I Can Haz New Telescope?

Fumbles

Communist Chocolate Hellhole
Ok, first things first- I am a lifelong skywatcher (now 39 ) who is finally looking to purchase a telescope! I've always just used my own eyes to view whatever I can see, using an Audoban guide as well as various magazines . I know a little about what is where in the sky, so I may not really need a motorized scope, but they are nice. .

Looking for something that is equally good for observing the moon, as well as planets, & deep sky objects effectively, if this is possible.

Could I get a deep sky scope & use a light filter to observe relatively closer objects (moons, planets)?

The more portable the better- I don't drive, by choice. I live in a smaller town of about 20,000 people, with moderate light pollution, but as soon as I get out of town, the skies can be really amazing!.

Price wise, I'd like to keep it below or around $5000. I think that a balance of portability & power ( light gathering ability, ease of setup, low weight) would be effective factors to consider.

:confused:
 
$5K?

Dude, your choices are almost limitless.

Yes, you can get a "deep sky" scope and use filters for the sun, moon, planets, etc....

Sounds like all you really need to consider is whether or not you want it to automatically point it for you. A very handy option, but you pay for it.

Portability is going to rule out Dobsonians, which I normally recommend to beginners due to cost vs value, but they're not easy to lug around (VERY large in other words).

Possibly a Cassegrain.

Check out www.telescope.com

That's Orion's website. I have had a couple of their scopes and wouldn't hesitate to recommend them to you.

At a $5K budget, really, you are coming out of the gate HARD. I don't think you need to spend that much, really......

You can get a DAMN nice telescope with a lot of goodies for less than half that amount.
 
Are you going to do astrophotography? If so, look for a good motorized equatorial mount. Realistically, the mount and tripod is going to be the heavy, less-portable part of the equation. How will you transport it, if you don't drive?

Aperture is king for deep sky, but I do pretty good on a mid-level 150mm reflector. With your budget, and keeping portability in mind, I'd look at a Cassegrain like coralkong said. A variety of eyepieces and a moon filter should get you started.
 
The portability here (without a car) is going to be the limiting factor. You budget is big enough to get a bunch of awesome kit, but aperture is everything, and that comes with weight. Hell, even my little 5 inch maksutov (a very compact type of scope, with a tube the size of a gallon paint can) isn't what I would call very portable. The whole thing fits in a large suitcase size case and probably weighs around 50 pounds with the tripod and accessories. It isn't bad to carry from the car maybe 100 yards, but it isn't something I would want to carry a mile.

I think Punchy makes a really good point about photography as well. Mounts for photography are heavy duty, with the emphasis on heavy, and I know guys who spent more on their mount than the damn optical tube/scope. Maybe the best bet is list what you want to look at (DSO, planets, land based stuff, a bit of everything) and if you want GoTo features and plan to take pics. Also, your definition of portable is kind of important, as even compact designs still weight a lot. Are you thinking about a hiking scope, or something that you can carry from a garage to a backyard?

Anyway, you can get it sorted for 5K, and get a kick ass set up, deepening on how strong you are and how much you like carrying things. :)
 
I'd love to try astrophotography. As for portability, I have a big backpack built for long distance hiking, & I bike, walk & hike all year round, so a scope built for that would be ideal. Weight is always going to be a factor. My back is as strong as ever, but it isn't great.

I seriously fucked it up about 6 yrs ago. I couldn't walk at all, PERIOD, for 3 days.

20 minutes one way to the bathroom 10 feet away, with much screaming, 4 types of medication, over a week of work off, & about 4 + yrs of yoga later, & I'm finally better than ever, & still improving, but I'll always need to be careful-back injuries in the back-country are a death sentence. I've worked hard to make sure that I never experience that level of agony ever again.

So yeah, portability is a must- & yet I always feel like I'm living in the dark ages- technology is never where I want it to be. It's the same with transportation technology. So crude & complex, & yet inefficient & expensive. Their has to be a better way!

Maybe I should just forget it, lol:ksmash:. Someone will probably find a skeleton next to a rusty old telescope about 40 yrs from now.
:l:


It would really have to be the ultimate in power & portability.
 
@Fumbles, maybe you should try a smaller scope and see how that works for you before you drop a ton of cash on a closet dust collector.

One of my most favorite scopes was a small table-top (70mm? 80mm? Something like that) job that I used to take camping.
It was a simple table-top tripod (about a foot long folded up), but did have fine adjuster wheels on it.

(It was an Orion, btw....).

I think total cost was somewhere around $250 with a couple of lenses.

It was perfect to lug around, and was inexpensive enough that I really didn't care THAT much if it got scratched, etc......

Plus, believe it or not, it was a nice little scope. My buddies still talk about it and remember it. We'd get baked around the campfire and look at Saturn, Jupiter, etc....good times.

Perfect for seeing the inner planets, bright objects, the moon, etc....

