Deep space telescope

[Emmanygren]

Hi!
I'm looking for a deep space telescope. My max budget is around 800$. I'm a beginner so it shouldn't be to advanced, but I want something that will still work when I'm more experienced.

- clarity on deep space objects (galaxies, nebulas, etc..)
- telescope who fixes location automatically
- astrophotography friendly
- I would prefer a telescope fully kitted from start without buying extras to view certain things

Any recomendations?

/ the exicted beginner

[helicon]

Hi and Welcome to the TSS Forums. It seems like there are a number of options, either a reflector or a refractor. I'll wait to see what the membership recommends.

[turboscrew]

Hmm, I think there's not many telescopes between those constraints.
Mine might be a bit over, both in functionality, but especially in cost.

You can get one helluva dobsonian, but with such, your possibilities of photography are very limited.
Also You'd need a sturdy enough tracking mount, rather even goto mount with load capability of about 2 times the actual load. I have CEM120, goto-mount with 50 kg load capability, and price about 4000 eur. That should be good for photography with my 15 kg 300 mm / 1200 mm telescope, that I paid about 2000 eur second hand. The mount is not exaggerated, because the telescope is so ling and "fat" that even slighter poofs of wind have quite some leverage.

Smaller refractors are much better and cheaper for AP, but at least for visual, may be a bit small for deep sky targets.

There are, however, much better experts than me on this site. Maybe some of then will chime in...

[Ylem]

Hello and welcome to TSS, thanks for joining us.

I don't know much about AP, other than a decent EQ mount is required.

Possibly an 8" SCT on an EQ like the Celestron AVX, sold as a kit, But that would put you over your budget.

Personally I would recommend something just for visual at the moment to get you feet wet. Maybe a nice 8" or 10" Dob.

You could even do some simple AP with a cell phone holder.

[AstroBee]

I'm afraid you are asking for something that is not possible. At least, not completely.
The problem is when you asked for an "astrophotography friendly" setup. I'm afraid that doesn't really exist!
If you wish to photograph anything other than the moon, and maybe the planets using the lucky imaging technique, you are going to need a mount that can accurately track the night sky.
For a mount that can handle a decent payload and accurately track the sky, that alone is pretty much going to put you over your budget. At the bare minimum, unless you want to use a sky-tracker with just a camera/lens combo, I would say to look at the Celestron AVX mount, but again, that alone is over your budget.

On the other hand, if you want to get a purely visual rig, $800 will get you a really nice Dobsonian scope like this one. https://www.telescope.com/Telescopes/Do ... goryId=398
This scope is COMPLETELY manual so no tracking or pointing which means you'll need to learn a bit about the sky in order to find objects to view. Unfortunately, that ticks off two of your requested items in your list.

I always try and encourage beginners like yourself to NOT try to dive into astrophotography at the beginning. I have friends that are great astrophotographers but have never learned the night sky and it's always kinda strange talking about astronomy with them as they know so little about what is happening above their heads. They go out and produce these amazing images but because they were looking at a laptop screen the entire time, their eyes were never dark-adapted and they never noticed the Milky Way above them.

[turboscrew]

Hello and welcome to TSS, thanks for joining us.

I don't know much about AP, other than a decent EQ mount is required.

Possibly an 8" SCT on an EQ like the Celestron AVX, sold as a kit, But that would put you over your budget.

Personally I would recommend something just for visual at the moment to get you feet wet. Maybe a nice 8" or 10" Dob.

You could even do some simple AP with a cell phone holder.

Not deep sky AP, though...

[turboscrew]

What do you, folks, think of this?
https://www.astroshop.eu/telescopes/bre ... r_1_select
It has no tracking, though.
This has, but is over the budget.
https://www.astroshop.eu/telescopes/bre ... r_0_select

[turboscrew]

Oops, @Emmanygren is from Sweden. Where?
There are two more things to consider, when it comes to the mount: temperature rating and altitude setting.
My mount should work down to -10°C (not very good in that respect), and it's maximum altitude setting is 67°N.
Works (barely) even in Rovaniemi (LAT 66.5°N).
Many mounts have altitude settings max 60°N. Pretty much unusable in Finland.
The latitude of Helsinki is 60.19°N.

