What to buy with 4k budget (1 Viewer)

Hello to all of you...

In my other post, I said that i bought a chinese scope directly from alibaba for 150 euros. 25-75x100. Let's see how it fares for moon observation.

Now this purchase was made for kids and to allow me to pursue my ultimate scope without the need to jump on one right away.

I have a 4k budget and want to buy the best scope out there... I am also interested in light astronomy (planets mostly) and would like to know if any of those have 1.25 astronomy eyepiece adapters so i can buy 2mm optics to put on them... Will it work ?

thanks for any input

best

How heavy a scope are you happy with? Do you want it waterproof? You could get a very nice astro ED
APO and then pretty much any wide angle astro eyepiece, would give good day/night views.... heavy and non waterproof, depends on you priorities? I got a pair of 70mm APM 45 degree binoculars (4kg), give great two eyed views, I normally use them at 30x, but they can go higher/lower with other astro eyepieces. Not lightweight, but ED and fully waterproof. For your budget you could get larger.... but carrying would get harder....
For options on high power views I suggest reading through http://www.pt-ducks.com/cr-telescopes.htm Lots to consider.


Peter

hey peter, thanks for your reply.

I don't really mind heavy as I would be staying at the same place a lot. I like to wait.

I will be using it for the city as well, so i would need a close focus distance (around 5m).

I would like to go higher in zoom to be able to really see the moon in detail.

Don't need waterproof, just the best optics.

Best

Hi bb,

If one wants to see detail on the planets other than the Earth, then magnifications of 100x and higher are needed.

Spotting scopes don't really provide this.

A 100mm astro refractor or maybe a 200mm Dobsnian is O.K.

My friend looked at Mars yesterday.
He used 330x, 400x and 550x on his 350mm Skywatcher Dobsonian, 400x was the best and showed a lot of detail. He also used various filters.
The pole cap is rapidly shrinking, but otherwise much detail is there.

With a 200mm Dobsonian, 200x is a sensible starting point for planets.

Spotting scopes are OK for the Moon.
Also Jupiter's moons and Saturn's rings and Titan and possibly 4 other Saturn moons with a large spotting scope.

Probably the best planetary views in the world have been seen from Pic du Midi in France with the 1 metre and 1,5 metre scopes.

Regards,
B.

P.S.
If you mean a 2mm eyepiece on a spotting scope.
Assuming the eye relief was OK, depending on whether you use glasses or not.
Then say a 500mm focal length objective would give 250x.
Few spotting scopes could take 250x without image breakdown.
I suppose some may be O.K. at 180x.

However, a good astro scope can take 250x.

Also usual tripods are not steady enough, although I have used 180x with a Vivitar 600mm f/8 solid Cat lens with a 3x teleconverter and Japanese monocular converter on a 2.5kg Slik 88 tripod. It easily split epsilon Lyrae both components about 2.5 arcsecond separation.

Thank you for all the input.

I will look into this.

I saw that the swaro 95mm has a 1.7 extender, which should give us 140x. would this be enough ?

Hi,

the ATX 95 has a zoom range of 30-70x - with extender that is up to 120x. That is a magnification which you will only be able to use in good seeing conditions during daylight - kinda rare.

And even then the image is not going to be very bright with an exit pupil of 0.8mm.

All that implies that your example of ATX is a good one - test it before buying or inside the return period when buying online.

For astro, 120x in a 95mm instrument will show you nice lunar views and of course some brighter deep sky stuff. Planets could use more magnification but you will see some detail at 120x with a good scope under good seeing.

Joachim

Jupiter's disc is the same angular size as a medium size crater on the Moon, 50 miles or 80km diameter.

Saturn and Mars are about the same as a small crater, i.e a 25 mile or 40km crater on the Moon.

With a spotting scope one cannot see much detail on these.

Terrestrial views in daylight are quite different to night time steady temperature views at night.
3 a.m is the best time but the Seeing or steadiness of the air can be good at other times.

Also the exit pupil size really doesn't matter at night if one has good eyes.
I can still use 0.5mm exit pupil with one eye and 0.35mm with the other. I am well past my sell by date.
I don't know why this exit pupil discussion goes on.
Planetary observers from Dawes onwards used 65x per inch aperture on planets, say 0.4mm exit pupils.
Usually starting at 1.0mm, then higher for fine detail.

Regards,
B.

With 4K to spend I would go for two different scopes.

A spotter with close-ish focus, weatherproof and portable.

And an astro-scope for less portable, less weatherproof and high magnification.

Mono said:

With 4K to spend I would go for two different scopes.

A spotter with close-ish focus, weatherproof and portable.

And an astro-scope for less portable, less weatherproof and high magnification.

Click to expand...

thank you for taking the time to reply.

Do you have any astro-scope in mind ?

I ended up buying the swaro atx 85.

too late but there was a kona 883 advertised on cloudynights - for sale norway, a guy had some comparisons & the kiwa took high nagnification better with the 1.6 extender over the swaro 95

Do you have any astro-scope in mind ?

Click to expand...

I'm sorry I'm not an expert in that field, but there are many folk on here who are.

bbirrddy said:

thank you for taking the time to reply.

Do you have any astro-scope in mind ?

I ended up buying the swaro atx 85.

Click to expand...

Hi,

not really the right place here for astro - for more in-depth help maybe ask on cloudynights...

But an 8" dobsonian is a great introduction into astro which will show a lot more than a small refractor, is still easily transportable in most cars and will not break the bank.

Joachim