Advice on first telescope

[Skuppy (Chris)]

Hi Guys
Im Chris and a newbie to telescopes and have read and read and read about all these different types and sizes etc etc
Man what a nightmare !
But ok I have a budget around $1000 , can go over a little if need be.
I also may want to take some photos at some point

I have seen a :
New Saxon 2001 EQ5 Reflector Telescope With Motor Drive

for $800 new from an ebay seller with a 12 month warranty

or should I be going for the likes of a :

Skywatcher 10" Dobsonian Telescope SW880

But these Dobsonian are huge and must pose a problem to move if required.
Will Dobsonian give me nice clear views or are they more power and less quality

please advise and help
thanks in advance
Chris

[ballaratdragons (Ken)]

Hi Chris.

Yes, you can read and read and read and still not know which direction to go.

The easiest answer is get a big Dob, and up to 10" they aren't very hard to move around or transport in a solid tube arrangement.
But now with the proliferation of Truss Dobs and folding Dobs you can go much bigger and have ease of transporting them.
16" folded down will fit in a small car!

But you want to do a bit of imaging?
Lunar/Planetary or Deep Space? They both require different specs.
For Lunar/Planetary you can do with a webcam etc and a Dob.
For Deep Space Images (DSO's) you really need tracking and more importantly, for longer exposures, you also need Guiding.

I could suggest an ED80 on an EQ5 or HEQ5 as a good starting point for imaging, but that will take you over budget.

There are GoTo Dobs now that are great. You'll have to check on prices for those. They will allow short length Long Exposure images and easily do Lunar/Planetary imaging as well as be great for visual work.

Your username (skuppy) will always sound like a New Zealand version of a Kangaroo to me

[Skuppy (Chris)]

Hey Ken

thanks for the info
spot on mate !
I had a feeling your were going to lean towards the dob
I will check out the goto dobs as suggested
Imaging is not a priority at the moment and if I can get a decent image from a webcam with a dob that will probably do
My username skuppy was given to me by my stepdaughters
My now second wife is greek cypriot and her daughters couldnt get over how ozzie I was so they named me skuppy after the bush kangaroo

thanks again
Chris

[barx1963 (Malcolm)]

Hi Chris and Welcome!
The EQ5 mount is a fine mount, but equatorial mounts are pretty hard beasts to learn to use. Polar alignment can be a definite killer, plus you need to be a bit of a contotionist when the eyepiece ends up in odd positions.
For most beginners, a dob is winner on several points
- more aperture for your dollars
- simple rugged construction
- no electronics to go wrong
- only moves side to side and up and down so anyonme can use
- eyepiece is always in the same place

Unless you have a definite need to go to an EQ mount, dobs always make the best choice.
Oh and one other thing. Dobs are often seen to be big beasts, a 10" newt on an EQ5 will easily take up at least as much room as a 10" dob!

Malcolm

[Skuppy (Chris)]

Hi Malcolm

Thank you
Appreciate the advice

I am looking towards a 10" dob, now maybe with auto tracking or goto.
eg SkyWatcher GOTO 10-inch Dobsonian

Can someone please tell me the difference between auto tracking and goto ?
I am assuming auto tracking is a must for photography and goto for
convenience of finding objects
But will goto track objects for photography ?

thanks again for your help.
Chris

[PCH (Paul)]

Hi Chris,

and to IIS

Auto tracking and goto are the same thing. You GOTO an object by selecting it from a list (in the supplied computerised handset), and then - all things being well and if the wind's blowing from the right direction, it keeps the selected object in the eyepiece. That's AUTO TRACKING. Simple. You do need to do a little alignment routine at the start though, but that's not hard. The dob will be a great choice for you - good luck

[Skuppy (Chris)]

thanks Pch

I sort of thought that was the case but just needed it confirmed
I see these dob's advertised as 'auto tracking' and others as 'go to'

thanks for your help

I love this site, everyone is so helpful and take time out to help

[ballaratdragons (Ken)]

Ignore the advertising hype. The Skywatcher GoTo Dobs have Auto Tracking or it would make the GoTo fairly pointless

No point adding a couple of hundred dollars worth of Goto so it can drift out of view once you get there

[barx1963 (Malcolm)]

The other thing to remember is that an Auto Tracking or Go To dob is not suitable for long exposure photography. Can be used for bright objects (moon and planets) but DSOs require long exposures that will result in field rotation.

If imaging is the aim you need an equatorial mount. Many will have Go To but to image you need auto guiding capability.

[Gem (Grant)]

Like most have said: an 8 inch or 10 inch dob is a good start. Just make sure you double check the length of the tube with your method of transport. My 10 inch dob (f 5.6) didn't fit into my Mazda 626. An f/5 would have been fine.
If you want to image, get an equatorial mount not a dob.
Either way, get something that is portable for you. The more you use a scope the better it is.

[Jen]

Gday Chris welcome to IIS

Here is some girley advice

Well my first scope was a six inch newtonion and it was a pain in the butt
But i have recently jumped on the dobby band wagon and got myself a 12inch goto dob and oh my im having the best time with it i will never go back

So yep go the dobby the bigger the better if ya can LMAO only prob is it is quite heavy and i do have trouble getting it from A to B

[Paduan (Brett)]

G,day Chris My first scope after lots of research was an 8 inch cass for i had limited space but that pesky fork and wedge made viewing anything around the pole IMPOSSIBLE so i went for a HEQ5 ( Equatorial) mount and nearly gave up as it took too long to set up. now i have it down to an art and can get it aligned rather quickly.

Not trying to put you off, but just letting you know of my experience. I had thought all of my boxes were ticked and after some teething they are.

Good luck on your choice DO NOT get disheartened a bad night viewing is still better than a good day at work

[frolinmod]

My only advice on getting a DOB is to not get one so short that you have to lean down to look through it. For instance, a 6" f/5 is too darn short for an adult and is better as a small child's telescope. A 6" f/8 is much better for an adult. Not a problem in the larger DOB sizes, of course as they'll all be plenty tall, even at short focal ratios. If you're buying a truss tube DOB, be sure to get a laser collimator as they make collimation touch up into a trivial 60-second job during every set up. Buy the largest DOB you can afford, but don't buy a larger one than can you can fit into your vehicle.

[The_bluester (Paul)]

I bought a 9.25" Celestron on a goto Alt-Az fork mount. It was not my first scope but I had been effectively out of the hobby so long that it may as well have been. A bit outside your budget I know as they run to more like $3500 for the basic package in that size BUT!

It does show the beauty of a goto mount. Aligning it is a breeze and I have often aligned it on the first three stars I could see as the sky darkened and it has held that alignment all night (Until 4AM one night at a star party when I finally had to get some sleep to be fit to drive home afterwards)

The goto and tracking make it a breeze although I have a few favourite objects and often manually slew the scope to them before letting the mount take over to track them. The biggest beauty of it is the tracking which really does make the experience a happy one. Align the mount, slewt to whatever you want, slip in the appropriate eyepiece and enjoy the view for as long as you like.

If it was my first scope rather than my second I would probably have had a fit of the sensibles and bought a goto dob as large as I could fit in my car.

[Matty (Matt Fowler)]

Definately go the dobsonian way. Those Skywatcher goto's are a fantastic scope im a recent convert myself. the collabsible versions compact down into quite an easy transportable couple of pieces. Even at the larger end with the 14 which i just got a month or so ago. The aligning and set up is all quite easy too. Roughly an hour to set up collimate and bout 10 to 15 min to align once its dark. then its wow factor time.
Best of luck to you mate and wishing you many happy clear nights