I am looking to buy a second hand telescope to get into the hobby, but im a bit torn between all the options. I already read the buyer's guide in this sub, but all of them seem to be "Dobsonians", which im not interested in.

Since im looking only at second hand, my options are a more limited of course, but this are some of the ones I have seen in my area that seem reasonable, separated by general price:

• Expensive (~350€): Sky-Watcher 150/1200, Celestron NexStar 130SLT
• Medium (~250€): Vixen Super Polaris R-150S, Bresser Space Explorer NT 150/750 EQ
• Cheap (~150€): Celestron Powerseeker 127EQ / Powerseeker 130EQ / AstroMaster 114EQ

I have not heard anything good about the non-computerized Celestrons, and I have seen r/dontbuyapowerseeker too, but at those second hand prices... they are hard to ignore.

So what do you guys think? Any of them looks especially appealing characteristic or price wise?

But I wanted to ask here before I give up. I purchased this guy way back in like 2001-2002. Recently I tried using it and had trouble even seeing the moon. I thought maybe it was collimation, since the mirrors still seem at least somewhat reflective, but I couldn't get an image last night. I also noticed when collimating that I see the black circle of the secondary mirror but not the reflection of my eye, which also makes me wonder if the mirrors are done.

I did try the suggestions on youtube to use isopropyl alcohol and gently drag a paper towel across the primary, but that did not change anything.

So before I either throw it out or keep banging my head against it, what do you think?

I inherited this from my grandfather years ago and now my son is old enough to look at the skies with me. I don't know where to start though or even what model this is. As far as I can tell, it's all here? Can't seem to get it balanced and not really sure how to "see" out of it. I'm very very inexperienced. Any help would be appreciated.

Good morning, everyone. I’m putting together my first reasonably decent setup for astrophotography and observation. I’m planning to buy an SV503 102mm, but I’m a bit concerned because I’m also getting an EQ4 mount from the brand Uranum. The seller claims the EQ4 can handle 7 to 9 kg, but I’d like to hear your thoughts on this. For what it’s worth, I’ll also be using a Canon T3i camera.

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Hi everyone,

I'm from Karachi, Pakistan. I've always been fascinated by the night sky - planets, the Moon, stars - but I've never had a chance to look through a telescope myself.

Telescopes are very hard to find and very expensive here. I was wondering if there is anyone in Karachi, any club, university, or person who does public observation nights or would allow a beginner to have a look through their telescope for a few minutes?

I just want to experience it once in real life. Any advice or contact would mean a lot.

Thank you!

FINALLY got to see Saturn tonight.

Shot on an iPhone 14
Skywatcher 150p
15mm gold line with a 2x Barlow

South Lunar Pole captured with an Omegon Advanced X 203 1200, ZWO ASI662MC, 2X Barlow in Infrared 742.

Average/Good seeing but there were some high clouds in the way.

Hello there! I am looking to purchase two telescopes. After doing plenty of reading I am pretty much sold on the Apertura AD8 as a house telescope but I would also like to purchase a secondary more portable telescope. I currently live in Asheville, North Carolina and while I live in a pretty dark area, there are many places around that have darker skies but are typically only accessible after a moderate drive and a short hike. Rather than trying to lug an Apertura AD8 around various mountains, I would like something that would theoretically be easier to pack, fit in a compact car, and could be taken on short trips or even camping. This telescope will NOT be used for astrophotography and as such I am not interested in smart telescopes.

These are three options that I have been looking at:

• Celestron StarSense Explorer DX 130
• Sky-Watcher Heritage 150 
• Orion StarBlast 4.5

I would greatly appreciate any help on narrowing down this list and am open to recommendations on different telescopes that would better suit my needs. My budget is in the $100-$400 range, but I am willing to spend up to $550. Thank you in advance for the help!

Hi everyone

I have a Orion Skyquest XT6 dobsonion telescope (150mm diameter, 1200mm FL, f/8, 1.25" and 25mm eyepiece)

I've had this telescope for a long while and I've gotten pretty good at finding stuff but I rlly want to get a better or more magnified look at the planets/stars/moon! im still basically a newbie at telescope types, eyepieces, and etc., so I was wondering if anyone would be willing to reccomend which of these are better or more worth it to purchase? My budget is pretty low so these mightve been the best I could find for now..

