UKC

I want to buy a telescope as a gift. The recipient wants to be able to see the moons of Jupiter, rings of Saturn etc. 

Will £200 be enough? 

In short, yes. You should be able to find something for visual use at that price range. Have a look at Skywatcher or Celestron’s basic offerings.

That amount should get you a reasonable telescope with a proper tripod and mount. If you buy used the optical quality should be a class above a new scope of the same price.

I would recommend buying a reflector type telescope, the simpler construction compared to a refractor will again tend to give you better quality optics at a given price.

CB

This is perfect. It can sit on a garden table or the bonnet of a car. 

https://www.firstlightoptics.com/beginner-telescopes/skywatcher-heritage-13...

I just so happen to have one. And I've seen the Aneromida Galaxy with it.

The reviews are excellent. It comes with two eye pieces and if you buy a 2x converter with the rest of your budget then you get four focal lengths.

https://www.firstlightoptics.com/barlow-eyepieces/astro-essentials-125-2x-b...

i've gone down the refractor route, initially with a Skywatcher ST80 and now a 120. Both are very fast f5 devices and really designed for deep space  stuff rather than p[anetary observation but that doesn't mean you can't view planets with them. 

As to better quality optics in a reflector, the main difference is the refractor's  objective lens against the reflector's mirror because the eyepieces will be the same. But a reflector will give you more power for the same price.

Most kits will come with a couple of cheap eyepieces and anyone wanting better quality optics will usually supplement them with a few better ones , £40 a go as a starter.

One advantage of the refractor not to be overlooked is its almost ever ready use: you can take it out of the house and look through it as soon as it's up on the tripod. Reflectors need a cooling down period to work at their best.

But most of all the viewing is what matters and some people really struggle to cope with the image in a reflector which is inverted and reversed L/R whereas a refractor's is not inverted: not so important if you are viewing planets but very much an issue if you are star hopping . 

Don't want to be dismissive but you can see M31 through any pair of binoculars and last week, for the first time ever, I managed to get it with the naked eye in Galloway .

Is Uranus bigger than Mars?

As others have said, this is easy.  A dirt cheap 2.5" refractor can make out Saturn's rings and a decent pair of binoculars will get you the Galilean moons.  Especially if you are going for used, £200 will get you a lot of telescope.

Reflector/refractor is your main choice; I'd probably go reflector, simply because bigger aperture = more light = brighter objects = easier.  They are bulkier and a bit more delicate though; if this is for a child then I would swing towards a reflector.

The other big choice is the mount.  For ease of use get Alt-Az - it's basically up-down and L-R and it's simple to point at what you want!  But if you think they will get into this seriously, try to get something on an equatorial mount.  It's less beginner friendly but better in the long run.

I don't think that's true: a simple refractor produces an upside-down image.

Some good points so far.

A second hand telescope will get you a lot more for your money, but there are a lot of cheap junky Argos type telescopes on eBay and similar. There are some gems amongst the toys.

There are currently significant supply chain problems at the moment and many telescopes have been unavailable new for months, especially the Chinese telescopes (Skywatcher, Celestron).

For a beginner and purely visual, I'd go with a 150mm or so Newtonian reflector on an alt az mount. That's achievable for £200. GOTO mounts are just about available at that price point but will be light and flimsy and will take away from the main scope.

I saw Jamie commented saying an EQ mount is better, I agree, but at this price point I don't know how "upgradable" it would be. The alt az mount is easier to use if the telescope is used for double duty eg bird watching.

I'd ignore claims of high magnification (common on cheap telescopes). They will result in a really dim shaky image and are a nightmare with no tracking mount.

Photography is much more demanding of the kit and you'd need to be clear on what you wanted to see.

My 2¢

Good thread. I am thinking the same. Would someone who knows what they are talking about be happy to have a chat about this as I don't want to be sold a dud or waste my loot. If so please PM me a number.

But when used with a 90 mirror diagonal you get an image which is reversed L/R  but still the right way up. I can't thin k that any astronomer would choose to look straight through the refractor and that's why the diagonal is always part of the kit.

I have the very same Heritage 130p after searching the UKC forums for some recomendations and also reading the advice on sites like stargazers lounge etc.

I think that if in the same position again I would probably get the 130s' bigger brother which was released earlier this year https://www.firstlightoptics.com/beginner-telescopes/sky-watcher-heritage-1..., and just within your budget, though I know from continued reading of the SGL forum that stock of telescopes is very low at the moment so you might struggle to find these.

The out the box kit is fine to start with, but I have slowly upgraded as we found we were using the telescope a little more often than anticiapted, often at the request of my two sons who would be asking if we could get the telescope out (though I do wonder how much of that was to try and avoid bedtimes on a school night...).  First was a GOTO mount from ebay, which I paired with a phone/laptop and Stellerium and then some better eyepieces.

To give you an idea of what to expect , https://stargazerslounge.com/topic/196278-what-can-i-expect-to-see/ is well worth a read to temper your expectations!

Thanks,

Gavin

Me and ms. aln spent an hour looking for it in Anstruther last week, to no avail. 

Of course you can make any corrections you like - and spotting scopes obviously always present a non-inverted image. The reason astronomers choose not to do so is to maintain a simpler light path.

This is an excellent post and also a big thanks to TomV for giving up his personal time to share his thoughts!

https://stargazerslounge.com/topic/196278-what-can-i-expect-to-see/

I think that most amateur astronomers do make that correction and that's why suppliers often put a diagonal in the package even if you've only ordered an Optical Tube Assembly. Apart from problems associated with looking at objects near the zenith with a straight through refractor.

