Astronomy / Space Opinions on telescope purchase (Celestron SkyProdigy 130)

[jabokai]

I'm looking at buying a telescope... never had anything more than a pair of binoculars but just fancy one for a bit of a play around.

I'm looking at this one - Celestron SkyProdigy 130 - which sells for £399 online, although the original (or RRP or whatever) price seems quite a bit higher. It seems well suited for an astronumpty (i.e. total beginner) and I can't see much of an alternative up to that price.

Wired gave it 9/10 when priced at £799.

Anyone have any opinions on it, or alternatives?

Cheers.

 

[Dr Wookie]

We'll it certainly looks very astronumpty friendly! Since it can align itself automatically, you could probably lug it up a nearby hill and get going.

The field of view is pretty big compared with other telescopes I've seen. Often they are built so that the moon fills the image (about 0.5 degrees), but this had a 1.9 degree field. It looks like the eye pieces have different magnifications, so you should be able to see planets and stuff pretty well (I don't know much about optical telescopes, having gone from radio to x-ray).

Looks good to me . If you want to make the most of it, like seeing colour or other galaxies, then you'd need to hook up a digital camera or ccd. This would see the full field of view, making the moon fill 1/16th of the image for example, but you can crop. The andromeda galaxy pic on the website is scaled logarithmically (and has crazy colours); your eye would just see the bulge.

By comparison, a 300 mm lens on a full frame dslr has a 6.6 degree field, so the telescope image would be magnified 3 times or so compared with that.

 

[jabokai]

Thanks Doc. :smilie: It does seem to fit the bill for my level of expertise (i.e. zero). It comes with 2 eyepieces but Celestron do set of 6 extra sizes with filters that I can tag on for another £100.

Not too bothered about photographing anything with it, just always fancied a proper "live" look-see at what's out there. I guess it would be nice to do somewhere down the line though.