beginners telescope

Please can someone advise?

I was interested in buying a telescope for my wife and grown up son, they seem keen on the sky at nightime and I would like to encourage their interest.
I seen this on ebay. In your opinion would this telescope be worth buying as an introduction to astonomy or is there somewhere else I should look?

ebay Item number: 190270129121


Eddie Mc Auley
Belfast





£99.99 Buy It Now >


CELESTRON ASTROMASTER 114EQ ASTRONOMY & LAND TELESCOPE
Celestron 1000x114EQ
Brand New Newtonian Reflecting Dual Telescope
10 year warranty!
A FULLY ADJUSTABLE REFLECTING LAND AND ASTRO TELESCOPE WITH LOADS OF ACCESSORIES
The Details:
• Astronomical 1000mm focal length Reflecting telescope
• 114mm Objective Lens diameter
• Two eyepieces: 10mm and 20mm
• Multi coated 'natural' colour lens coatings
• Folding eyepieces- for glasses wearers
• Terrestrial viewing with the 20mm prismatic lens
• Focal Ratio F/8.8
• Starpointer electronic FinderScope
• Spherical aluminised mirror
• Twin Tracker Flexicables Horizontal and Vertical Arc
• Equatorial 4-way Mount Alt; Azimuth; Declination and hour circles
• Full Height 'quick adjust' Stainless Steel Tripod with centre brace
• Central Tripod stabiliser and tray
• Twin baffle lens cap
• 'The Sky' CD-Rom Star Guide Software
• Full Instructions
• 10 Year Manufacturers Warranty
• Can be Optionaly adapted to accept all standard SLR cameras
• Weight 15.5kgs
This is a huge 114mm (4.5") diameter Astro Telescope, capable of seeing deep into space AND superb terrestrial (land) viewing in the day!

The real difference between Telescopes is not so much power, but brightness, and the larger the front end, the more light can be collected, and so the more CLARITY and DETAIL can be seen.
This telescope has a massive 114mm front end diameter, which means that pretty much whatever you point it at, you are going to see! In fact, with this Scope at lower powers, the night sky view will be absolutely stuffed from edge to edge with stars and you'll have to use the special lens cap it comes with to block out some of the light to view sensibly! Two lenses are included - and many more types are available- to give as much flexibility as you wish.
Be careful though- as soon as you increase power, you can also increase a number of other problems such as:

• Brightness
• With this telescope you can still see plenty at high power as there is loads of light pouring in the top
• Shake
• This comes with a superb looking, and heavy-duty (but oddly lightweight) STAINLESS STEEL full sized tripod, together with a rock solid Telescope Equatorial Mount.
• Field
• Higher power = smaller bit of the sky = harder to find what you want to see! This comes with the latest Starpointer electronic FinderScope - like a laser dot, which makes locating a target dead easy.
• Equatorial Mount
• Worth it's weight in gold! This device allows you to really easily set up and move the telescope to point at any part of the sky you wish, it also has standard markings to tie in with Star charts and maps, so you can correctly point at an object even when you can't see it with the naked eye! Secondly, because the earth spins, everything visible in the sky is constantly on the move. Normally we hardly notice, but the higher the magnification, the faster an Astronomical object will move out of view and at high power, in just a couple of minutes! This Equatorial mount includes flexi Tracking Handles that allow you to fine control the telescope whilst viewing, and literally TRACK the target as it moves across the sky!
• Believe it or not, we have only touched on the surface, this is a VERY complete outfit with even more accessories then we have mentioned above. It will give many years of enjoyment and comes with a manufacturers 10-year warranty
• PLUS! This latest Celestron telescope comes with the brilliant 'The Sky' 4,000 object Astronomy Software (Worth over £35). This essentially puts the Northern and Southern night sky onto your computer. You can see the positions of constellations, galaxies nebula and LOADS more. Move into space to see the whole night sky, or zoom in to one small section and click on an object to find out about it. There's a massive amount to explore - I could go on for days - for instance information on stars, planets, constellations, comets etc. Photographs of stars, galaxies and planets. Best of all there is an excellent solar system map that displays in real time (it gets the date from your computer). Using this you can get the position, rising and setting times of the Moon, the planets and any comets that happen to be in the solar system at the time. You can print out the sky charts and there is even a night vision mode so you can load the software onto your lap top or notebook computer and actually use it in conjunction with the telescope!

Hi Eddmac

If I could give anyone any advice it would be, buy a telescope from a dealer here in Ireland if you can. that way If you ever need advice or there's a problem wiht the product you can always contact them. Avoid any high street camera shops or retailers!!! stay well away, they often advertise telescopes incorrectly ( A 60mm aperture witha a massive 660 times magnification)
With an aperture that small and a magnification that high, trust me, you wont see much at all.
When it comes to telescopes, the bigger the better, the more aperture, the more light is collected. I would highly recommend the Celestron Astromaster 4.5" Reflector. That was the first telscope I bought and it did the job. Quality optics with an OK mount ( could have beena a bit more sturdy) . The only downside to that scope is the eyepieces.
the 10 and 20mm are probably kellner eyepieces, they're fine and all but it only focuses an object when it is centered in the eyepiece, so if you're looking at the moon, the egdes will appear all blurred. but other than that, it's a fine scope. But, I would highly recommened buy at least two good quality eyepieces, preferably plossl eyepieces. I got three very good eyepieces off astroshop.biz ( 8mm, 15mm and a 40mm) all for under a 100 euros. all Vixen brand.

I'd recommend before buying any telescope is pick yourself up a pair of binoculars. They're an invaluable item to have. Portable and offer a wide field of view. It's the best and most easiest way to discover what's out there.


well best of luck.

If you need any more advice, dont hesitate to ask .

Philip

Thanks Philip,
Your advice is very well appreciated.
I have seen a small pair of binocullars, - apochromatic colour correctiion, 10x30 ed, with fluoride glass.
Is this the type of thing I need or will these features distort night sky images?

ed

Hi Ed.

I'm more than happy to give anyone any advice and help they need. A pair of 10 x 30 binoculars aren't the best for astronomical use. I bought a pair of Celestron 15 x 70 from argos, about a year and a half ago. Only cost 109 euros ( including a tripod)
The quality is amazing, sharp crisp view across the whole field of view. I've been usning them alot lately, nothing better than laying back with a pair of bino's and sweeping the sky!
I'm most interested in open star clusters, and binoculars I think are the perfect tool for the job. But, they can see further than that. The orion nebula, pleaides, andromeda galaxy, other galaxies too, perfect for viewing the moon aswell.

A pair of 10 x 30's would be more suited for terrestrial viewing, bird watching, peering into people's houses lol only joking
If you can, try and buy a pair with at least 10 x 50. I'd recommned buying a pair of celestron skymaster 15 x 70. Multi- coated lenses and high qaulity prisms.

Just don't get sucked in to buying something on its appearance, I fell for that too and there's nothing worse than buying a crap telescope with low quality optics. You will be dissapointed with it aswell as wasting your money!

Hope this helps. any more question don't hesitate to ask.

Philip

Couldn't agree with Phillip more Ed, a good pair of binos is the way to go, let them learn their way around the sky and then progress from there. There are many great sites on the web selling binos, Pulsar-Optical in the UK is where I got my last two pairs and the service and binos are first rate.

Where are you located Ed as I'm sure there is a member close by who might loan you a pair to try out.

Paul

Thanks for your advice.
I have today bought a similar pair of bins to the set mentioned above, no tri-pod though.
Should have it in a few days.

next I will need some charts etc to know what I am looking at.
Is it best just to surf for this info?