SonnyE Loc: Communist California, USA

I've been reading and reading, browsing and searching, Dreaming and Scheming, and even tossed some PM's out there.
I've GPS'd, got depressed, in my searches to find glass to take me out there.
But in this quest I've come to one that I think I like the best.
Yay or Nay?


SkyProdigy 6 Computerized Telescope
http://www.celestron.com/browse-shop/astronomy/telescopes/skyprodigy-6-computerized-telescope

My reason is the Star-scope technology. Even the Grand Kids can play.
I plan to add a camera to feed it to my Toshiba laptop, or maybe a TV display.
And to "feed the beast" with power from my truck (or RV) when out in the wilds (Dark Skies). (Inverter already available.)
While GPS has been successful, I think this Star Sense might top it.
Care to share your thoughts?
(I have budget constraints, so please, no $3,000-$8,000 suggestions. Thanks)

Oknoder Loc: Western North Dakota

First off, what is your budget? Just made own opinion but if you ever plan to attach a camera to your scope, disregard the notion of looking for a scope. Most scopes are a dime a dozen on used sites, its the mount and your ability to troubleshoot the many issues that arise in this hobby that make or break a person in this hobby.

Without googling the specific scope you mentioned, I think it has the "Starsense" technology. This is actually pretty cool for visual, for imaging ehh it does help correcting polar alignment but it cannot correct the inherent field rotation that is caused from being off in your initial alignment.

Couple of tips,
If you plan on storing your mount and scope inside, make sure your do not get a scope that is so large and difficult to set up, it never gets used.

If you do setup and tear down at the end of every session, find a way to mark your correct alignment position. Marking or placing where the tripod feet is a common way to ease the initial setup time and frustration.

Last but not least, take your time and enjoy the nature around you. I have been an amateur astronomer for years, but only recently began with imaging. The setbacks and nights of wasted effort have been countless, but to me the solving of one issue so I can begin to tackle the next is part of the fun.

Clear skies,
Matthew

Ps there is a curse in astronomy, whenever you buy a new scope you will have weeks of cloudy skies. At least for me it never fails

yhtomit Loc: Port Land. Oregon

You might want to consider an 8 inch scope to get a bang out of the night sky.I am looking at the Meade ls 8 at 1999.00.I am trying to find out what the camera load it can handle.I have a meade LX90 8" and it's a pain to align.These automagic jobbers look like the ticket.
Have fun.

SonnyE Loc: Communist California, USA

Okey Dokey. I'm trying to stay around $1000. It seems to exclude most 8" scopes I've looked at.

No need to Google, I provided the link. That takes you directly to the telescope I was thinking about. Celestron Skyprodigy 6
A Starsence alignment scope is built in to this "series" of 2 different scopes. This 6" being the larger of the two.

I have always brought everything back inside when I'm done for the evening. (I pick up my toys. ) ;)

I have two observation sites so far in my backyard. What I've done is to set up my current tripod, and when it is aligned, plumbed, and leveled, I have glued done fender washers to give me semi-permanent indexed points for the tripods feet to land in.
One site is for Northward (Polaris), and the other is Southward. Both are to give the best view at my location.
It's as permanent and repeatable as I can do short of sinking piers. ;)
And they way I have these set, a telescope tripod should be able to sink its toes right in.
The reason for two sites is for the best clear views. It gets me my best shot with the least ground interference or direct light pollution.
Otherwise, I do have two nearby sites in the National Forest away from much of the light pollution short of driving a very long ways to get to the dark skies. My dumb luck blessing me here again.

I've been doing my homework. I've decided against a 6" Refractor, and decided a SCT would be better for me. I want portability I can take to the desert when we go out with the kids and Grand Kids for them to play in the dirt.
Grandpa gets to shoot Macro of tiny flowers and things, to the stars you can't see nearer to civilization.
And the SkyProdigy series promises to allow even my electronically challenged wife (Who fights with her Iphone and TV remote) the possibility of being able to push an Align button and be star gazing in 3 minutes.
If the teenagers or younger ones can pick a Nebula or Star Cluster, and then see it on my laptop, or fed to a larger screen, they might have more interest. ;)

Oknoder Loc: Western North Dakota

I did look at your scope, clicking on your link after typing my last reply. Cats are nice scopes and gives you a long focal length for a low amount of money spent. This would be a nice setup for a beginner but it is designed for mostly visual. Since it is an Alt/Az mount it will not track the sky without field rotation which is needed for imaging. They make EQ wedges to counter this issue and this model may even have one built in, but going on personal experience I have never been satisfied with the Alt/Az design on a wedge.

