just starting... help

[pryer11 (Shanan)]

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 (Aidan)]

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 (Shanan)]

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 (Aidan)]

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 (Shanan)]

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

[BeanerSA (Paul)]

Originally Posted by pryer11

do you know much about the telescopes i mentioned?

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/...restrict_sr=on

[pryer11 (Shanan)]

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

[Somnium (Aidan)]

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 (Shanan)]

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 (Aidan)]

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 (Shanan)]

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 (Shanan)]

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

[rustigsmed (Russell)]

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 (Shanan)]

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

[BeanerSA (Paul)]

Originally Posted by pryer11

Ok, starting to get confused.

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

[Somnium (Aidan)]

Originally Posted by pryer11

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

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 (Daine)]

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 (Steve McN)]

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.

[pryer11 (Shanan)]

Thanks everyone for your help, much appreciated.