Celestron 130eq

[luke@sydney]

Hi all,

I am a newbie in astrology viewing, and I have been wanting to buy a telescope for sometime now. I went pass an Australian Geography shop the other day and saw one of the celestron telescope, which is the 130eq series. The cost would be $445. Would you think this price is reasonable? or is there another place (or site?) that offer the same telescopes but cheaper? :)

OR perhaps, are there suggestions to purchase another model? What about the mount type, what is the difference between Altazimuth and equatorial? And can I use 130eq to photograph sky objects?

Really appreciate your help!

[iceman]

Hi Luke

:welcome: to IceInSpace!

First thing you should do, is remember it's astronomy not astrology. :)

Those scopes aren't bad, but they're not the best value for your money. I guess it can depend on what your budget is and what you want to do with the scope..
So, some questions:

1. What's your budget?
2. Do you need something you can transport or will you always use it at home?
3. Do you want to do astrophotography, or just observing?
4. If photography, do you want to do deep-space imaging or planetary/lunar imaging?

There's a big difference in scope requirements and budget requirements depending on your answers :)

Well done on getting advice before making that purchase! You came to the right place.

[luke@sydney]

Hi mike,

Sorry I wrote astrology instead of astronomy, silly me!!! Anyway, yes the pricing that i saw at the shop was 450 and i think that is around my budget I dont want to spend more than 500 bucks! As I am new and would like to buy a good one but not professional (sorry if it sounds confusing), Anyway.....in term of astrophotography, at this point of time, I would just like to shoot anything that I can see clearly :)

Thanks for your time

[rmcpb]

Luke,

Welcome to IIS :)

As for that scope, its OK but you will get an 8" dob for that money elsewhere!!

Cheers

[luke@sydney]

Oh,


And whereabout this elsewhere?:help:

[rmcpb]

You could try:


http://www.andrewscom.com.au/
http://www.bintel.com.au
http://www.myastroshop.com.au


Try to keep some money left over for a collimating eyepiece or laser collimator, a planisphere and red torch.

Cheers

[erick]

Hi Luke

Have a look at the telescopes on these sites - I've just picked three specialist telescope sellers from Sydney. There are others:-

https://www.bintelshop.com.au/welcome.htm

http://www.aoe.com.au/

http://www.andrewscom.com.au/

Bintel and Andrews have shops in Sydney you can walk into and chat with the staff.

Suggest you also read some introductory articles, eg, look at Brian Nolan's two articles here:-

http://www.iceinspace.com.au/index.php?projects

Then ask away with more questions.

Edit:- Rob beat me to the enter key! :P

Eric :)

[ving]

hi luke,

with pluto in your quarter at the moment you can expect to be spending money on new hobbies. advise will be given to you by some very helpful people so you need nt worry about making the wrong decision...

lol

welcome aboard :)

[luke@sydney]

What about the choice between reflector and refractor? which one is best for newbie?

(Gosh..am i glad to have found this site!)

[rmcpb]

I would say the standard. For your first scope a dob mounted newtonian reflector will give you the best bang for your buck. After a while you can mount it on a GEM like Mike and Ving have done for photography if that is your passion. Also, if refractors come into the picture they will come in their own time but they are much more expensive for the aperture and suffer from chromatic abberation (splitting the light into its colours on bright objects) unless you get a really good one.

[Glenhuon]

Welcome to IIS. I'm a newbie too and just starting to learn about the range of equipment.
Have to agree with the guys on this one, a Dobsonian mounted reflector is the way to go for best value for money. Easy to transport (for the smaller 6-10 inch sizes) and easy to use. A laser colimator is a must I've found out in the last few days, makes mirror setup a breeze. If you want to progress to astrophotography later there are mounts like the EQ6 which will handle a 10" reflector easily. Take it a step at a time and you'll enjoy this great hobby.

Cheers
Glenhuon

[ving]

yup, some people go for refractors cause they "look like a telescope". but for the same price you will get a much larger reflector (on a dobsonian mount) that will show you so much more of the sky.

as rob said i bought a 8 inch (203mm) dob mounted reflector and have since mounted it on an equatorial mount so it will track. using a dob base is easy as its left/right and up/down only... very basic movements and great for hopping around the sky. of course if you can afford more than a 8" then go for it :)

click the "my website" linkin my signature to see my 8" on an equatorial mount :)

[luke@sydney]

What about land viewing. Are all telescopes capable of land viewing too?

[ving]

things will be upside down if you used a reflector on land LOL

[prova]

:welcome:

First of all, I recommend you against buying this scope, I received this as a gift from the very same store.

The viewing quality was ok (I looked at the moon and it was pretty good) but the overall build quality varies and I had to take mine back on 2 seperate occasions.

I'm still very much a noob myself but take note to the sites that we're mentioned as they're all great.

I purchased mine from Steve at http://www.myastroshop.com.au (http://www.myastroshop.com.au/) and it came very quickly with no issues.

My 2 cents

[Glenhuon]

There are adapters that will set the view right way up, quite a lot of telescopes come with one of these included in the package. (Erecting Eyepiece). Having said that the only time I have used mine was with the lens removed to make it an extender tube :)

[csb]

Welcome Luke.

It pays to do some research.

For any scope you are interested in, I would suggest you do a google - type the scope's basic name followed by "review".

2 good sites with plenty of reviews are:

http://www.excelsis.com/1.0/section.php?sectionid=12

http://www.cloudynights.com/category.php?category_id=2

There are also some reviews at IIS.

This will help you to get something that will keep you happy for a while.