Granted my only experience is with an older 10" Meade LX200 but I was never able to get accurate tracking with it on the wedge and an GEM (German Equatorial Mount) that can carry this weight was out of my initial budget when beginning imaging.

A couple of options

Slightly over your budget
http://www.celestron.com/browse-shop/astronomy/telescopes/advanced-vx-6-schmidt-cassegrain-telescope

What I started with
http://www.celestron.com/browse-shop/astronomy/telescopes/advanced-vx-6-newtonian-telescope

I made the mistake of purchasing this mount on release and its first few months were a bit buggy but most of the kinks have been worked out by now I believe.

Thanks,
Matthew

Tom--K4TTA Loc: Near Memphis. TN

I have a Celestron CPC1100 and really like it. Several folks in my local astroclub have Celestrons and all seem equally well pleased. I've also had really good service from their technical support.
Have you looked into NRTV? Check out www.Nightskiesnetwork.com You can do a lot with a fairly inexpensive video camera that you can't do with a "traditional" camera (and vice-versa!). Your grandkids may like the "eyepiece TV" better. A lot of the video folks are using alt-az mounts quite successfully, even on fairly faint DSO's. Good luck and clear skies.

proteus1 Loc: NEVADA

Albuqshutterbug Loc: Albuquerque NM

You have seen what I am getting with my Celestron setup and some of the issues I have seen so I wont go there.
The only thing I see about the setup you are looking at that may someday be an issue is the inability to mount whatever you want to it. My setup has a learning curve but it lets me mount my camera or my tubes depending on what I want to image or just plain view.
Just a thought.
(I like the idea of picking any 3 stars and not needing to know what they are and the device aligns for you as long as its level. If it really works, that would be so cool.)

JimH123 Loc: Morgan Hill, CA

My concerns about this scope are several.

1) The tripod is rated at about 8 (or perhaps 8.8) pounds and the scope almost weighs that much, let alone adding a camera.

2) I read reviews of the auto-align and in some cases the results were not too good.

3) I failed to find any examples of images taken through this scope. I have concerns that a mount like this is going to be taking tiny micro steps on both axis resulting in the movements being visible in the image. A true equatorial drive uses a constantly running motor to accommodate the rotation of the earth and it is aligned to match your exact latitude.

Here is is what I bought, and I only spent a little more:

Tripod and Drive -- I got it on sale for under $600. It is really stable. Comes with one 11.5 pound counter weight and I bought one more since I couldn't balance the scope + camera with only one weight. I also purchased the scope that fits in the polar axis for proper alignments.

http://www.highpointscientific.com/celestron-cg5-advanced-series-computerized-equatorial-mount-91518?gclid=CJvWj_b_vMQCFXJp7Aod-CAAgg

Reflector Scope -- Orion 8" Astrograph -- Designed for Astrophotography. But I did find the edges were fuzzy so I added a Coma Corrector. The images are now sharp from edge to edge. I have also replaced the finder scope with a much better Orion 9 x 50 and also added a Celestron Star Finder for crude pointing.

http://www.telescope.com/Telescopes/Reflector-Telescopes/Reflector-Optical-Tube-Assemblies/Orion-8-f39-Newtonian-Astrograph-Reflector-Telescope/pc/1/c/11/sc/345/p/101450.uts

http://www.optcorp.com/ba-mpcc-multi-purpose-coma-corrector-mpcc-mark-iii.html?gclid=COy25d-CvcQCFSlo7AodhicAaw

The alignment is is manual and sometimes I make mistakes and have to start over. I do a three star alignment and then calibrate with two more. And I find if I have done a proper alignment that it goes exactly to the point I ask for and the item is dead center every time. With time exposures, I don't see any drifts going offtrack at all.

The scope is 8" and about f3.9. I get some vignetting with the full frame camera but none with the crop sensor, which is equiv of a 1200mm focal length. And this is with the 2" focuser. The focuser has coarse and fine adjust and it is easy to find good focus.

I do have a spot in the back yard marked so I have a known setup spot and can immediately be in a good starting location. What's not good is that my backyard doesn't have full view of the sky and there is some amount of light pollution.

The scope plus tripod is rather big and and bulky and not too portable.

I also connect a HDMI LCD to my camera since the LCD on the camera is often not easily seen at all possible angles. The tripod and LCD run off a 12V battery that I use.

CraigFair Loc: Santa Maria, CA.

