Newbie to a new hobby, Advice needed.

[Alanh087]

Hi all,

I am a newbie to this hobby as well as the forum, I have been searching the web to buy either a telescope or binoculars, but I am so confused where to start, I have owned a telescope in the past but I used it a handful of times and gave up as I couldn’t locate anything but the moon.

However I’m more older and mature these days, and I want to learn more about what is in the skies , what is best to start off with binoculars or telescope? I don’t want to spend too much as it’s only a new hobby.

I have been looking at the celestron skywatcher 20/80 or the smaller version 15/70, however I do want to get good detail of the moon etc. I don’t really understand all the lenses and abrogation yet with this hobby as it’s all fairly new, I live in the uk and travel to the Lake District a lot so I would love to take my telescope or binoculars there with me where there is no light pollution.

Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks.

Alan

[KathyNS]

Welcome to the forum, Alan.

Binoculars are always a good choice, since you will use them forever. They are easier and more intuitive to use than a telescope, and will help you learn your way around the night sky.

I have the Celestron 20x80s. The 15x70s are similar, just a bit smaller. For either model, you will need to mount them on a tripod. It is not possible to hand-hold binos with that much magnification. A regular photographic tripod will work, but if you are buying a new one, get an upscale sturdy one. You don't want any jiggling. The 20x80s will mount to a tripod without any adapter. Most other binos require an L-bracket to be mounted.

[Alanh087]

Welcome to the forum, Alan.

Binoculars are always a good choice, since you will use them forever. They are easier and more intuitive to use than a telescope, and will help you learn your way around the night sky.

I have the Celestron 20x80s. The 15x70s are similar, just a bit smaller. For either model, you will need to mount them on a tripod. It is not possible to hand-hold binos with that much magnification. A regular photographic tripod will work, but if you are buying a new one, get an upscale sturdy one. You don't want any jiggling. The 20x80s will mount to a tripod without any adapter. Most other binos require an L-bracket to be mounted.

Would you say the celestron skywatcher 20/80 are a good starting point then? Would it worth upgrading to pro version or keep to basics for now?

Any good phone apps to recommend finding myway around the night sky?

[TCampbell]

You mentioned losing interest earlier when you couldn't find anything but the moon. With that in mind, I wanted to make sure you have proper expectations.

Binoculars

While binoculars sure are great for the moon, they are also particular good for looking at open star clusters. These clusters tend to be spread across a broad enough area that they often don't conveniently fit in the field of view of higher focal length telescopes.

Binoculars *might* be good for deep-sky nebula *if* your skies are dark enough. I was out at a dark sky site earlier this year and took in the lagoon nebula through binoculars ... but there's no way I'd be able to see something like that closer to home (too much light pollution). I've also looked at the Andromeda galaxy through binoculars -- also in dark skies.

Keep in mind these objects cover a larger area of sky ... as wide as the diameter of the moon if not several times the diameter of the moon. The Andromeda galaxy is roughly 6x moon diameters wide on the sky.

When buying binoculars, also consider the field of view, the weight, and how you will support the binoculars (will you be hand-holding them)? It's very difficult to hold binoculars perfectly steady. This means you're trying to study an object that is shaking around a bit as you look through the instrument. The narrower the field of view, the more the perceived effect of shaking and the harder they are to hand-hold. Many (probably most) binoculars have a 1/4" 20TPI mounting stud that can be used to attach the binoculars to a monopod or tripod. Often this is located at the hinge point ... but they make a very inexpensive "L" shaped bracket that threads onto the mount point and then lets you mount that to a photo tripod.

Telescopes

If you want to see smaller object (not small in true size... small in apparent size because the distances are far) then binoculars aren't great for those sorts of things. E.g. they're not great for seeing any detail on planets or planetary nebulae or small galaxies.

Planets easily compete with light pollution so, if you think you'll be doing a lot of observing in light polluted areas, owning an instrument that can give you nice of views of planets could be a good asset.

There are really two completely different schools of thought on locating objects.

One camp says you should not own a "go to" scope (and sometimes compare it to cheating) because having to hunt for the object is half the fun ... these people get a thrill out of finding the object. BTW, this isn't quite as hard as you might think... there are techniques to "star hop". You learn to identify the familiar shapes of constellations and then learn where the objects are hiding relative to stars you can find ... then scan the area where an object is expected to be found. There are some optical aids for this as well... e.g. some finders (such as the Telrad finder) have marked angular fields of view. So you can use a mobile phone app (e.g. Sky Safari) to work out that something is located about 2.5° to the left of some star and use the marked rings on the finder to center the star... then move the scope 2.5° to the left and you *should* be really close to having it in your field of view if you are using a low power eyepiece.

