Telescope advice for someone living in the Outback
Hi all,
I am seeking some advice and recommendations please on purchasing my first telescope.
I would like to view the moon and planets and if possible, get some good detail on saturn as an example. It would be great to also see some detail of deep sky objects but my budget may not facilitate this.
I live on a remote cattle station in Northern Western Australia so do not have any issues with city lights, etc.
As I camp out (ute and swag) we would like something that is reasonably portable.
Budget is approx $1000 to $1300.
Thinking a reflector with wifi hand controller. It appears that this (goto) means I may not get complete bang for buck but we like the idea of having a preset feature so that we can enjoy the outback in all her glory.
We will have no phone or internet when out so I am not sure if this is an issue with using a mobile phone app as an example. Most apps tend to need internet at the very least so any thoughts on this would be really awesome.
I contacted two dealers and were given the following recommendations:
For most GOTO units you need to know the location in Lat/Long's for the telescope to fix itself, if you use fixed camping sites that should be easy.
Otherwise without knowing your true location the GOTO may not work as expected. However you can still use the controller to move the scope, which is far easier than manually operated for keeping some objects in the field of view.
The refractor might prove more resilient at living in the back of the ute. You will have to collimate every night with a newt, a SCT may not survive, but a refractor is fairly bullet proof collimation wise. However, if a refractors collimations goes, it goes back to the store, the newt you can collimate yourself again easily.
With any sort of magnification you will need a tripod/stand as well. They can be expensive, a good feature of a tabletop unit is the inclusion of a mount/tripod for very little money.
I'd keep an open mind to a set of bino's on a tripod as well, you can very wide field of views from bino's that telescopes can't match. They are also very robust and small, great for the moon and sky scanning but only around 12-20 magnification so not great for planets... but two 80mm/100mm lenses capture a lot of light.
What ever you pick, get good lens covers and a good padded box for life in the ute.
I was a bit surprised that both recommended a similar telescope given I had stated we are remote, do not have internet access and it needs to be able to be moved about.
I was hoping for something a little smaller that could fit behind the seat of my toyota landcruiser - single cab. Not alot of space but don't want it on the tray as we have alot of bull dust here during summer and it's just wouldn't be a good way to transport it.
Hadn't considered bino's. Not something I really knew you could use to view the night skies.
Super appreciate your time and effort. All the best!
Awesome, thank you so much.
I have still not made my purchase. Postage is a big issue, quotes ranging from 400 to 600 which makes it quite an expensive proposition!
Our night sky is phenomenal, cannot wait to take a closer look!
Many thanks
Quote:
Originally Posted by Crater101
There's already some good thoughts here.
As another dealer, you might also consider this one (Oz based)
Thank you very much. You can certainly get caught up with all the options!
I really don't know what to do to be honest, postage is the killer at the moment.
No doubt I'll find something and will be amazed as you say! Can't wait.
Many thanks
Quote:
Originally Posted by Camelopardalis
Honestly I’d suggest getting an 8 or 10 inch reflector and Sky Safari for your mobile (the object database is built-in and doesn’t use the internet).
You’d need to learn to star hop but living in the outback, you’d be amazed what you’d see with such a scope.
We do have a few fixed camp spots so can definitely keep track of lat/long's.
I hadn't considered bino's but you raise some good points, thank you :-)
Keeping it well protected is going to be key and that is where I am finding some difficulties in terms of good padded boxes.
We have no shops at all so I can't easily walk in and buy materials to make my own either but slowly getting all the pieces to the puzzle together!
Many thanks
Quote:
Originally Posted by mura_gadi
Hello,
For most GOTO units you need to know the location in Lat/Long's for the telescope to fix itself, if you use fixed camping sites that should be easy.
Otherwise without knowing your true location the GOTO may not work as expected. However you can still use the controller to move the scope, which is far easier than manually operated for keeping some objects in the field of view.
The refractor might prove more resilient at living in the back of the ute. You will have to collimate every night with a newt, a SCT may not survive, but a refractor is fairly bullet proof collimation wise. However, if a refractors collimations goes, it goes back to the store, the newt you can collimate yourself again easily.