You have my thumbs-up for your decision Sonny. :thumbup: :thumbup: :thumbup: Ops I only have two thumbs.
Craig

JimH123 Loc: Morgan Hill, CA

Hi Sonny,

Thought maybe I should set some expectations. A goto scope will certainly take you to the object, but with a scope that size, the actual galaxies and most nebula are so faint that they are hardly noticeable. To see the interesting things will take long exposures and lots of post processing.

Its real good at finding stars, and those stars are very easy to observe. And then there is a list of double stars to go find, and those are easy to. But the novelty does wear off when looking at only stars.

The type mount that the scope has is not suitable for long exposures. It moves in tiny steps with both axis and is not a steady movement coming from the motor drive of a true equatorial mount.

I can't say I am expert at aligning the equatorial mount. But I get it close enough. My exposures of 30s to a minute seem to be right on. (I have included a shot to look at that was 25 sec) I suppose on a much longer exposure, it would drift off target. The means to do a perfect alignment seems out of reach of most amateurs, and only the real hard core serious amateurs have the right equipment to make it precise.

So the point I'm making is if you want to image through a scope, the mount is more important than the scope. I have mounted my various camera lenses on the mount instead of the big 8" reflector and they all work well too. I like using fast primes and tend to avoid zooms for capturing sky images.

And speaking of mounts, one of the most common things I hear is that many users wish they had purchased a more heavy duty mount. I am using a Celestron CG-5 with an 8" scope. The mount weighs close to 50 pounds. And 23 pounds of counter weights and it is now even heavier. The 8" scope is close to 20 pounds. Then I add the camera. I am probably maxed out on this mount. It is steady and doesn't seem to vibrate. When I align it carefully, anything I want to look at is dead center in the image. I use a car battery to drive it. I also use the car battery to drive an external LCD monitor using the HDMI signal from the camera. I don't see as much on the monitor as I will see once the picture is taken. Galaxies appear mainly as smudges. They require processing to bring them out.

I am attaching an unprocessed original of a shot of Andromeda. This is a 25 sec shot taken at ISO 3200 using the Orion 8" Astrograph with a Coma Corrector and with a Sony A57 APS-C type sensor. I shot this shot using the multi-frame noise reduction option the camera has which fires 6 shots and processes them in the camera for lower noise. This option also requires that it be done in JPG which means it is not as adjustable when done. But this represents what I got out of the camera, not what I see through the eyepiece.

On top of that, I don't get to actually take the scope out all that often. This thing called a JOB cuts into to my fun time. Since I get up at 5AM for work, I can't stay out doing this at night very often. When I retire, maybe next year, things will change.

I am also adding a screen shot showing the histogram on the unedited file. Notice it is approaching the middle. That's about where I like it. Too much exposure and it goes too far to the right and is harder to adjust.

Unedited image of Andromedia

(Download)

For your reference, a look at the histogram

Oknoder Loc: Western North Dakota

While I have no experience with this particular alt/az mount, my experience with them is that if you have a focal length over 800mm it is rather difficult to get exposures over 30s without noticeable field rotation, depending on the region being imaged it factors into the equations also. The 6" skyprodigy's auto alignment camera is the only thing I can speak of. I do own the Starsense which was bought when it was first released. In the beginning it had severe problems that would send the scope slewing erratically into the mount, which could be disastrous if I wasn't right there so I could cancel the action by mashing buttons on the hand controller, or even yanking the power cord on a few occasions.

These issues have been fixed and only a few minor bugs remain, mostly issues dealing with the Southern Hemisphere. These may have been fixed as I have not been a follower of the beta forum like I used to be. I do have to say, if setting up and tearing down nightly the starsense can literally save a half an hour or so of setup. If on a permanent pier it is not that useful as the alignment does not change night to night. I simply unpark the mount and resume where I left off the night before.

CraigFair Loc: Santa Maria, CA.

Nice shot Jim it PPed very nicely. :D
Craig

JimH123 Loc: Morgan Hill, CA

Actually, this is without any post processing. The intent was to show what you get from the camera. This was 6 shots which were stacked in-camera to produce one lower noise output.

I am somewhat mixed on this. The camera can stack 6 shots to get a lower noise image, but its only JPG. This is no extra work. Or, take a number of RAW with no in-camera stacking. Mostly likely will end up with a better image stacking the RAWs myself. But it is interesting to see what the camera can do on its own.

CraigFair Loc: Santa Maria, CA.

Hi Jim. Sorry I did not explain. I downloaded and tweaked it myself in Lightroom and Topaz Detail3 just to play with it. I comes out slightly better that my single RAW.
Craig