TheSkySearchers

I know it is a very beginner line of telescopes. And to my quick research, the line seems to be very, very new - released January 6 - I believe. So, I am asking people to chime in with there opinions.
It looks to be within my budget. And household management will (maybe) agree to it for an upcoming b-day present. So please chime in. Tell me your thoughts and pl;ease share any reviews etc you can find.

These have just been released into the market so as of yet there are no reviews as of yet.
Personally I would prefer a actual hand controller than having to rely on something that connects through wifi/ bluetooth. A personal preference.

Do you have an idea of what you may like to view with it?
For setting up can you just walk out the door or do you need to carry it down multiple stairs?
How is your light pollution in your area?

I will be mostly looking at the planets mostly. The light pollution is pretty bad in my area. I'm in an orange zone, the last time I looked at a map. To get in and out of my house, I walk 4 steps. So that's not bad. I did read that some scopes relying on wifi had bad connection problems. This one is different - no wifi. Look at this video.

For planets/ lunar I would recommend a refractor or long focal length Newtonian.
Short focal length Newtonian give wider field views, larger aperture gives you the ability to see fainter objects.
What would you say your maximum budget is?

They still drop out for various reasons, a wired hand controller to the mount, no issues. Like I stated just personal preference.

The model I was attracted to lists for $399.95 and is supposed to be a 5" Newtonian.

There is the telescope you are looking at, the Celestron Astromaster 130mm EQ (manual mount), the Celestron SLT 130mm (slightly more) goto and a few others in this range that get progressively more expensive.
There are also refractors both manual and goto between 80mm to 100mm though most of these suffer from poor mounts supplied with them.
Optically the telescopes are good though.

Or you can get a telescope like this: https://agenaastro.com/sky-watcher-6-tr ... 11600.html though it is manual, a 200mm is $100USD more.
A lot of aperture for a small price.

From my reading on them they aren’t actually a go to mount so won’t need a hand controller.
The scopes themselves (there are 4, 2 refractor and 2 refractor) are the same as there respectively sized astromaster scope. However it has the Star sense mount attached which very basically will tel you what you are looking at. They all seemed to be on manual alt/az mounts. The smaller two on az2 and the larger two on az3.

I thought they looked good for a beginner so you can know what your looking at.

Sinerjee wrote: ↑Wed Jan 08, 2020 1:05 am From my reading on them they aren’t actually a go to mount so won’t need a hand controller.
The scopes themselves (there are 4, 2 refractor and 2 refractor) are the same as there respectively sized astromaster scope. However it has the Star sense mount attached which very basically will tel you what you are looking at. They all seemed to be on manual alt/az mounts. The smaller two on az2 and the larger two on az3.

I thought they looked good for a beginner so you can know what your looking at.

Yes, you're right, they aren't goto, not motorized, but rather incorporate the user's cell phone into a "push-to" system on an alt-az mount.

Kind of a cool idea, actually. It would give beginners a place to get started finding objects and learning about the objects they see in the eyepiece. Would help people learn the night sky a bit better than they might do with a goto scope.

One could of course make a homegrown version for any telescope with a cell phone and a free planetarium app (there are many that will work). Just need to come up with a bracket to affix the phone to the scope. Here is one version: https://www.skyatnightmagazine.com/advi ... telescope/

The Android app Skeye has been around for a couple of years now and does exactly that - turns my manual dob into a Pushto monster! And, oh, it's free!

Cheers,
JT

JayTee wrote: ↑Wed Jan 08, 2020 10:16 pm The Android app Skeye has been around for a couple of years now and does exactly that - turns my manual dob into a Pushto monster! And, oh, it's free!

Cheers,
JT

Do you have an article and pictures?

Do you have an article and pictures?

[mention]SiouxCityGuy[/mention] Go to Google Play and type in Skeye in the search box and this is what you'll see. Cheers,
JT