First GOTO

[Rhino1980]

Hello kind people. I bought my wife a 130mm Skywatcher Newt on an EQ mount when she told me she wanted to get a nice telescope. She likes it, but hasn't really jumped into the thick of it. I however got hooked hard, and now I love it too. I have learned a few of the basics and can do a pretty rough align and take some very crappy photos. My wife has stated that she likes the idea of the GOTO telescopes (so do I) and I want more aperture (it begins!). So we decided we should save up and get something much more capable. I like the idea of the Celestron C8 S-GT on the GOTO mount. Basically we want to be able to see some nice images of Saturn, Jupiter, Mars etc but also Deep Sky objects (mainly I am obsessed with galaxies) and also be able to take some basic astro-photographs. I am prepared at a later date to go with autoguiding and a guide scope. In your valued opinions, would this be a good purchase for us?

Sorry if these questions are silly and thanks for your time.
Ryan

[bmitchell82]

Ryan :D for the sake of the question, look in the recent posts, this question has been asked. though it all depends on your budget, and how willing you are to spend the dollars up front to make your life easier. ;)

your luck, and in any chance, if you get confused just ask and im sure one of us zelots will kickin

[[1ponders]]

:welcome: to IIS Ryan.

Good move to come here and get the nitty gritty on what you need. You will find plenty of threads on this particular topic if you search through the Beginners and Equipment Disccussion forums. The SGT will not really be a suitable mount for Deepsky imaging as it really is too light for the scope (does it have an autoguiding port?). Visually it may be fine but if you want to image through an 8" SCT then a much more capable mount would be required. I would suggest you consider widefield DSO imaging or an ED80 style refractor to start with rather than the SCT anyway. The long focal length of the SCT may prove much to difficult to start with. It would be fine for planetary and lunar imagery.

[Rhino1980]

Thanks fellas. I'll search through the posts as suggested. The astro imaging is really a second consideration for us. The main is visual use, especially as we have dissapointed in what the 130 has been able to show us. Do you think an 8 inch SCT will reveal galaxies to the naked eye?
Thanks again, I'm off to search trough the posts :D

Plus I forgot to mention I will be keeping the Newtonian OTA so I can mount that up for shorter focal lengths.

[[1ponders]]

If astroimaging is only a second consideration and you want wow factor for the eyeballs then you might want to consider a 12" Dob and an Argo Navis for pushto. Then save your pennies up for a decent goto mount and refractor for astroimaging. Your pennies will also need to stretch for the imaging accessories; guide camera unless you want to manually guide, guidescope, guiderings, shoestring adapter to get your computer to talk to your mount, computer/laptop if you don't already have one.....etc etc :)

[Rhino1980]

Cool guys thanks heaps for taking the time to advise me. I have been busy reading through a lot of the threads and will have lots of time to discuss which path we will take with the wife. Meanwhile I plan on joining a local astronomy society if they have room (end of last year they were a bit tight) so I can learn some more by doing it myself with some help.
Thanks again hope to talk to youse again soon.
Ryan