With any sort of magnification you will need a tripod/stand as well. They can be expensive, a good feature of a tabletop unit is the inclusion of a mount/tripod for very little money.
I'd keep an open mind to a set of bino's on a tripod as well, you can very wide field of views from bino's that telescopes can't match. They are also very robust and small, great for the moon and sky scanning but only around 12-20 magnification so not great for planets... but two 80mm/100mm lenses capture a lot of light.
What ever you pick, get good lens covers and a good padded box for life in the ute.
When I'm going away, I'll either take a Skywatcher 127 Maksutov Cassegrain (if I'm wanting to look at planets) or an ED80 on either a Vixen Portamount II or a home made table top type mount - see pics. Both scopes fit in either a duffle bag or slightly longer padded home made bag for transport and they can fit neatly behind a seat in the back of a ute. The Maksutov is excellent for planets as it's a long focal length giving relatively high magnification per eyepiece and pretty sharp images. Not very good for wider field viewing though. The ED80 refractor is the opposite - good for wider field viewing and reasonable for spotting planets. (Good for birds and attaching a camera to as well). The home made type mount is small, portable, robust and stable. But you need a good finder scope and planetarium app on your phone (which will work without phone signal once you set it up) but you'll have to learn your way around the sky and learn to find stuff. I have, in the past, taken an 8" reflector on trips - nah, just too big and easily knocked out of alignment. An 80ED Refractor on a Porta mount or Bintel Skyview Alt-Az mount might fit the budget (particularly if you can get the scope s/h) and be robust and pretty portable but you'll need to find stuff without the computer. The scopes in the photos are a 500mm F5 Acromatic refractor with binoviewer (wouldn't recommend!) and a longer 900mm 4" refractor which is a very nice scope but perhaps a little long for your purposes but the mounts give you an idea what you can knock up with a jigsaw and a drill if you're handy.
If you live on a remote cattle station, then your skies are going to be excellent right at the station. I'd recommend a larger scope to stay at the station and then a good pair of mid-sized binoculars to throw in the car for star gazing while camping. The binoculars can be used for many other purposes, birding, wildlife spotting.
Binoculars in the 60-70mm objective size and around 12x magnification range weighs around 1.5kg and can be hand held. $200-$400
At the homestead, a reflecting telescope in the 8-10inch range will give you great views of both planets and deep sky objects. The Skywatcher Flex Dobs with GOTO meet your stated requirements but are over your budget. The flex dobs without goto plus binoculars are within your budget.
8" with GOTO $1700. Without GOTO $900
10" with GOTO $2100. without GOTO $1200
Store the reflector in the house and the mirror shouldn't get dusty too quickly. Telescope mirrors are easy enough to clean but there are ways to do it without damaging the surface. Ask advice before cleaning a mirror.
Hi Sal ,
My thoughts are get a refractor on a simple Alt mount for your first scope
Why ? easy to use & less hassles with stuff you don't know about yet !
90MM REFRACTOR ' big enough to show some planetary detail like the rings around Saturn etc .
Also comes with eye pieces , mount & finder scope .
All for $399.00 .
Hello,
Steve points out that you need an accurate location for go to mounts.
Granted no phone or internet your lat long and height can be found with a hand held device. (Sat nav)
I have a Garmin etx 32 which shows this info, it also has the usual goto routing and many other useful abilities.
Chris
Almost all modern mobile phones have built-in GPS. You do NOT need mobile coverage or Internet to use GPS. It might be not precisely accurate, but that's not a problem as you are not driving in a city and a GPS error of 20 meters is absolutely irrelevant.
All GoTo with WiFi would work perfectly without any mobile coverage or Internet. You only need to pre-install application once and that's it. After that mobile phone would connect directly to GoTo mount and use GPS coordinates from the phone.
For the first telescope I strongly recommend a GoTo one on Alt-Az mount. Something like Skywatcher 127 Mak Mini AZGTe GoTo WiFi. It's certainly within the budget and have all features you need. Or Celestron NexStar 5SE - it's a bit off your budget, but a great tool. Do not buy manual mounts unless you know exactly what you are doing. Full stop.