Amazon Tip and Astronomy

[Inchlaggan]

Having inherited my Father's sextant, books and notes on navigation by the stars my childhood interest in astronomy was rejuvenated. Living in an area of low light pollution, the occasional clear sky and having a spot where I could set up a telescope, I had a look around t'interweb to see what was on offer these days. Boy, you can get some whizz-bang kit these days. Motorised tracking and computerised star identification. Press the buttons and it will spin around and find your star from a database of 10,000 objects. Connect to your PC/laptop and/or DSLR. It will even locate itself without GPS. What surprised me most was the prices, not exactly cheap but a lot less than I was expecting. A beginners kit with all of the above comes in at around £250. I still need advice (please anybody?), and a lottery win to persuade SWMBO that this is not another shiny toy but an essential bit of kit.
Now the Amazon tip.
I'd found a few on Amazon, and the reviews were useful. Rather than bookmark the links, I added a couple to my Amazon "Wish List". That was a couple of weeks ago, I have now received a couple of emails from Amazon offering the same kit at prices much less (33% off) than are easily found on the Amazon website. Did I just get lucky and start my search just before price reductions? It seems not and this might be a new function of the website. I've tried some other items (for the workshop) and the same has happened. Anyone else have experience of this? Or it might just be worth trying it out to see if the same happens to you.

[corsican dave]

Ken, we did the same a couple of years ago. we ended up with a model that was a "best buy" in the sky at night mag. I can't remember what it was now as i'm at work...i'll check later.

it has the funky self-locating system and go-to feature. well, one of the problems with the self-locator is that it needs a clear view of pretty much the whole sky (not much use if your only clear view is directly north, for instance, even if you've got a full 180 deg) as it selects three stars or more to orient itself. then you get asked questions like, "is this arcturus?" great if you know your way around the sky already, not so good if you're a little unsure.

prior to this, we had a £50 special given to us by the father-in-law. okay, the optics were rubbish (plastic). but you know what? by dint of a bit of background knowledge and good sense I managed to use the attached "spotting scope" to help me zone in on various planets to show such things as Jupiter's moons, Saturn's rings and various nebulae. would you believe I even got a fleeting view of Neptune by dead reckoning and use of an accurate chart?

I now no longer use the go-to facility on the new scope. I just do it by sighting along the top edge using known constellations and charts. try stellarium as a free download
http://www.stellarium.org/

a really useful book is "turn left at orion" 
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Turn-Left-Orion-Hundred-Telescope/dp/0521781906
which describes how to do the dead reckoning thing and gets you moving about the skies

so my initial advice would be to spend the money on higher quality optics with a sighting scope attached and do it by dead reckoning. I think if you buy a high enough quality scope in the first place you can always buy a motor system afterwards if you find you're  getting the use out of it. hope that helps  :

[Inchlaggan]

I guessed that there would be good advice on the forum, the interesting bit is finding out which member it will come from! Thanks Dave, but if the money rolls in or I fall foul of temptation you'll be plagued with PM's for advice!

[Midgie Hater]

I have a 4 1/2" reflector which I got in the '80s and only last year managed to cart it from my sister's spare room up to here. Sad that many years of better skies in the north were missed. It'll be coming with me to the Pacific NW though

In a word then, although i've occasionally looked, with envy, at the newer 'scopes I can't really offer much in the way of advice as to best-buys. I have read about the "go to" systems and can confirm, from reading alone, that Dave's assessment of this system accords with what i've seen and read. However, even back in the day one of the "must-have" names for serious amateur work was Meade.

I can talk a bit about optics though. I'd certainly advise looking at upgrading eyepieces to the best you can afford. There are some good online deals but the general rule, as with so many things, is you get what you pay for. Depending on the age of your 'scope it should be compatible with 1.2" eyepieces or possible 2". The bigger the better in terms of field-of-view. However, if your particular  'scope takes the old .965" eyepieces (like, sadly, mine does) then you're options are a bit more limited. Especially at higher mags. the optical field is so tight that even being slightly off with location can make the object you're targeting almost impossible to find, and even when you do it will move out of the field very quickly. If it does have the older, smaller size of eyepiece fixing then it's essential to ensure stability and rigidity as even the slightest wobble can make the object you're viewing dance about the field or disappear altogether.

As to useful (free) software though: yep, Stellarium appears to be very good, but you might also want to look at Cartes du Ciel and maybe C2A? I have both of these although as yet no compatible 'scope to make use of the full facilities. Both are very tweakable and also give access to thousands of on-line stellar images which can be downloaded to give them even more "oomph".

[corsican dave]

ha! thanks for reminding me it's a meade etx 80.  so not really a "serious" scope, but certainly not pocket money cheap....

[Fishtales]

For those without a scope and have kids this app is really very good.

Android

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.escapistgames.starchart

iPad

https://itunes.apple.com/gb/app/star-chart/id345542655?mt=8

Or a Windows tablet.

http://apps.microsoft.com/windows/en-gb/app/star-chart/6df7e745-782f-44e7-b408-6259a8da6a7f

Just set your location and point it at the sky and it shows you what is there. My grandchildren love it and they don't even need to go outside as long as the GPS has a fix. I never got around to ever buying a scope but this is the next best thing

[Midgie Hater]

Looks very good for the money Dave. Super Plossl eyepieces too. I believe Plossl's are much better than the Kellner-type I have. I note it's a table-top. Nothing wrong with that of course, especially if it has the go-to system. Mine has an old-style equatorial mount and takes a clock-drive (which is now hard to get), which looks impressive but requires a bit of setting-up to begin with, depending on lattitude. Also, getting digital camera adapters for the old-style can be difficult and expensive. No such problems for your potential purchase. Looking at the prices quoted for that Meade, they equate to what I paid for mine (or rather my parents did bless 'em) in 1984, and obviously offer a lot more facilities for the same outlay.

Good links there Sandy. Wish I had a tablet or Android phone! Mind you, my old mobile has star chart apps. made for it too, but nothing as sophisticated as those.

Actually, now I think about it, my eyepieces may be the old orthoscopic type since my 'scope has a longer focal ratio.

[corsican dave]

yep, i think the optics are pretty good. enough to get jupiter as a proper disc with no blurring, for instance. ours actually came with a half-decent meade tripod which is specially designed for the etx;  http://www.telescopeplanet.co.uk/meade-etx-80

i still can't help thinking that £300 would buy you quite a lot of 'scope without the go-to?

[Midgie Hater]

Hmmm, possibly, although someone more up-to-date on the current astro-tech might know better. From what i've seen online, very many modern 'scopes - even entry-level ones as this Meade is supposed to be - have the Go-to facility. I just noticed too that the retailer indicates this one requires specific software and cable to connect to a PC? I'm not certain if they're trying to maximise their returns there and that this isn't really true, although I think they'd run into problems if they were insisting on this being the case only for it not to be so!

Looking at the spec. also reminded me that if you're wanting to do astro-photography you need a so-called T2 adaptor for a DSLR camera. These are brand/model-specific I believe (in the old days I think only two types existed - for either a screw or bayonet fitting. I'm sure you've seen all this on the site and in various reviews though   I did see mention online somewhere of a method of attaching compact digitals to certain telescopes. I've also heard of some people actually taking (relatively successful) photos with a compact through the eyepiece of the 'scope. I think the ability to do this with any success would depend on your camera's tweakability though. As I say Dave, i'm a bit behind with the tech these days - unfortunately. Sorry not to have been of more help there.