Accessories for first telescope

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dossett
Posts: 91
Joined: Tue Mar 09, 2021 7:31 am
Real Name: Aaron Niskode-Dossett

Accessories for first telescope

Post by dossett »

I purchased my first telescope a couple weeks ago, a Skywatcher 100mm refractor paired with a Celestron AVX mount, and I absolutely love it. I've observed the moon, some open clusters, mars, lots of double stars, and a few variable stars over the course of a few viewing sessions and been really impressed. I'm thinking now about some accessories to add to it and I would appreciate anyone's thoughts on that topic. Here are some I'm thinking about:

Celestron Lunar and Planetary Filter set. https://www.celestron.com/products/luna ... -set-125in
I'm really looking forward to seeing Jupiter and Saturn this fall and am currently enjoying the moon. I've heard that filters can improve the planetary viewing and a lunar filter would be nice. Is 50% transmission still too much? I've seen some variable polarizing filters that range from 1% to 40%, but of course those cost more.

A soft case to store the AVX mount head https://www.highpointscientific.com/ape ... -a-avxcase
This seems very handy, but also somewhat expensive for a soft case that just lets me reuse the packing foam I already have. Has anyone used this?

A 10mm eyepiece https://www.celestron.com/products/ulti ... ece-1-25in
My Skywatcher came with a 25mm and a 5mm so the 10mm seems like a nice addition. Is the ultima edge a good line of eye pieces? I don't have a sense of how much is reasonable to spend on eyepieces for my telescope. I've seen some very expensive eye pieces, but I assume they make sense for scopes much higher end than mine. I have a 2" star diagonal that can take either 1.25" or 2" eye pieces, should I look at a 2" eyepiece? It's not clear to me when that's advantageous.

A celestron wifi adapter for the avx mount. This would seem to let me control the mount through various apps on my iPhone including Stellarium (which I purchased). This is a lower priority for me since I think the hand controller is very to use, but I could see myself getting it someday.

Am I missing anything? Advice on these accessories, or any others, for a beginning amateur would be really appreciated. Thanks! -Aaron
"Astronomy compels the soul to look upwards and leads us from this world to another." -- Plato

Skywatcher 100mm on a Celestron AVX mount
Celestron 9.25" Evolution SCT
10x50 Midas G2 binoculars
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SEmert
Posts: 1794
Joined: Mon May 31, 2004 2:48 pm
Real Name: Steve Emert
Location: White Bear Lake, MN

Re: Accessories for first telescope

Post by SEmert »

That bag looks to be a pretty decent deal at that price. I didn't see that at the time I got mine, so I went to Home Depot and bought a 27 gallon "Tough Box" container (black container, yellow snap on lid) for my AVX head which works pretty well and costs about a third the price of the soft bag. The W x D dimensions are about right for the AVX shipping foam, and it is a bit taller so I have room on top of the foam to keep a 3-ring binder with a copy of the mount's instruction manual and I made up another piece of foam to lay on the top to keep the tripod's spreader plate so it doesn't slip around during travel. It has room to fit a few more things in it as well.

I bought a Neewer tripod bag on Amazon for the AVX tripod. Neewer 35"x7"x8"/90x18x20cm Padded Carrying Bag with Strap which is currently $28.23. It is a good bag for a reasonable price.

That looks like a decent set of filters for planetary. For the Moon filter I have a polarized filter so I can adjust the amount of light it passes, but the 50% filter should be pretty decent.

Is your Skywatcher 100mm a 900mm focal length scope? 900/5=180x and 900/10=90x and 900/25=36x so you're pretty well set up for planetary and larger DSO's. Perhaps include also a 15 or 17mm to get 60 or 52x? I do a lot of DSO observing at 60-80x.

You should be able to get the WiFi adapter any time later, so I agree it's a lower priority. To me the Celestron handpad is pretty easy to use. I found for best finding accuracy I have to add a third star to the two star alignment.

