Good quality home telescope?

[Andeh1]

Family member is after a good quality telescope for use outside. They live in an area with very little light pollution, and are looking to spend around £1000 - £1500.

Now, there is no shortage of high end telescopes it seems, but as a layman I am not sure what I should be looking for, or what to be careful with.

Can anyone advise or recommend?

Many thanks,

[Zirconia]

Depends what they want to do. I have light pollution and how much sky I can see issues, that meant I went for a Skywatcher Newtonian that could also be carted around in a car when required. A Reflector would have been too bulky for the size I would have gone for.

There are different types with different abilities, then they will need a good sturdy tripod (very important). And will they want "goto" from the start or manually find the stars? Personally I think it is a good start to work it out yourself and understand where they are and when.

Then, the usual question, will they be taking snap shots.

Planets are great to mess around with, as is the moon but when you start to get to clusters and other such stuff you need a good resolving power (that means well built).

Also you don't have to rely on eye pieces from the scope manufacturer, there are many after market add ons.

https://www.skyatnightmagazine.com/advice/buying-y...

Personally I found the Skywatcher 200 very good (8" Newtonian) but it is a base buy, meaning I can add all the motors at a later date but never have, I like to star hop around rather than let the computer do it. The tripod is solid.

There s free software for looking at the sky to help along.
https://stellarium.org


Edit. Did I read that one well known brand has gone kaput? Might want to watch out for that for warranty.

Edited by Zirconia on Saturday 29th February 08:53

Edited by Zirconia on Saturday 29th February 08:55

[Andeh1]

Thanks for the post! Appreciate your insight.

For the sake of simplicity I would like one that is motorised & has a "find" feature for quick use.

Does it exist to output a video feed over WiFi to a nearby laptop /TV screen?

[Zirconia]

That is out my knowledge an cannot help there. I still manually control everything.

But joint top should be a good tripod.

Another though is how it will be stored when not in use. Mine takes some minutes to dismantle correctly and safely as well as building it. The counter balance weights are quite heavy.

Found the manufacturer in trouble and it is a biggy. Not sure what the state of the company is now.
https://astronomy.com/news/2020/01/telescope-maker...

Edit.
https://www.firstlightoptics.com/telescopes.html
Some you can see prices on.

Edited by Zirconia on Saturday 29th February 10:03

[S6PNJ]

Andeh1 said:

Does it exist to output a video feed over WiFi to a nearby laptop /TV screen?

You can get view adaptors that a webcam will fit to - people use them for astro photography. Some web cams have a screw on bit that the adaptor screws into (or at least the old ones from a few years ago did). If you google 'webcam telescope' or similar you'll probably find a few discussions on the best one to get etc.

[eharding]

OP - I'd advise dropping the folks at First Light Optics a note (already linked above), https://www.firstlightoptics.com/contact.html a line with your requirements - other retailers are available, but they have always provided excellent service, advice and support so I would heartily recommend them.

The one thing to note is that there is an absolute, irrefutable correlation between the purchase of astronomy equipment and the amount of unrelenting overcast. Somebody, somewhere is buying an absolute shed-load of gear, because it's been pants for months, and on the very few clear nights we've had I've been otherwise occupied.

[Zirconia]

Time at the eyepiece has been very not happening this winter. Warm as well.

[eharding]

Zirconia said:

Time at the eyepiece has been very not happening this winter. Warm as well.

Quite. On the plus side I've spent time titivating my rigs to overcome repeated frustrations from last year, surrounding connectivity and power, but haven't had the chance to give them a try.