With the darker nights fast approaching this is a good beginner telescope that normally retails around £100. Never bought from SRS Microsystems before but Watford based UK stock. Offer expires midnight 24/09
19 comments
jamesgreeley
24 Sep 17#18
Coming up at 99.99 for me. Any voucher required or has the deal expired?
shoryuken
24 Sep 17#14
Until they sell a scope that is powerful enough that which with you can see the space station clearly I'm not interested
Steve353
24 Sep 17#13
Cheapest delivery option I can see is £2.99 (2-3 working days), this should be included in the price.
kazimierzkozlowski1
24 Sep 17#12
Ordered. Thanks op
chefjeegar
24 Sep 17#11
One of the best things to do is join astronomers in your area where you can sample varied range of scopes and chat to astronomers about same. In London they meet fortnightly in Baker Street look them up on Facebook Baker Street Irregulars ny
jaydeeuk1
23 Sep 17#10
Pretty decent price. The AZ mount is far more suitable imo than an EQ mount for visual observation. Its a nice light scope to get started with.
Just bear in mind:
1) You will not be seeing full colour hubble style images with this. All DSO, clusters, galaxies will look like grey fuzzy blobs. Spend £1000 more and they'll be brighter grey fuzzy blobs. Buy a £10k 20" dobsonion, and they'll still be grey but detailed fuzzy blobs (although some might see colour in something like m42 from a dark site). you get the idea 2) The moon will look pretty decent, you will see 4 moons around Jupiter, rings of saturn, mars and venus as bright reddish / orange dots. This might give you a rough idea of what to expect - just be aware that although this has the same aperture its a tracking scope so a camera is used to gather light
3) There will come a time where you want to stick a camera in the eyepiece and take photos of what you can see. Its a money pit, and if you're in the UK its just pure frustration if you have kids, a job, a wife etc. Its rarely clear, the BBC weather forecast is useless, its cold, its dark, it involves a lot of faffing. I went down that slippery slope after starting off with a basic alt az tracking scope, then stuck a webcam in it, then mounted a DSLR, a PC for tracking, then starsense, then chucked it all in an observatory, and now £1500 later I want to start again and do it properly.
I'm putting this excellent comment in the Top Ten HUKD Comments of 2017.
balmots
23 Sep 17#9
Good Value kit. Fifty years ago I used to make my own scopes from long cardboard tubes & although I used sub perfect lenses the moons craters were very clear. Can always pass on the telescope should it prove to be a two minute wonder.
MarkShopper
23 Sep 17#6
I too would suggest binoculars as being easier to use and surprisingly effective is you get good ones, look at Celestron Skymaster. Use the Stellarium app to plan what you are going to look at, then start with the moon, planets and look around Orion.
fishz
23 Sep 17#5
I have this scope and think that it's very good. It is tricky for kids to use hence I agree with the point about starting with binoculars but this is still a very good scope for kids. It shows images the "right way up" so also good for viewing terrestial objects. This is a great price too.
Seems a good price, but I'd be interested in the opinions of those 'in the know' about such things as I'm thinking about trying to get the kids interested in such things... Please no 'you should spend the little extra and get a 40" reflector, it's only £3000...' and suchlike though :smile: If it's worth spending some more, tell me why and where please :grin:
VDisillusioned to bilbob
23 Sep 17#2
Well the standard, and entirely valid, response would be - buy some binoculars and a star-map (or a smartphone app) go somewhere dark and see. Then, when you find your internet age kids are completely underwhelmed by astronomy, at least you will still be able to use the binoculars for other things like nature watching :wink:
vulcanproject to VDisillusioned
23 Sep 17#7
Or that person over the road who really should get some curtains
VDisillusioned to vulcanproject
23 Sep 17#8
Well I was going to say "at least you will still be able to use the binoculars for other things like bird watching" but thought people might think I was using innuendo, so I changed it to "nature watching" There's no stopping you though, is there? :wink:
RandAlThor to VDisillusioned
24 Sep 17#15
Any advise on decent binoculars under £50
JonF992 to RandAlThor
24 Sep 17#17
A smidge over, but these are pretty much the best availbale at about £50
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Opening post
19 comments
Just bear in mind:
1) You will not be seeing full colour hubble style images with this. All DSO, clusters, galaxies will look like grey fuzzy blobs. Spend £1000 more and they'll be brighter grey fuzzy blobs. Buy a £10k 20" dobsonion, and they'll still be grey but detailed fuzzy blobs (although some might see colour in something like m42 from a dark site). you get the idea
2) The moon will look pretty decent, you will see 4 moons around Jupiter, rings of saturn, mars and venus as bright reddish / orange dots.
This might give you a rough idea of what to expect - just be aware that although this has the same aperture its a tracking scope so a camera is used to gather light
3) There will come a time where you want to stick a camera in the eyepiece and take photos of what you can see. Its a money pit, and if you're in the UK its just pure frustration if you have kids, a job, a wife etc. Its rarely clear, the BBC weather forecast is useless, its cold, its dark, it involves a lot of faffing. I went down that slippery slope after starting off with a basic alt az tracking scope, then stuck a webcam in it, then mounted a DSLR, a PC for tracking, then starsense, then chucked it all in an observatory, and now £1500 later I want to start again and do it properly.
4) stargazerslounge.com is a fantastic site
Fifty years ago I used to make my own scopes from long cardboard tubes & although I used sub perfect lenses the moons craters were very clear.
Can always pass on the telescope should it prove to be a two minute wonder.
Please no 'you should spend the little extra and get a 40" reflector, it's only £3000...' and suchlike though :smile:
If it's worth spending some more, tell me why and where please :grin:
amazon.co.uk/Oly…+50