Advice on a new telescope

[Jnicholes]

Hi everyone,

I know I posted about this before, but this time it’s necessary.

You need to know two things. First off, my current telescopes computer mount somehow busted this morning at 5:30AM while I was observing Mars. I am encountering severe electrical issues that are hindering the telescope big time. It will move when I’m not telling it the move, it will not move when I try to have it move, one motor is going way too fast, it’s busted. I don’t know if I can fix it. This forces me to either look for a new mount or get a new telescope. I decided on getting a new telescope because I feel I need an upgrade.

The second thing is that I landed a new job a few days ago. As a result, I’m having some more income, making my budget for a telescope bigger than before. $2000+ is my budget.

I found this telescope, and I would like an opinion on it. Do you think it will be a good buy?



If not, can somebody recommend a telescope to me? Preferably a computer telescope.

I plan on using the telescope mainly for deep sky observations, and maybe occasional planetary and lunar observations.

Any help and advice will be appreciated,

Jared

[Jnicholes]

Never mind. I feel very sheepish. I may have found the problem with my current scope. Minor glitch in the system. I factory reset the scope, it seems to be working fine now. I’ll know tonight.

[Lady Fraktor]

Hopefully all is good, ensure you have adequate 12v power to the mount.
Celestron mounts are notorious for doing strange things when the power is low.

On the SC, my only concern is that the tube weights 12 lb and the mount capacity is rated at 12 lb as well.
If wanting to do AP you may need to drop down to the 6se

[Jnicholes]

Thank you for the advice. I may drop down to the 6SE if I can’t get my current mount working.

I’ll know tonight if I can get it working or not. It looks like it’s going to be clear.

If not, I’ll save up and try and get the 6SE.

[Jnicholes]

Just letting you all know that I FINALLY fixed the telescope. I had to factory reset it, and now I am able to get pretty close to Mercury, the beehive cluster, the Orion nebula, and the Hercules cluster. All with a goto approach.

I think I fixed the problem, and now it’s all a matter of aligning the telescope properly.

A new telescope may not be needed now.

[OzEclipse]

Jared,

That's great news. Doesn't mean that you can't also get a new scope but my recommendation is slow down, work out what you really want to do, then buy the right pieces of gear to do it.

I bought a Lacerta MGEN III autoguider from someone a couple of weeks ago. It had been on my second hand shopping watch list for some time. He's also a friend of mine. Tonight he send me a facebook message and asked if I wanted to sell it back to him. It is the sixth 2nd hand item I have bought, where the vendor has wanted to buy it back from me. I take that as a sign that I am buying good stuff at a good price. Think carefully and plan ahead. As others have advised, make sure the mount is over-rated enough to support the weight of the OTA for deep sky photography if that's what you want to do.

Good luck

Joe

[Richard]

Jared,

That's great news. Doesn't mean that you can't also get a new scope but my recommendation is slow down, work out what you really want to do, then buy the right pieces of gear to do it.

I bought a Lacerta MGEN III autoguider from someone a couple of weeks ago. It had been on my second hand shopping watch list for some time. He's also a friend of mine. Tonight he send me a facebook message and asked if I wanted to sell it back to him. It is the sixth 2nd hand item I have bought, where the vendor has wanted to buy it back from me. I take that as a sign that I am buying good stuff at a good price. Think carefully and plan ahead. As others have advised, make sure the mount is over-rated enough to support the weight of the OTA for deep sky photography if that's what you want to do.

Good luck

Joe

100% Joe
The telescope the OP wanted to get the 8 SE , the OTA is great but the mount is just OK , you could do a bit of panetary AP but certainly not Deep Sky
The SLT mount you have is not much different to the SE , your OTA is the problem , its a long tube which puts the SLT mount on its limit , and sometimes past it when one uses a large eyepiece etc
I have had many SLT mounts , and the skywatcher equivalent and they like short scopes like a 5 inch SCT , or a small Mak
I use mine with an old 5 inch SCT works really well

[Bigzmey]

This is general issue with scope/mount combos. Most often vendors supplies mounts which underrated for the scopes. Like in this case, C8 is a great scope and I would recommend it over C6, but C6 rides better on Nexstar SE mount.

Most people do get combos for their first scopes and this is OK, but for the second scope I recommend to buy OTA and mount separately.