I am a novice and I am now in the position to purchase a telescope I have about $1,500.00 to spend and am at the moment looking at a Celestron Advanced C130 MGT, are Celestron a good manufacturer and would the C130 suit my needs as a novice? it needs to be easy to use and give excellent results. where I live suffers slighty from light polution.

Hi Topromcat, i'm in a similar situation as you, a novice and looking for a decent scope.

I've been recommened this one:-

http://www.telescope.com/control/pro...oduct_id=27183

It would be nice if i could get that scope above from the States, as it costs about £250.00 to purchase it over here

Yes, one of the best.
Maybe...maybe not! We need more information. What are you most interested in...general star gazing, the Moon, planets, open clusters, globular clusters, galaxies, planetary nebulae, reflection nebulae, etc.

__________________
Any day you wake up on "the right side of the dirt" is a good day.

T. Anderson

Couldn't modify this post but meant an EXTRA £250.00

right, i am interested in planets and anything that will give that quick wow factor as i easily loose interest if results are not easy produce. i also want the type of kit that will take me past that quick wow factor onto more advanced types of gazing like stars etc - i didnt even know you could see galaxies from off the shelf products so this shows the type of novice i am.

does this help ?

The Andromeda galaxy (M31) is visible to the unaided eye from even moderately dark skies.
As for "wow factor, except for (definitely) Saturn and its rings and (maybe) Jupiter and it's moons and cloud bands, there is not much wow in the planets, although Mars will be bright later this year.
There are plenty of things that, to me at least, are very impressive even through binoculars.

Don't expect anything to look like images you see in magazines or on the web.

__________________
Any day you wake up on "the right side of the dirt" is a good day.

T. Anderson

Thanks K, what would you recommend a Celestron C130, a Orion XT 8 as my UK colleague has indicated or something else?

Don't buy anything yet. You need to have patience. Take time to figure out what best suits you. If you buy the right telescope, you may go on to a lifetime hobby. If you but the wrong one, you may be turned away.

Remember, no scope is best. Every one has compromises, and they all suit the needs of different people. A casual observer may want a large "light bucket" dobsonian. An astrophotographer may prefer a catadiopric on an equatorial mount. Someone wanting to look at deep sky objects will want big aperture, fast focal ratio. Someone interested in watching planets will want a longer focal ratio.

For an observer, typically size is what matters. For an astrophotographer, the mount is key.

What are you looking into using your telescope for?

thanks Siguy, as a novice that is a difficult question to answer but i guess
i am looking to use my telescope for looking at the moon, planets and nebulae i also want to get my 5 yr old son to become keen so again its got to be a purchase that will carry us both through being green to Amateur

Find your local astronomy club. They can help you much better one on one than we ever could long distance. Club members love showing off their equipment and helping new comers find the right gear. After all, a happy new owner is likely to become a new member!

__________________
Any day you wake up on "the right side of the dirt" is a good day.

T. Anderson

I second everything Siguy said.

I'd consider that scope more a niche scope than a general purpose novice scope, but that's me. Your "general purposes" may be very different from mine and probably are.

I'll add you apparently don't know what you want from the scope or what a novice can see or do with a scope. So you have a lot of homework to do. You can read all the links on the net about choosing a scope and still be somewhat lost in space. Still it is a good idea to read up on this. http://www.skyandtelescope.com/equip...s/3303926.html

Far better is to find a local club, even if local is 100 or more miles away, and attend a few of their star parties. Most have them once a month weather permitting.
http://www.skyandtelescope.com/community/organizations
There you will see and be able to USE many different types of scopes. Just because one is perfect for one novice doesn't mean it is right for you. Likely it is wrong. I'm in my 7th decade of this hobby and so far, about 90% of the beginners that got well meaning advice from a friend on a "good beginner scope" bought the wrong one for them. Maybe was good for that person, but rarely for them. Are you willing to bet $1000 on a long shot? That's what you'll be doing no matter what is recommended as you don't know what it is you want or what a novice can expect from a scope.

In the meantime get a good pair of 7x35 or 7x50 or 10x50 binoculars and a good guide to the sky for binoculars. See Dave's Sticky post. No amateur would be caught out at a star party without their binoculars. No matter the scope he has they are absolutely necessary. Get a good star atlas. Learn your way around the sky. You need to know what there is to look at with what size scope before you know what scope works for you. This will start you down that road. Don't think binoculars aren't real telescopes. Your eye, if young, opens to 7mm. 50mm binocular lenses are 7 times this size so gather 49 times the light. Until you have the light to work with no magnification will do much good. The more the better. Now with about 50 times the light you can see quite a lot. I've logged over 70 Messier objects and a couple dozen NGC objects with them. Now the 130mm scope you're looking at gathers only 2.6 times more light than half the binoculars do. Thats only 7 times more light. So binoculars increase your eye's abilities by far more than the scope will gain over binoculars! In fact you'd need to get a 13.5" (343mm) scope to get the same gain!

Yes the scope you are looking at is computerized but don't expect it to find everything. You have to set these up very carefully and even then I find this series hits its target at 2000mm focal length only about 60% of the time with a 25mm eyepiece unless used with a computer and software like T-point to refine the various errors. So you will still need to know your way around the sky.

The scope you are looking at has a low power of 80 with a commonly used low power eyepiece of a 25mm focal length. This is way too high for many things at this aperture. A 5" scope works best for many deep sky objects at 40x (or less) which is hard to achieve with this scope. I don't know its usable field, I doubt it gets much wider than 1 degree which would take about an expensive 2" 40mm eyepiece. Maybe you aren't interested in such objects. I don't know, I doubt you do either.

I assume (this is only a guess) it uses the same optics from a Chinese company that is found in the Konus Mak. Some of those were pretty good optically, others only so so. I don't know about the Celestron version. Could you even judge the quality of the scope you get? Most all manufacturers turn out a lemon every so often. Good ones, like Celestron will correct it quickly but only if you know to complain.

Each scope is a compromise. Right now you don't know all the compromises you are making with this particular scope. Let alone if they are acceptable to you. Attend a few star parties, do a lot more reading on astronomy then start to think about which scope is best for you. Otherwise you are jumping in the deep end then pleading for swimming lessons. By then it is too late. At least in this case it is only money that's wasted.

Your local club can give you good advice on what will work best in your local sky conditions. My club has loaner scopes of various types to help beginners decide which scope is best for them. Maybe yours will too.

Go slow, do your homework and you will find this a very enjoyable hobby with a steep, high learning curve. Having a club to call on will go a long way to cutting it down to a manageable level.

Rick

I would like to thank everybody and especially RickJ for his detailed explanation of what i should do. I will take the advice and find a local club and go from there.

Tomcat

Please read the Sky & Telescope article that RickJ linked to above!

__________________
Any day you wake up on "the right side of the dirt" is a good day.

T. Anderson

i am interested in planets too. Just like Siguy said: no scope is best. There is no best, just have the suitable one for you.
Recently I got my Celestron NexStar 8 SE Telescope online, It's cool for me, don't know if you like it, but i think you can try. Here is the link I used, you can check out to get the detail
http://www.dealstudio.com/searchdeals.php?deal_id=63719