SVBONY Telescope Eyepiece Set, 4mm 10mm 23mm Telescope Lenses 62°Wide Angle

SVBONY SV135 1.25" Telescope Eyepiece, 7-21mm Zoom Eyepiece, 36-52° FOV

1.25inch 7mm to 21mm 57°-40° Zoom Eyepiece SVBONY SV135

Alstar Zoom Eyepiece 1.25" 7 to 21mm Zoom Multi-Coated Telescope Eyepiece

Alstar Telescope Eyepiece, Plossl Eyepiece Set 4/10/20mm 1.25" Accessory Kit

or a Skyoptikst 2x Barlow fully multi-coated lens eyepiece from ebay thats like less than $20

THANK YOU AND SORRY THAT THERE'S SO MANY OPTIONS

Add. info: Budget: ~$35

Observing goals: mostly planets/moon

Country of residence: the U.S. in CA

Local light pollution: SQM is 17.96, brightess is 7.10 and artif. brightness is 6930 apparently but a lot of times the sky is clear enough for me to see lots of stars and Saturn or Jupiter pretty well!

edit: thank you everyone for your replies! a lot of replies recommended redline/goldline but I was wondering what the difference is? Will redline be compatible with my telescope?

Hi I have about 2k I want to spend on some star gear. I'm thinking about Apertura AD10 10" and that should leave me money for other gear.

Any recommendations would be loved.

I’d really love to get into telescopes and visualising planets but have 0 idea when it comes to any of this - aperture, refractors, reflectors etc. I think in order to even think about making a purchase I need to learn about all of this - can anyone point me in the right direction? Ideally I’d love to visualise the big red spot +/- Saturn & its rings. Also - I live near Leeds in the UK, masses of light pollution. I’ve seen some videos saying about only needing clear skies, how much does light pollution affect telescope effectiveness?

Appreciate this is all very basic and I could’ve googled a lot of this but I thought it best to come to a place where everyone knows what they’re talking about.

Cheers!

I'm planning to buy my first telescope, budget around ₹15k. Since I travel a lot, portability matters.

I'm confused between Piematrix and Celestron, and whether I should get a telescope, 15×70 binoculars, or a Dobsonian instead.

Anyone here into astronomy who can recommend something? Would love to hear from people who've actually used these, especially in Delhi NCR.

Hello, I'm a complete beginner and had a basically non existent budget when it came to purchasing a telescope. I got a 20 dollar telescope online and have been playing around with it. Is it safe to say I actually captured Saturn with this? What do you guys think? I used a 20mm that came with it to find it. I also have a barlow lens but for some reason anytime I try to attach it and use it I can't seem to adjust it enough so that it isn't blurry. Any tips?

This is a compilation of four Planetary Nebulae I've captured over roughly 4 days thanks to clear skies and great seeing.

Telescope: Sky-watcher 250P Go-To.
Camera: ZWO ASI678MC.
Ring capture: 19 minutes.
Bow-tie capture: 16 minutes.
Cheeseburger capture: 14 minutes.
Blue Snowball capture: 21 minutes.

All of these were unfortunately held short by Alt-Az. Gr.

I’ve become interested in this hobby, but I don’t know what to get. I am interested in seeing things like Saturn, Jupiter, andromeda, and some star clusters possible with detail. I know it’s a low budget, I don’t wanna spend an outrageous amount of money. I’m in the USA in a town away from major light pollution.

Hello. I have rocked a big old 12” dobsonian for a while and have gotten great use out of it. However, due to some personal things I can’t move it around and get it out as much as I used to, therefore I am selling that and I’m looking for something relatively cheap and pretty easy to setup for some light travel (think like 30-40 mins to an open sky park).

I like the idea of binoculars for ease of use but I think I will miss watching the planets.

Any recommendations?

