The XT4.5 was my first telescope and also the best bang for the buck imaginable. It is a perfect grab and go scope for a family - especially with a couple of nicer eyepieces.
I picked up a C90 a few years back. Oddly enough, I wasn't even planning to buy a telescope, but was in the market for a long telephoto lens mainly for shooting the Moon. After exhausting nearly all options as being too cumbersome, too expensive, or just not rating high on reviews, I came across the C90, which at the time was selling for about $150. Without hesitation I bought it, and haven't been disappointed with it. It was great to hear about your 13 day clear weather streak and that nice Moon montage you were able to get.
I got the C90 last week, so when I saw the title of this video I wanted so bad this to see it on this list... and I wasn't disappointed :) . I put it on a AZ-GTI GoTo Mount, this tiny mount fit in the C90 backpack in addition to all my eyepieces and accessories ! It's a fantastic travel telescope and the little goto ALT-AZ mount can even work as an EQ mount, I'm ready to share wonderful views with my friends :) .
Thank you, the wife and I are enjoying our table top starblast 4.5. The last 4 days have been a very enjoyable experience. Spending every night in the backyard til 2-3am. We are usually in bed by 10-11. And now we are already considering an 8" dobsonian. You did it and we are in.
Just looked at Jupiter 7/13/2021 under less then Ideal conditions with my very old Celestron C102-AZ refractor model 21011 and resolved the shadow/moon on Jupiter's surface a nice black dot using a 8 mm and a 2X barlow both Televue and a Orion Prism diagonal , not bad. That I think would be less then 1arc second. Amazing
I live in Santa Fe NM. We haven’t had many astrophotography-compatible nights for the past 4 y!😢 in fact, 15y ago we had more clear nights than cloudy. Now, just a couple of clear nights a month. This year has been no exception. And the few clear nights we get inevitably fall on dates with mostly full moon.😮
Ed - you should also review and include SVBONY 70, 80 and 102 ED refractors. For the money they seem to be well made, have great optics, sharp with very less CA. I have both the 70mm and 80mm. Also comes with a quality dual speed R&P focuser that also rotates for ease of camera use.
Astro-Tech JUST announced a new AT70ED that's got the same glass types as the mk1 AT72ED, but with a 2 speed rack and pinion and at only around $300. Looks like a great scope.
i just looked at it online (from astronomics). the specs aren't much different from my orion st80. the at is a 450mm whereas the st80 is 400. both have doublets. the st80 was $175. is there anything that really optically separates them?
I think Zhumell is also a good brand that seems to not get mentioned very often. The Z130 is a great beginner scope, but slightly too big to qualify for this list, but the Z114 would qualify in the 4.5” range. It’s nearly identical to the Z130, can be found on sale for well under $199 with eyepieces, and although it doesn’t come with a tripod (just a table top mount), it does come with good quality metal construction, including the rings and mount.
I have a zhummel dob, its one of the few that has a very nice 2in focusser. My wife also has the zhummel version of the cwlrstron astro binoculars... theyre pretty much identical but a little cheaper... really like both
great video once again ed :) Ive just been amusing myself looking at amazon comments on cheap scopes... common one is "can you see the rings of saturn" was a cheap 80mm scope (I use the term scope loosely) one of the answers was "you can see the rings of saturn on any scope with 50x magnification or over" ..... I had to leave the page
Saving up for a C90 as a college student, getting real close to my goal, I'm counting down to the days and the money till I'm getting one. I'm really excited
So happy to see the C90 praised here, and that linar sequence is awesome. I do only planetary so far, and just upgraded to the C9.25 XLT. But the C90 was my first telescope, and I still love using it and will never give it up. Once I learned more about imaging, and put a Powermate, an ADC and goud cameras on it, I got pictures of Jupiter which, though they certainly didn’t resolve finer details, nonetheless shocked experienced friends that they could come from a 3.5” aperture. Really glad the C90 is on your list.
The Celestron Onyx ED 80 would be my addition -- available used only, of course. It's f/6.3 with excellent color correction. There's a Vixen size mounting shoe with 1/4x20 tripod sockets as well. The single speed focuser rotates and clamps. A 2 speed knob is available from Agena. A padded hard case with space for eyepieces was included with the scope. One other thing about small scopes (that Ed hinted at): they're great for outreach.
I have a C90 from the 80's. I got it at Montgomery Ward. The only photos I took with it were with the solar filter, and got some OK shots of some sunspots. It also gave me my first view of M31. I have no complaints about it at all, other than the .965 eyepiece barrel size. It came with a Kellner eyepiece, and I know I bought an Orthoscopic for planetary viewing.
Thanks for this. Sharing your knowledge for the amateur like me is of great help. As a curiosity, is there a similar line of thinking on mounts? I am now seriously thinking of buying the Televue or Vixen having watched this. Without spending my life savings, I need a mount that is going to support them for astrophotography.
an 4.5xt fits perfectly on a 5 gallon bucket, then is the same eyepiece height as a 6", 8" or 10" dob. they are cheap at home improvement stores, and if you put some sand or other ballast in it it's nice and stable
Hey Ed! Excellent effort of reminding all of us that fun can be had in smaller apperture too. On that subject I was looking for a smaller scope to either travel to darker sites or just mount on the southern side of my apartment on a small DIY eq mount. (My cg5 mount and newt don't really fit ... I have them on my balcony looking North) What do you think of the Bresser 102 460 Xs? I know it's only an achromatic scope supposedly with an ED element to help with fringing. I was thinking that if I find it so disturbing I could stop down to say 80 mm and get a semiapo F6 for really cheap :) Or should I just stick with a small apo? There is another choice ... Get a comacorrector from TS 0.73 reducer for my newt and get it to F 3.65 :)
I found the 90mm Apex Maksutov-Cassegrain sold by Orion some years back to be quite a nice astronomical telescope, though mine was sold as a spotting scope. It does fit my AVX mount and it does work well for lunar and solar imaging too. It's sharp and works well with any 1 1/4-inch eyepiece and a quality 90 degree star diagonal. The thing is so portable it goes virtually anywhere. The price is reasonable too.
