


A large proportion of the feedback or advice you may receive on a forum like this may be from new people with a non-astronomy background, who have been drawn to the subject by purely imaging ambitions, or photography bling, and that is a fantastic thing because their lives are being enriched by a process of new opportunity- if it wasn't for the internet, how many people or even members here would have found astronomy on their own?

Please carefully consider your own needs first before you absorb the musings of any forum content here, so please be in no rush, the skies are not.:welcome:

[pryer11]

Thanks everyone for your help, much appreciated.

[DarkKnight]

If you want to actually eyeball some telescopes and mounts wander into Survey and Instrument Specialists at 60 Belford Street, Broadmeadow.

At least it will give you some idea of the physical size, and maybe portability, of the gear you are contemplating.

[ThatGuy]

I 100% agree with DarkKnight.

When I started looking at scopes I didn't realise just how large some telescopes are.

Take your time researching (I spent 6 months) on the net but really think about portability and ease of use.

You might get disgruntled about spending $$$ on something heavy and technical, that may ultimately take the fun out of looking up :)

Good luck with the hunt!

[sil]

I'll go out on a limb here. Buy the 6SE and start viewing. You WILL want to upgrade later when you are more familiar with what you want so spend $ then, not now. The 6SE will give you a great view straight away and be not too bad to live with (dragging outside etc), and you can still use it later when you get something bigger. You dont have to spend everthing right now. Only upgrade for 6SE might be a Telrad and better eyepieces, both you can use later down the track on another scope. The 6SE is a good scope, it won't be enough, but then no scope ever is so just buy it and start enjoying!

[Cimitar]

Hi Shanan,

My first telescope was a 5 inch Meade ETX125. Nothing wrong with it, however I was underwhelmed with what I could see visually... or more to the point what I couldn't see - it was mainly faint fuzzies.

I was extremely lucky to be able to return it, upsize, and pay the difference for a 16inch dobsonian! It was massive, haha. Improved views? Yes, but still surprisingly underwhelming. Eventually I sold it and replaced it with a Meade 8inch SCT. Happy? Kind of... but again, visually I still really only see faint fuzzies.

HOWEVER! ... Hook a camera up to your telescope (or even just on a tripod for that matter) and the night sky comes alive! :thumbsup: I wish I'd discovered this 10 years ago :rofl: I love my Meade LX200 and I would happily buy another one if I ever needed to. I eventually bought a wedge so I could take longer images (i.e. remove field rotation), but I was content for years without the wedge.

I think the NexStar 6SE will be fine. Just ask the shop if you can hook a DSLR camera onto the back of it before buying. Will you outgrow it? Possibly, but I think it would be great to learn on. I was eyeing them off when I first started.

Cheers
Evan

[speach]

You will find that the mount is more important then the telescope. I made the mistake of getting an expensive telescope and a crap mount, now I've got a good mount and a middling scope very much better as the scopes are not as expensive as a good mount. So my advice for what its worth get a good mount and a so so scope when you can afford it up grade the scope.

[johngwheeler]

There is no doubt that you get most "bang for the buck" in terms of aperture from a Dobsonian, closely followed by other Newtonian scopes on alt-azimuth or un-driven EQ mounts.

However, you may find that actually finding objects requires a steep learning curve. You will need to learn to find your way around the sky and "star hop" to find faint objects, and it's very easy to miss them without having any kind of co-ordinate system on your scope.

I've also just been through buying my first "serious" scope, and went for a 150mm Maksutov Cassegrain on a Celestron AVX Goto equatorial mount. (From Andrews Communications). Like you I was debating whether to go up a size or two for the telescope, but there is a big gap between 150mm (6-inch) and 180mm-200mm. The 7" Maksutov-Cassegrain was nearly twice the price of the 6"!

In the end I thought the 6" was a sweet-spot between expense, capability and portability.

I bought the Goto EQ mount for the following reasons:

1) It's very stable (but also heavy - just about moveable *without* the telescope on it - way too heavy to carry any distance fully assembled)

2) The GoTo computer is *really* useful for a beginner - in terms of actually seeing stuff, it makes it a lot easier, which is satisfying in its own right. You can always use it manually if you want to practice star-hopping.

3) The EQ mount will track objects at high power, so you get far more observing time, and less time spent adjusting the telescope. I can sit watching Saturn at 250x and sketch it if I like. Try doing that with a Dobsonian and you'll find it frustrating.

4) I wanted something suitable to start with astro-photography at some point (although I don't recommend starting to do this until you have some experience). You need a driven EQ mount for this.

5) I will be able to upgrade to a larger scope and use the same mount. You can't do this easily with a Dobsonian or Fork mount which are made to the dimensions of a particular telescope. I should be able to go up to a 9.25" SCT with the AVX mount.


I also recently bought a much cheaper alt-azimuth mount for the 6" Mak - this is for the times when I don't want to set up the EQ with power & alignment etc. and just want a "quick view". I can carry the whole mount & scope in one trip. This gives me the best of both worlds.

[acropolite]

Shanan, as you can see there is a variety of opinion, my advice would be to spend as little as possible on the best value equipment, starting with an 8 or 10 inch Dob would be IMO the best way to spend some of your budget, leaving money for upgrade or a change in direction down the track.

If you're prepared to wait, you will find a good second hand 8 or 10 inch dob at a bargain price. That scope will give excellent views as well as forcing you to find your way around the night sky. Then if you want a change in direction e.g. goto or imaging with an eq mount, you'll still have a substantial chunk of yiur budget to pursue that direction.

Again, if Goto is your only option and you're prepared to wait, you may also find something second hand at a considerable saving over new.

[peter_4059]

My advice would be either get a 8" or 10" dobsonian for visual or get an ED80 on an EQ6 for astrophotography. Either way there is an upgrade path without a lot of regret spend as ultimately most people want to try to take pictures. For visual you could probably get started for $500 whereas for astrophotography you'll be looking at $2500+

Keep a look out on the IIS for sale section - you will get great gear at a very reasonable price, often less than half the new price.

If you do want to jump straight into astrophotography you need to be prepared for a much longer set-up time each session unless you have an observatory. With a dob for visual you can be observing in 5 minutes. With an eq6 and polar alignment it might take 30-35 minutes to get started each session as there is a lot more gear to move and it takes a while to get proficient at drift aligning.