The other camp says ... if you get frustrating with not being able to find objects, then just use a "go to" scope. It helps if you're the sort of person that likes electronics. The scopes require a bit of set up to be properly oriented to the sky. Typically you have to find and center at least 2 bright stars. From there the scope has reasonably decent accuracy to find other objects ... just tell it what you want to see and automatically moves to put that object in view. These things aren't bang-on accurate though (they can be... but that takes more fuss). If I don't see what I want after it finishes moving to the object, I'll find the nearest bright star, tell the scope to go to that object -- and that star usually wont be accurately centered. I manually re-center the star and then tell the scope to "sync" on it (this corrects the scope's idea of where it is pointing). Then I send the scope back to the hard-to-find object and it's usually in the middle of the field of view. The camp that likes to avoid "go to" scopes feels that you don't learn your way around the sky as well when you use "go to" scopes because you didn't have to find the object yourself.

There is no "right" answer here... it's about what's right for you.

I prefer the go-to scopes myself.

For around $400 USD you can get an 8" Dobsonion mounted reflector. That's a pretty decent aperture size. The bigger the aperture, the better it is at resolving fine details. My first scopes (small) could see that Saturn had "rings" and Jupiter had "cloud belts"... my later/larger scopes would reveal that the "cloud belts" on Jupiter had swirled patterns in them and that Saturns rings had a black "gap" (Cassini Division) in them ... that the smaller scopes could not see.

For a little more you can get a "push to" scope. This type of scope has a computer... but no motors. Instead it has "encoders" so it can measure how much you've moved it as you push it around the sky. When you tell it you want to look at an object, it tells you which way to push the scope... and how far (it counts down as you get closer to the object). When it says you're there... you look through the eyepiece and you'll see the object. It adds a little to the price of the scope but isn't as expensive as a "go to" scope. While the idea isn't exclusive to Dobsonian mounted scopes... most of the time when I see a "push to" scope it tends to be a Dob.

These Dobsonian scopes tend to work really well because they don't actually have a tripod. Budget tripods are often aluminum and the mount tends to be... not as stiff and solid as you might think. This means at high magnification... you're back to the problem where the object is shaking in the field of view. Dobsonian mounted scopes don't have this problem because they rest on a cradle that sits directly on the ground ... there are no "legs" -- so its'a much more stable design. Because of some design nuances (the mount costs significantly less to manufacture), you tend to get a larger scope for the same amount of money as compared to what you would get with a refractor.

[helicon]

Stellarium is a useful phone ap for finding your way around the night sky. And, welcome to the forums Alan.

[TCampbell]

I highly recommend a mobile phone app for anyone. Previously you'd have to carry a star atlas. But this has two problems...

#1 is that a paper atlas can't show the locations of solar system objects (planets, asteroids, etc.) because those objects all move from night to night. But an app can calculate those locations. Finding planet locations is no problem for an app.

#2 paper atlases are really limited on the number of stars they can include. They mostly only list the brightest stars. Apps can contain a mind-boggling number of objects.

As an added bonus... since every mobile phone sensors such as GPS, compass, as well as tilt and motion sensors, the phone actually knows where you're pointing it in the sky. So they automatically show the objects for the correct section of the sky.

They also fit conveniently in your pocket and... very few star atlases do.

[pakarinen]

Not to knock binos, but I'd advise trying them out at night before buying if at all possible. Some people have problems using them even if the binos are in perfectly good working condition and work great in daytime. One problem can be the inability to merge point images; you see double stars no matter what you do. Sometimes it's the binos and sometimes it's the user.

I have no idea how prevalent that is and most problems are due to simple mechanical issues, but it is something to be aware of. If push to comes shove though, you can always use one eye at a time. FWIW. There is also the option of getting a monocular if binos aren't useful for you.

[Greenman]

Hi Allan,

I’m going to be boring and suggest a general book, why - well you are in the UK, most of the time the weather does not stop you reading. Whatever observation you want to perform, even just eyeballing the sky can be frustrating here. A good basic astronomy book will guide you through many of the questions you have and give you a feel for what interests you. I have just splurged a fair amount of money on what I want to do in astronomy (£1,300 on accessories), but that is from a conservative start some years back. I know I want to stick to this hobby, and that makes this an investment, not a waste of money, on something that will gather dust in a cupboard.

Judging by the number of ‘beginner scopes’ that come up for sale there is a high decoupling rate from the hobby. That can be an expensive mistake, and recouping the money is not easy.

I can personally recommend Stargazing- Beginner’s guide to astronomy IBSN 978-0-00-797367-5 it takes you through from visual observation, to binoculars, telescopes & finally the money pit of Astrophotography. At any point you can decouple and say that’s great for me. I think this is a great route, as the book will help set your expectations or confirm you too have the obsession