What do you have for a finder? 8x50 RA? That's a nice, useful finder. If you wanted to augment it with a red dot finder (which a lot of us use as our default finder), you may find that useful under conditions where you don't need the magnification. I can't tell from the pictures, but I think your OTA uses an Orion/Vixen finder dovetail so the inexpensive red dot finders should fit in its place.

You'll probably want to consider dew control sooner rather than later. The primary may be pretty well protected with the dew shield but it could be augmented with a dew heater strap. Eyepieces seem to dew up pretty fast, so a dew heater for the eyepiece is pretty essential, as is one for the front of the finder. If you don't want to go to the expense of a 12V battery and powered dew straps right away, you can probably get by with rubber-banding those little chemical hand warmer packets to the side of the eyepiece, finder and primary.

What do you have for charts and atlases? Relying only upon smart phone planetarium programs? The old-school paper route is a planisphere (you can even make one for free; see the web links near the top of the B-SIG forum), perhaps the S&T Pocket Sky Atlas (or for free, download the Mag 7 Atlas .pdf charts from CloudyNights.com and put them in page protectors in a 3-ring binder (again, the link to this atlas is in the B-SIG forum). And/or, the book "Objects in the Heavens" by Peter Birren is a great book that has a section showing what are the brightest and best objects by constellation.

If you don't mind listening to my long winded B-SIG presentation on scopes, mounts and accessories from early last year, you can play it back (or fast forward through it to the relevant spots). The link is: viewtopic.php?f=5&t=11473
Steve Emert
MAS Membership Coordinator
12.5" f/4.7 Obsession Clone Homemade Truss Dob, sometimes equipped with Celestron StarSense Explorer app
Celestron C8 SCT OTA on AVX GEQ mount
Astro-Tech AT72 ED Refractor OTA usually on Explore Scientific Twilight 1mount or tripod with Benro geared head
Celestron 5" SCT OTA on Synta AZ-4 or Explore Scientific Twilight 1 Alt-Az Mount, usually equipped with StarSense Explorer app
Orion 150mm Mak OTA and Orion EQ-G computerized mount
dossett
Posts: 91
Joined: Tue Mar 09, 2021 7:31 am
Real Name: Aaron Niskode-Dossett

Re: Accessories for first telescope

Post by dossett »

Thank you, Steve, this response was really helpful! That tripod bag looks like exactly what I need too, it's great to have a first hand recommendation like that. My scope (yep, 900mm) only came with 5mm and 25mm eyepieces, so maybe a 10 and a 15 would fill that out as you say.

When it comes to dew, I haven't experienced that yet so I don't really know what to expect. I'll stock some rubber bands and hand warmers though.

It does come with the 8x50 RA finder which has worked pretty well for me. My loaner telescope earlier this year had a red dot finder, which I like better although it was challenging to use in daylight if I wanted to align the finder ahead of time. The go to functionality has been so incredibly accurate after 2 star alignment + 1 or 2 calibration stars that I don't think I've used the finder at all.

For charts, I've used "Turn Left at Orion" to plan some observing targets ahead of time and then my smartphone app (Stellarium) to orient myself or verify what I'm seeing while observing. I've read a lot about SkySafari Plus and Pro and may go with one of those when I get around to buying the wifi adapter. It's searching and sorting capabilities seem really nice.

Thanks for the link to your presentation, I look forward to listening to it.

Best, Aaron
"Astronomy compels the soul to look upwards and leads us from this world to another." -- Plato

Skywatcher 100mm on a Celestron AVX mount
Celestron 9.25" Evolution SCT
10x50 Midas G2 binoculars
FF2Rydia
Posts: 522
Joined: Mon Apr 14, 2008 7:56 am
Real Name: Kris Hultner
Location: Bloomington

Re: Accessories for first telescope

Post by FF2Rydia »

For the lunar filters, I've got both fixed transmission and variable polarizing. Fixed transmission was nice (and 50% is good), but I quickly realized that the variable polarizing was more than worth the added price. It's almost all I've used since I got it.

For charts, I second the Pocket Sky Atlas, especially if you decide to try star hopping.
Kris Hultner
AAVSO observer HCKA
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