Things like Sky and Telescope's Saturn viewing app also take this into account in their three viewing options.

For that price, you will easily be able to see all of the above.

At 200 you often get some incredible bargains on facebook market place or gum tree with people wanting to get rid of some excellent telescopes from their attic for very little money. Might be worth considering if you are not set on buying new. They would more often than not be in excellent condition and come with extra accessories like a Barlow lens or a Moon filter...  

As very much an amateur, ie I can identify the objects but know nothing of the hardwear, I'm wary of buying secondhand. 

My team leader bought himself a  Messier AR-80/640 earlier this year and he's pretty happy with the views he gets.  It's a great scope for looking at the moon and orion nebula etc. but it doesn't resolve the planets to the same degree as my big scope.  Before he bought it I did make sure he managed his expectations. You'll not get the close-ups of Jupiter that they print on the box and remember, as the mount isn't driven, anything magnified enough to see detail will whizz out of view quicker than a rat up a drainpipe. 

Don't be.  A lot of astronomers upgrade fairly regularly so you could end up getting a £5 - 600 goto mount and decent optics for less than £200.  Always good to buy in person though. 

 I've spoken to the main uk retailers and stock is non existent. Some stock not available until March! The only one I can find in stock anywhere is:

https://www.bresser.de/en/Astronomy/Telescopes/BRESSER-Pollux-150-750-EQ3-T...

I need to call them back later. This is a reflector version though which might not be for me.

The mid range Bresser stuff is good beginner kit, much better than the Chinese toys but clearly inferior to proper scientific optics. In general, with optics you get what you pay for (or, if buying used, the first buyer did).

CB

A lot of the Chinese toys have quite a following among keen amateur astronomers.

Do what he says and get that one.

I want one.

The "what can I expect"is right on the nose  as far as I can tell (though I' ve failed to find the Whirlpool yet    )

It is the same as with Lidl or Aldi wines. I would only buy one having tried it before, the variation in build quality is so massive. If you get lucky, though, you can make a steal...

CB

A lot of the astronomy folk take great pleasure disassembling their wonky kit and fettling it to make it better.

It's educational and all part of the hobby, a bit like owning an ancient motorbike or something!

This may sound like a daft question...and it probably is but....

If I bought one of these telescopes for looking at stars would it also work if I used it to focus on some birds nests about 40 metres from my house or should I just get a standard telescope?

A spotting scope like birders use  will do a lot of the work that an astronomical telescope does.

Some of the astronomical scopes will double as birding/ terrestrial scopes but there are complications.

Basic problem is that most astronomical telescopes invert the image, either up-side-down, or left-right or both. Obviously with a planet or stars this doesn't matter much; tends to be more important with birds 🦅🦆🕊🦢🦉

I very recently bought a compact spotting scope for a smidgen over £200 - 50mm objective and 36x max magnification so quite low powered as these things go.

It's just good enough so that I can make out Saturn's rings (as one ring) - handles with a gap between them and the planet. An astronomical telescope for the same price would probably have given a better view - but then that's what it's designed to do.

Mars - small red disk. Jupiter - pale disk - no trouble seeing jovian moons but then a pair of bins is good enough for that.

You can do that, however the image that you see would be upside down. You'd then have to buy a connection to put the image the correct way round.

Also the telescope is designed to look at stars not terrestrial objects. its got a big heavy mirror and on a mount that is more conducive for pointing up.

You'd want an optic that is more geared to looking at wildlife. Sorry.

Actually the smaller refractors ( and even Maksutovs) are often sold as potential spotting/ terrestrial scopes since the addition of a correcting diagonal is only a few quid and some are actually sold with this "right way round" corrector as standard. 

But what you are left with is still something relatively cumbersome which you wouldn't want to cart about too much, especially not on foot en route to a bird hide or similar.  

Bit of confusion on my part there, I was commenting on Dobsonian telescopes.

But like many a good politician I omitted to mention this.

Oops

Really useful thread! I've been debating a scope for a while, and as something to do with family over the coming months after a quick wander up onto the moors.

Any suggestion on scopes that would mount to a standard tripod mount? I'd be bringing photography kit with me anyway, and not sure the other mount style would work for what I'm thinking.

A decent pair of astronomical Binoculars might be your best bet for casual observing. Many come with a 1/4" screw fitting for tripod mounts.  A good pair can show as much as a faint band across the face of Jupiter and ought to resolve the rings of Saturn as being separate from the planet's disc.  Great for looking at asterisms such as the Plaeides where a telescope might have too much magnification so you don't get the whole thing in the field of view. 

https://www.celestron.com/collections/spotting-scopes

Got the larger Hummingbird last year. It's a lovely little  thing and so handy,. My main dislike is the focussing which involves rotating a ring on the barrel.

A bonus for astronomers is that it will take your 1.25" eyepieces if you want to extend the range at either end of its zoom so a 5 mm piece makes it approximately a 40x scope.

Here is anther informative review.

youtube.com/watch?v=3JHu4sGwl0Y&

Again an endorsement for the alt az mounted ~150mm Newtonian of the type Lemming (and others have suggested). 

Of course you probably can't buy one for love nor money at the moment, but the principle is sound!

Thanks for all the helpful replies. I settled for this https://www.firstlightoptics.com/beginner-telescopes/sky-watcher-heritage-1... They're in stock if anyone else is looking for something similar. 

I bought a finder scope to replace the red dot finder but in a lot of situations like initial location ( I'm talking manual as opposed to Go To) the red dot finder is a really useful device once calibrated  (which is easily enough done in daylight)