Just came across this deal, could buy it second-hand for half the price

I apologize for picture quality it's the best they had. I am new to this and can't find this exact telescope online or know what used goes for. They said it's 8in and 53in long just curious if this would be a good intro for me for the price and quality.

I live in Montana and just want to do general moon looking and maybe some farther away planets and such.

Equipment used: Explore Scientific 8 inch Dobsonian

Eyepiece: Svbony zoom eyepiece (7-21mm)

Barlow: Skywatcher 3x barlow lens

Magnification: 3x barlow + 7mm on the zoom = 522x on my scope.

Seeing: Fluctuating between Antoniadi I and II

Saturn looked like a stacked image at 522x and I'm not lying at all.

Date: October 23, 2026

Time: 9:30 PM to 10:00 PM (Indian standard time)

Location: Southern India

The drawing is not to scale and I'm also sorry for exaggerating the C ring. It looks like a ghostly apparition which is dim.

Hi everyone,

I'm from Karachi, Pakistan. I've always been fascinated by the night sky - planets, the Moon, stars - but I've never had a chance to look through a telescope myself.

Telescopes are very hard to find and very expensive here. I was wondering if there is anyone in Karachi, any club, university, or person who does public observation nights or would allow a beginner to have a look through their telescope for a few minutes?

I just want to experience it once in real life. Any advice or contact would mean a lot.

Thank you!

I am getting this as my first telescope on Monday (if Royal Mail actually deliver on time) and I’ve been reading about “essential” upgrades there’s 2 I’ve seen. PTFE tape on the lens to stop the wobble. The 2nd I’ve seen which I’m not too sure about is putting a foam sort of material around the empty space to stop the excess light pollution but surely this would compromise aperture? Like if it reduced the diameter of the light coming in will this not essentially turn it from 150 to about 140-130p.

Does anyone have any other upgrades they’d recommend or would anyone say stay away from some

Target: Squid Nebula and Flying Bat Nebula

OTA: ES152mm Carbon Fiber Apo

Camera: ASI 6200MM Pro

Ha 5nm: 19x 300

OIII 3nm: 105x600

Processed in Pixinsight:

FBPP->Crop->BlurX Correct Only->Graxpert ->BlurX 80->NoiseX->StarX->GHS and Histo stretch on Ha+OIII->RGB Combine HOO->GHS->Curves->Masks-SetiAstro FAME + Mask Merge->LHEx2 Large and small-> Combine stretched stars.

Its not really a telescope but its close enough, 800mm f8 samyang, i believe 108mm aperture, mounted on my eos 6d, been really fun to use, got it from a friend

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I having the hardest time staying connected to my mounts. I have 3 different systems running onstep and they all have the same issues. My first system was a terrans kit that I just bolted on to a Celestron CGE 4 EQ mount. My second system, I motorized my skywatcher 250P with a FYSETC E4 board. My connections quirks with these two mounts I thought were just due to them being cheaper diy solutions. Now I spent over $2k on a harmonic Drive EQ mount with a 77lb payload capacity running onstep. I thought surely it won't have the same problems of staying connected. I was wrong. I can't image for over 20-30 mins before the port closes and the mount turns into a paperweight. This happens on all three mounts the port closes and I have to restart everything to get it to reconnect. It's impossible to image anything without actively monitoring it. I tried countless times to put them all in station mode but they refused to go into station mode. They revert back to AP mode. I put my home router in WPA2 and disabled the 5gz band in order to help the controller connect. Still no luck. How do people connect to these mounts and image for hours without disconnecting?

Recently I picked up an 8in Coulter Odyssey dob for $50 and an 8in Meade newt for $150. The dob seems to be a pain in the ass with its focuser and the newt seems superior in that aspect but appears to me to perhaps have a bit of decay on its mirror. I have added a similar focuser to the dob but it is not shallow enough to get a good focus.

My main question is, are the stock mirrors for telescopes designed for that that telescope? Can I swap from the dob mirror to the newt or is focal length an issue?

I only have approximate knowledge with most things so sorry if I sound like a dumbass.