[JayTee]

First off welcome to TSS.

There are two distinctly different areas of AP, one is planetary / Lunar, the other is long exposure deep sky. All of your requirements plus your budget does not allow for everything you want. Long exposure deep-sky AP is a fairly expensive endeavor. If you are ok with starting at planetary / Lunar AP then this suggestion meets all your other requirements and is just a little over your budget.

https://www.adorama.com/cnn6se.html?gcl ... dl-gbase-p

[SkyHiker]

If you are strict about the budget I would get this ES 80 mm achro on an iEXOS PMC8, https://explorescientificusa.com/produc ... o-to-combo . Check the reviews first but the PMC8 should be good.

Next up I would look for an EQM-35 mount https://www.adorama.com/skws30500.html with an 80 mm frac such as an Orion ED80 https://www.telescope.com/Orion-ED80-80 ... p/9895.uts but that's already $1400 in the US.

Both would be nice grab and go systems for when you get something better.

You sound a bit like a novice. If visual observing is your goal, try it first. I only know one fuzzy blob worth looking at with a scope smaller than 20", others get more out of it. If this is not for you, focus on astrophotography. The preferred gear is different and one method does not prepare you for the other.

[Bigzmey]

Welcome to the forum Emmanygren! You are getting good suggestions already. I just add that vendors typically include very limited supply of accessories with telescopes. Enough to do a test run, but definitely not enough for observing or astrophotography. Be prepared to spend extra funds for that. Maybe adjust your telescope budget to leave some funds for EPs etc.

[Emmanygren]

Thanks for all great answers!
Im going to do some research, we'll see wich I choose.

/Emma

[SkyHiker]

What do you, folks, think of this?
https://www.astroshop.eu/telescopes/bre ... r_1_select
It has no tracking, though.
This has, but is over the budget.
https://www.astroshop.eu/telescopes/bre ... r_0_select

That last one may be a good option. It's still not a good foundation, just a beginner setup but for the budget specified you can't get anything better. It would be good to check some of the EXOS-2 goto reviews before buying. Here's one by uncle Rod, http://uncle-rods.blogspot.com/2017/02/ ... -with.html and here's a thread on CN though it's a lot about the PMC-8 alternative by Explore Scientific, https://www.cloudynights.com/topic/5778 ... -any-good/ . I'd say it's worth a shot and what can you do with that budget. About the non goto system, unless you're a die hard visual observer, fuzzy blobs are hard to find without goto. The second hand market is probably the place to look for that budget.

[Refractordude]

If you want to go deep get a 10" Dob.

https://www.telescope.com/Orion/Orion-S ... 102006.uts

https://www.astronomics.com/sky-watcher ... ector.html

[Makuser]

Hi Emma. A lot of great answers above. Like anything new, you should start small and especially in astronomy. There are so many areas in which you may want to specialize your time and funds later. A big welcome to the TSS forum Emma and the best of wishes on your future telescope purchase decision.

[pakarinen]

You might want to consider a SkyWatcher AzGti mount with a small, fast refractor. That would be go-to with tracking that should be suitable for short exposures as well as visual. I'd think you could mount a DSLR on it for widefield shots if you wanted. A fast refractor will show false color on pix, but it's a trade-off. Not great for faint, deepsky though. US vendor below, but I'd think you could find this in the EU:

https://www.adorama.com/skws21160.html? ... l-umbase-p

[Baurice]

I suggest that you buy a large Dobsonian for visual use and a DSLR for AP use. There is loads you can do without tracking, such as brighter deep sky objects, comets, constellations, meteors, the Sun and Moon.

For ideas on what you can do with a DSLR alone, check:

https://www.flickr.com/photos/philippughastronomer/

[Baurice]

I'll add that you can always do the driven mount stuff later but I find plenty to capture without going anywhere near a driven mount. I'll also add that the learning curve is massive and many places don't have clear enough nights often enough. Some folks buy time on robotic telescopes instead.

However, my suggestions will get you started and you may find your interests develop in other directions.