Posted on 04/30/2021 5:04:05 PM PDT by Loud Mime
After my recent move to Arizona I am amazed at the night time sky. I am now looking for a decent telescope to study the Messier objects, planets and such.
It appears that there are some great buys below $2,000 in the Schmidt Cassegrain field, even some Macs.
Does anybody have any information they can give on this?
I had an old 8" Newtonian, which was a royal pain to take anywhere.
Thank You for all the information.
I must admit that the M-42 Orion Nebula is one of my favorites, along with the Pleadies.
I’m going to redouble my efforts to find some skywatchers here.
Thanks for the tip. I sent them an email.
It’s easy to avoid the sorts of problems you are having. Sorry to hear of your difficulties.
Perhaps you could take an extension class on using the internet or something like that.
Ditto.
Craigslist?
Local sale papers like Thrifty Nickel, Facebook is good for that kind of thing but usually avoided by conservatives like a disease...for good reason...ask around at local schools and colleges or bars/coffee shops where they hang out.
I noticed on eBay a “used” Questar 3.5 for about $3,500.
IMO that is a good price. I think Questar Corp will refurbish it if necessary.
It us a Mak, as you wish. All lenses and mirrors are sphercdal, so no aberration.
I love my Questar. 3.5” is small for sure but a Questar is so easy to set up and use, I spent more time observing with it than fooling around carrying and setting up a big Newtonian.
Corrections:
It IS a Mak,
spherical
Thank You. I’m trying to keep my cost down to 2K.
But I will still look at it and consider the advantage of a smaller unit.
First, I want to thank everybody for such wonderful comments on this thread.
Yesterday I was going through the craigslist ads and found a Celestron Nexstar 8SE for $680. It included a lot of accessories. I immediately left for Las Vegas to buy it; it now sits in my den.
Cool. 8 inch Schmidt Cassegrain, gets good reviews. Mount may be bit weak, won’t take a lot of abuse.
If it only has a 25mm eyepiece, get a 10mm. Reviews I read said it just comes with a 25. You don’t say what accesories, power supply and 2x Barlow would be nice, moon filter is a good idea too. But remember image quality may suffer under higher magnification of 10mm or Barlow. Then again the 25mm and 2x Barlow might be a pretty good combo, mine does a good job.
Hope you like it, not a bad price, it retails for over $1100, some places $1400+.
With the deal I got a 12.5, 2x Barlow, e-lux 25mm, 4mm, 6mm, and a 32mm. Most are Plössl lenses.
Moon filter, 82a, 56, 12, polarizing #3, 21 and 23 a.
Plus a ED2 Barlow lens, which is for a bigger fitting on the ‘scope (I think).
Celestron power supply.
I am still moving stuff, so I can’t devote the time to this that I wish. Maybe next week/
Cassegrain optical design, Maksutov design, or Dobson-Newton design ?
Sounds good. The 12.5 on the 2x should be excellent for moon viewing, Jupiter and Saturn.
The 4mm and 6mm won’t be as sharp as the 12.5 and 25, normal for higher magnification lenses. Anything below 10mm is usually iffy. But good for deep space objects, like Ring Nebula and such. Being a nebula, a bit fuzzy won’t be noticeable. You will notice it on moon or planets like Jupiter or Mars. The 32mm is wide angle, good for “star hopping”. I use my 25 for that, just point it to a random spot and look around then start moving it a little at a time. Mine is fully manual, you just bump the tube lightly to move it, works great. Took me maybe an hour to get used to it.
Somebody added some goodies to yours, the stock scope comes with just a 25mm and tripod, no power supply. May come with a Barlow, I didn’t see any mention of one.
Not sure what the other Barlow is, ED2, it might be what was mentioned in the reviews, allows you to switch to 2 inch eyelenses. Not familiar with the other filters, but the number of the moon filter 82 should mean it filters 82% of the light. The one I have is an 87%. Should do a good job. Use it any time you look at half moon or bigger. You’ll like 2 inch lenses but they are expensive. I’ve only used thema couple of times, but a 2” on a 14”scope is one killer view of Jupiter.
We had a public invited moon party in town, anyone who wanted to stop by and look. The astronomical club and college advertised it on radio and in the paper. Low rate PSA type thing. We had about 30 scopes mostly trained on the moon. Full moon. In town was not the best location due to ambient light, but most people won’t drive 20 miles to look at the moon. About 250 people dropped in through the night, we had a great time, and the local college set up their 14” and had it track Jupiter all night with a 2” lens. I wanted to take my 6” dobby with a 1.25” and throw it in the dump...
I bought a Schmidt-Cassegrain Celestron Nexstar 8se.
For a long time I have been interested in the Maksutov design. Maybe later.
Thanks for all the great information! I’ve printed it up.
I also have all the manuals and CD’s for the Scope. I’m going to be busy reading.
I also have all the manuals and CD’s for the Scope. I’m going to be busy reading.
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Cool, that will give you the proper procedure for aligning it to true north for viewing and collimation to make sure the mirror and lenses are lined up right so it gets a good view. Usually you manually align it to magnetic north with a compass and with a level on it too, then turn on the go to software and it asks you to point it toward two known objects, Polaris is usually #1. Once it “sees” where those two objects are, it can point you to any of 40,000 astronomical objects. I got the 40,000 number from their ads and reviews.
You might even be able to find and track the space station, but it moves pretty fast compared to celestial objects, I’m not sure that will work. I can track it with my manual scope if I happen to get it in view in the spotter scope, but only by pure chance and only with the spotter scope.
I don’t remember what software it comes with, a lot of people like Stellarium.
Starry Nights also comes with some scopes, I can’t remember what came with my Orion, I never used it, I used KStars instead, I already had it installed with Linux.
I like the Linux Kstars software a lot, it seems they worked up a windows version a while back too but I didn’t take time to look it up. I used Kstars a lot to print up star charts for the night, it’s not hard to look up what will be in the sky tonight, print a screenshot and take it out to the scope with me. I’m pretty sure any astronomical software will do the same. Depending on what version you get, many will connect to your scope so you can use a camera too. These days it should be a pretty simple USB conection.
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