Astronomy restart - maybe later

[johnridley]

Now that I've cleared the astronomy plate - nearly every last bit of astronomy stuff sold, I'm starting to examine the reasons why, despite really enjoying astronomy, for the last 5 years or so I hardly ever actually did anything.

I think I will restart, this time I think with a computer driven 8" scope and a standardized, parfocal set of workhorse eyepieces. Modern 8" scopes on a computer alt-az mount are relatively inexpensive and very light and portable, and 8" is a pretty good size; big enough to get into a heck of a lot of deep sky objects besides the planets, small enough to easily carry in any car.

I was thinking about a 5", but after looking at video of setup on the new 8" scopes, particularly the Celestron 8se, I'm pretty convinced that they're even more portable and easy to use than before, and having been all over the spectrum now, I think that the 8" Celestron Schmidt that I had 10 years ago was probably the easiest to use and purely fun scope that I ever had. It wasn't computer guided at all, but it was fun. I think the computer will only add to it.

I'm going to wait until spring when I should be able to have money in hand to pay for it, and warm(ish) weather to use it in. That'll give me some time to think it over a few dozen times too.

In any case, it's about 1/3 the money I had tied up into it before, and a scope that's not only smaller, it's far faster to set up, and can be easily broken down and tucked into a corner.

I think selling everything and going back to zero was the move I had to make at this point, because it was hard for me to think in different directions when I already had about the "best" scope that I could imagine having in the direction I went in, and a modest, computerized Schmidt Cassegrain scope is, well, not 180* away, but more than 90.

Comments

[brotherguy.livejournal.com]

Been thinking about this for a day... in fact this almost inspired me to do a whole post myself on the topic. Because I realize virtually everything I am about to say, you already know. But still, you touched a nerve...

Why do you enjoy looking through a telescope? Is it to sit for hours (or ten minutes anyway) absorbing some wonderful sight? Or is it the thrill of the hunt; as soon as you finally see M1 are you ready to say, "right, now where's the Rosette tonight?"

Because, obviously, that will determine what sort of telescope to get.

I hate computer-controlled telescopes. They take away all the fun of finding things, including the serendipity of stumbling across stuff I didn't expect to see. They are also heavier than regular telescope and of course more expensive. They are a pain to set up: too much effort, too much time. And my experience has been that they come with shitty finder scopes. (For someone who loves the thrill of a hunt, a good finder scope is more important than almost anything else.)

But YMMV of course.

I have had the chance to use a relatively cheap (<$500) Dobsonian this past year, with a good finder, and it's a lovely thing to own. Who would want anything more? Expect to pay another $60 for a laser collimator, but that's about it. If you want to spend more, get a nice observer's seat... a nebula filter... an extra lens (modern Barlows are very nice; or a wide-angle with a coma corrector...) All great fun, none of them essential.

I also have my 25+ year old C90 spotter scope, which I have taken (twice) to Australia this year, something I couldn't do with a Dob. I back-equipped it with a new star diagonal so it can now take 1.25" eyepieces, which have a much larger field of view than the old ones that came with the telescope. If you have the opportunity to travel (or expect to in the next ten years), or go camping in the dark on a regular basis, consider a telescope that you can take with you -- get a spotter scope. (Make sure to get a real star diagonal, too many nowadays come with a useless 45-degree "erecting prism")

I suspect that the biggest barrier to using a telescope (again YMMV) is the energy barrier of taking it outside and setting the darn thing up. If you have to make more than one trip to carry the telescope outside, you won't use. Period

If you have a corner of your garage or back shed where you can leave a Dob set up, or a spotter scope that you leave on its tripod, then you can lug it out on a whim; that is ideal.

[johnridley.livejournal.com]

All good points, and points I have made myself to both myself and others in the past.

I like the thrill of the hunt, but a couple of factors negate that. One is that I'd gotten to the point where I was hunting for extremely faint things, and the other is that the light pollution in our area has gotten progressively worse.

