Hi Mustang!

I've 'dabbled' in astronomy for many years. I started with a Tasco 114mm (4.5 inch) Newtonian reflector and then up-graded to an Orion Optics (UK) 150mm (6 inch) Newtonian which I've had for nearly 35 years now! Its great for exploring the moon and will allow me to view the rings of Saturn and the belts and moons of Jupiter. I suspect that if I didn't have astigmatism the views would be even better!
If you are looking to just have a try, have a look at ebay item 194365526631 its smaller than mine but would give you a good idea of what to expect and is pretty cheap (in price). Orion, Meade and Celestron are all very good makes.
My dream one day is to have one of these mounts that you just switch on and it does everything for you - locates your position by gps, automatically goes to what you want to look at and tracks it through the night! Those are pretty pricey but telescopes in general have come down a heck of a lot since I bought mine, almost half the cost!
Best of luck (and clear skies!)

Robin

Here was my basic setup.

6" skywatcher telescope. Canon 70D DSLR mounted directly to telescope. Old laptop running Canon supplied software so that I can see the image on the screen and can take the photo without touching the telescope - simples. No fancy azimuth drives, just manual handling / swiveling.

Hi Guys,

I found these on eBay

https://www.ebay.co.uk/i...781b:g:NYgAAOSwfuZhP4Yc

https://www.ebay.co.uk/i...23d4:g:T1kAAOSwsXRhLlNS

What do you think.

I do a lot of star gazing and astrophotography.As a beginner I would recommend the stargazer newtonian reflector.It will be fine for seeing the planets and start clusters and some of the brighter galaxies and nebulas.I would warn you that the galaxies and nebula wont look like the beautiful color images you see on TV.they will look like faint grey smudges in the sky.you need to do astrophotography to get those beautiful images and that require a major financial expenditure. I agree that I would avoid the scope with the electronic finder.They are a pain to set up.

Both of the scopes you listed come with equatorial mounts.these are a bit complicated to assemble and use for beginners.the benefit of this mount is that when you set it up right it follows the rotation of the earth.this is essential if you are do0ing long exposure astrophotography, but for simple viewing you could also use a scope with an ALT/AZ mount.these ar emuch simpler to set up.

This scope is actually quite nice for a beginner and pretty cheap and it has an alt az mount..

https://www.highpointsci...fJrenznBsxoCQSEQAvD_BwE

you will beable to see the rings of Saturn, Jupiters great spot, the polar ice caps of maps and several of Jupiters moons.You will also be able to see some of the brighter start lcusters liekM13 and the double cluster and thye do look amazing through an eyepiece and some of the brighter galaxies lie Andromeda-but they will only appear as faint grey smudges.

I would recommend avoiding the unknown branded socpes.they usually have terrible optics and crappy mounts. Stay with sky watcher, Celestron or Meade.

My final recommendation is if you enjoy your star gazing get some good Plossl eyepieces.The ones that come with the scope are usually cheap and crappy, but if you spend a bit of cash on a good 10mm or 25 mm plossol you will be amazed how much brighter and sharper the view is.


The best online forum IME is the cloudynights forum.They are tosn of really helpful people on there to guide you.



my first scope was a celstron newtonian and then I bought a celestron c8 with the autofinder.I then graduated to a celestron c11 on a paramount MX mount and htis is the set up I use for long exposure astrophotograph and planetary imaging.I can post some pics if you are interested in what kind of images you can take with a set up like this.

Wow love those photos

I still haven't got mine yet, but will soon hopefully..