Telescope for Astronomy

[billytheghillie]

My lad is getting into stargazing and planet watching. What is a good telescope for this?  As cheap as possible!

[ChrisO]

To see anything with any clarity and detail, there’s no cheap fix. I was a stargazer for a couple of months and bought a Celestron Starsense explorer, that connected to my phone, to allow sky mapping. This worked like satnav, where arrows would point to Saturn, (for example) on my phone, which was physically attached to the scope. Move the scope in the direction of the arrows and bingo, there was Saturn.

I paid £ 400 for that scope and never saw anything but the moon’s craters. Astronomy isn’t easy, it’s hard enough landing on a clay 50 yards away, hitting a planet millions of miles away is a nightmare and unless you’re prepared to spend time and money on it, it’ll leave you disappointed.

Id look at the second hand market, more scope for your money. A refractor is the best for beginners.

 

[old man]

Save up and take proper advice?

The things you are trying to watch keep moving on, not being able to track them is only one problem, another is the weather?

[ditchman]

they are like a shed............you always wish you had a bigger one

[Stonepark]

I have a Celestron 127eq reflector which is about the bottom end of the useful telescopes mid summer as want to use this autumn/winter.

 

Good views of the moon with appropriate lenses and can make out planets as blurry images (not got around to photos yet) but good enough to make out presence of Saturns rings (but definately not hubble quality) with appropriate lens and bear in mind all celestial images through normal lenses are reversed both vertically and horizontally.

Nearly all accessories are made in China and can get them all at Aliexpress at often half UK price, a zoom lens being the most useful.

Living in the country on a slightly raised slope, the included 20mm correcting eyepiece (turns images right way up) makes watching wildlife such as deer at distance very nice to about 1/2 a mile.

Bear in mind, they are designed for outside clear and ideally cold night use, so never the best for horizontal images in daylight with lots of air thermals and distortion causedby haze and water vapour.

[ditchman]

this could be a bottom less pit...............pay for him to join a stargazing club and take it from there.......otherwise some expensive bits of kit will be going into tyhe car boot sale for pennies....before he gets the right one

[Marka11]

I have a celestron astromaster 130 if interested for sale £75 I’m in Stoke

[general grievous]

My kids had one of these from being about 6. Amazing bit of kit.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Sky-Watcher-Infinity-76P-Telescope-Parabolic-Mirror/dp/B00CYHT97M

GG

[Scully]

Interesting thread. Because of the views our location offers, I’ve often played with the idea of getting a good telescope to make the most of the view from our front door. Thanks all. 👍