Also, it had gotten to the point where really I could find anything in probably an average of 2 minutes, a max of 5, even stuff that wasn't actually visible due to light pollution, I could be certain I had it in the eyepiece. Most Messier objects I could push to and have in the eyepiece in about 15 seconds. I had nothing to prove anymore, and in the limited good observing days that we have in Michigan, I'd rather spend my time looking and sketching than hopping.

Sketching is about my favorite thing, and I can't do it effectively with the dob; I need tracking. It's very distracting to have to keep moving the scope when I'm trying to sketch. I did a lot more sketching when I had the old C8.

Computer controlled scopes are actually lighter than the non-computer-controlled scopes I've had since they work fine without a wedge, and the expense is minimal. 12 years ago I paid $1000 for a Celestron C8. Today the computer controlled C8 is $1300, which is actually cheaper in constant dollars, and it's also more compact and lighter; the whole thing including the tripod is 33 pounds; my 8" dob weighed more than that and was larger. Admittedly the newer scope uses a single arm rather than a fork, so I wouldn't want to try to use it for serious photography, but I've never been interested in photography.

Schmidt cassegrain scopes are certainly more expensive than dobsonians, but they're different beasts and have different capabilities. Computer control does add to the cost, but the computer itself adds little and allows the whole setup to be mechanically simpler since it doesn't need to be equatorially mounted anymore to track.

The finder scope is a red herring. I've never owned a scope that I didn't change finders on. What difference does it make if you buy a scope with a good finder on, or if you buy it without and bolt it on later? There are people who will never change something after buying it, but that describes few in our crowd. For some audiences this is a valid point, but I don't personally know any astronomers that don't change something on their scopes nearly as often than they change shoes.

I have owned a C8, an 8" dob and a 15" dob. The difference in setup was minimal. The computer controlled scope will take an extra few minutes to align, but their current "SkyAlign" seems pretty quick; you just need to point it at any 3 bright things and you're done.

The 15" dob was in the garage, ready to go, but it was so big that I had to spend about 5 minutes moving cars and lawn mowers and stuff like that out of the way to make a good path to roll it out. I think the setup time between that and carrying out the tripod and OTA for the C8 was nil, actually probably quicker with the C8.

In the end, I found myself with a 15" dobsonian scope that I think was probably about the best instrument of its type that I could hope for, in my garage ready to go at any time for nearly 10 years, and I didn't use it more than 4 nights a year. When I had a C8, I used it far, far more than that. And when I looked back at what it was that kept me from going out on any given night, they were mostly specific to the dob.

I spent a lot of time telling myself that I enjoyed the hunt as much as the viewing, and that I didn't need the technology, but in the end I couldn't argue with the plain fact that I simply wasn't using the dob, and I did use the C8. And the thrill of the hunt wasn't actually all that thrilling anymore; how much fun is it to shoot fish in a barrel, after all?

[brotherguy.livejournal.com]

Ah, this makes much more sense to me now. I knew I had to be missing something in why you were going for a computer scope. I hadn't thought of the advantage of doing away with the weight of a wedge.

I am still at the "thrill of the hunt" stage... not patient enough to do good drawings.

[whl.livejournal.com]

Once upon a time, in a book of Unusual Telescopes, I ran into some Porter designs for garden telescopes, which gets rid of the hauling and some of the set up, but means you need optics that can survive weather, and you have to have a garden with not so much light pollution...

[johnridley.livejournal.com]

Garden telescopes are pretty, but they were victorian toys for pretending to look at the moon.

[johnridley.livejournal.com]

I misremembered. The current computerized C8 is not $1300 but $1200, and there's a $100 rebate right now making it $1100, and Amazon will ship one for free which puts it at about $50 more than I paid for my C8 with shipping 12 years ago, and it's also about 10 pounds lighter. But one of my promises to myself a couple of months ago was that I would never again buy anything on credit, and I can't save up enough before the rebate expires, so I'll wait for a few more months.