Take a look at used ones, too.

I picked up my 10" Dobsonian off of Craigslist for a couple of hundred bucks.
It is actually a little TOO big and isn't very portable at all (the tube is about 4.5 feet long or so). Weighs a ton and is unweildy, but for point-and-view stuff it is tremendous (as you can imagine).
 
Yeah, backpacking limits your options, and leaves deep sky photography out. Could check out the NexStar series, they seem to always be popular. I'm sure you could get a lighter weight tripod than the steel one that comes with it.
 
Meade makes a pretty inexpensive (a few hundred bucks) telescope that fits in a backpack. I think it is called the ETX80 backpacker. It is a small scope, but has GoTo guidance and pretty good optics, and it is intended for backpackers to take into the hills. The light gathering of such a small 80 mm scope will be pretty limiting for deep space stuff (unless it is stupid dark), but it would be a good planetary scope. The ETX drive motors are probably not your best bet for astrophotography as they just are not smooth enough for really long exposure pictures (although people have taken some amazingly cool pictures with the with some patience).

ETX80bb_1.jpg

48966-meade-etx-80at-tc-with-backpack5.jpg


I've also heard people put a Celestron 4SE and 5SE models (the smaller NexStar models Punchy was mentioning in his post above) into a large camera style backpack with good results. It doesn't come with one, but I'm sure some googling will find a forum where people have suggestions. I think it is a better telescope than the meade, both in features and light gathering, but it is also larger and more expensive. It also has GoTo guidance. This and the meade are very different optical designs, and the celestron would be a much better telescope and gather quite a bit more light. Very good for planets, and decent for DSO stuff in very dark conditions. My 5 inch scope is similar in light gathering to the Celestron, and I can see nebulae and galaxies and stuff under good skies.

Here are some pics of a 5SE in a camera backpack from the inter webs....

5SEinPack.jpg

PackTripod-1.jpg


And the scope...

12189.jpg
 
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The Celestron 5se looks like a good option. I may not have to spend as much as I thought I would for a decent scope! Sucks that they can't do the deep sky stuff as well though.
 
I have a very similar scope from a different company (same size, same optical design) and I can see lots of brighter things like the orion nebula, sombrero galaxy, lots of globular clusters, the pleiades, etc. They just are not as spectacular as they are through a big 8-10 inch scope. I think something like this is the sweetspot between viewing and scope size.
 
The Celestron 5se looks like a good option. I may not have to spend as much as I thought I would for a decent scope! Sucks that they can't do the deep sky stuff as well though.


You might be surprised at well it performs.

Seeing as you've never had a telescope before, I guarantee you many "WOW!"s to come.

And, if you find you've outgrown it in a few years, you can always sell it or keep it as a second scope and get something else.

(Telescope Acquasition Syndrome is as bad as Guitar Acquasition Syndrome. One is never enough....)

Get yourself some quality lenses while you're budgeting out.....you'll thank us for it.
And quality doesn't necessarily mean the most magnification, either.

You'll find all kinds of doo-dads you'll need, trust me.
:wink:


And since I am stuck in the house sick with the flu.....I am going to post this.

This is my backyard taken about 10 minutes ago, and where I observe. Very, very little light pollution. Those are the White Mountains in NH. (the kind of "bare" white spot in the right-hand part of the pic is actually a town.)

Isn't a telescope photo, but a cool shot nonetheless.
And it makes me feel better.

mountains.jpg
 
And one more of the sunset (just snapped this about 5 mins ago).....and one of the moon I shot with my phone held up to the eyepiece.

32mm lens through a 10" Orion Dobsonian telescope.

sunset_mtns.jpg
moon.jpg
 
Great shots! Funny how it kinda looks like that just outside of town here in Cranbrook (aka "Crackbrook", "Cranhole" ) B.C.

As soon as I get out of town, a clear night sky is just incredible. The more I look, the more I see.
 
I was admiring the "Celestron CPC-925 GPS XLT" until I realized that it weighs seventy-seven pounds.:messedup:
 
Part of me wants a telescope but the rational part of me says that given where I live I'd have to go a ways to get decently dark skies. We are actually somewhat fortunate as I am far enough away from SFO and San Jose and to the west is mountains and a big old ocean that I can see things pretty well to about mag 3-4 with the naked eye but it's not anything like where you live Fumbles.

The other rational part is that I will be thinking Hubble when I go to look at something like Saturn or the Orion Nebula and will see something much much different. I still think about it a lot though. You are certainly in an outstanding place for amazing skies.
 
I was admiring the "Celestron CPC-925 GPS XLT" until I realized that it weighs seventy-seven pounds.:messedup:

yeah, I have a friend with one of the big 12 inch meade cassegrain scopes. It takes two people to get the damn thing out of his garage. I have no idea what it weighs, but it feels like it is close to 100 pounds. :messedup:
 
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