By luck I happened across a Questar Field Model for cheap which I've been using on a Skywatcher Allview. Lots of fun! If they burned up in a fire, I'd probably buy the C90/Virtuoso package for a similar experience
@ 8:15 . . . 'the odds were astronomical.' Just bought your book on Amazon. Don't have a telescope yet. Just using a150mm and 400mm Pentax telephoto on a 645z.
So I just got my first telescope today I only bought a small entry level telescope and its only a 4 inch. With zero experience I had it set up and could clearly see saturn and its rings as well as Jupiters bands as well as 3 of its moons. It took me less than 10 min from taking it outside for the first time.
yes Ed, there was one other thing, not on your list, that i believe is underappreciated....you! thanks for all of your work on putting this video together. on a side note, how about a video on the bikes that you own. i would be very interested in that too! best wishes.
for a high quality doublet apo if you want to get into apochromats without breaking the bank, I recommend a william optics zenitherstar 81, gorgeous scope, beautiful quality. Comes with a high quality adjustable flattener which can be used with my other refractors.
Hey Ed! love your videos! i am planning to buy an 8-10 inch dobsonian reflector telescope can you please give me suggestions on which company should i go by?
The Orions are the most popular but any of the current models are good - Zhumell, Apertura, Sky-Watcher, Explore, etc. Your big challenge as of this writing is finding one in stock.
@@edting I’m a fan! I promoted your channel on the website for the new fourth edition of The Backyard Astronomer’s Guide, coming this autumn. See backyardastronomy.com/youtube-channels/
I had a cheapo 60 mm refractor, in Early 2000s, ok for moon watching. Everytime I took ot out to look at The moon, every kid in the neighbor Hood was there to have a look. I Hope some of them continued After I moved away
Glad to see some love for the c90. It was my first telescope and even now still has its place as a solar system grab and go scope. Great vids Ed! Keep it up
Hello, Ed. Looking for a beginner scope for our 7 year old, and us. Many of the things you recommend are out of stock...any insight into when that might change?
Yes, everything is out of stock and prices have gone up as well. We're all in the same boat. While waiting for the situation to change, you might try an inexpensive pair of 7X35 or 7X50 binoculars and a set of star charts or a planisphere.
You are a pathological seller! You have great stuff…keep it!!! I recommend running possible sales though a committee of well meaning astrophiles! We will help you! BTW…keep up the awesome work. Love your videos.
Another great video, but I do have one request. When you put text on the screen above you, could you please use a color that doesn't blend in so well with the background? It was difficult to read the white text on the white window coverings. Thanks!
bit bigger and costs more than the ones you have in the video... but the explore scientific ar102 is seriously underrated I think.... for an achromat the CA is very minimal, images are really nice and the focusser is great.
The way I see it if the focuser works OK who cares what its made of. From what I have gleaned the longer the focal ratio the better the contrast and fine detail. No thats not a mistake I meant ratio not length. Ed I have an eye piece that you would go Ga Ga over. It was made in 1903 and I bought it at an antique shop. Its all brass and the diameter was slightly smaller than inch and a quarter so I had to wrap duck tape around it to get it to fit my focuser. Its quite large and its a variable power eye piece. It has a brass sleeve inside that has a sliding lens for adjusting the power. The machining on it is amazing. It has three lenses besides the sliding one, that have tiny threads and are removable for cleaning. It has a very narrow field of view but I swear it is my best eye piece for Saturn. And I have a 9mm abbe orthoscopic.
I don't have an XT 4.5, but I have looked through a couple owned by others in our club, and they are actually really good! Edit: I do have the AT72. A red one. Love it!!!
XT4.5 is pricing itself out of existence, barely 5 months later it's up to $330. I know inflation is hitting everything, but when the XT6 is being sold at an even $400 now (which used to be 8" money), I think they're going to lose sales on the 4.5. Lucky for me, I snagged a used XT4.5 couple days ago for $200 less than that. I had one before, liked it well enough but decided to change things up. Rediscovered the 114mm f/8 in the form of one of those spindly mounted Newtonians (Tasco Luminova), the one I have was sold as broken, parts only... for $10. Anyone else would've thrown most of it away, but I had all the parts to fix it, upgrading various things along the way and did so. Enjoyed the heck out of it for shorter planetary sessions under my Bortle 8/9 skies, decided I was either going to make a Dob base or get the XT4.5.... and the XT4.5 fell into my lap.
Very informative videos, always with helpful content. What advice can you give a telescope user who is obliged to wear glasses? What eyepieces work best, and any specific tips?
Here's the conventional wisdom. Just take off your glasses and refocus using the focuser, unless you have astigmatism. In that case leave your glasses on. If you have to wear glasses while observing, you need eyepieces with longer eye relief. Check out the TeleVue Delos series, or (if you can find them) the now-discontinued Radians.
Awesome video Ed! I have a question tho, Im thinking to get a 130mm Newtonian reflector with a focal length of 900mm and hooking up my canon t3i to it to take some night time astrophortography photos of the planets bright nebula and others. So im looking for your advice on whether this is a good setup for astrophortography or not, if not can u recommend a better telescope but it has to be under 300 CDN thats my budget, stay safe!
You can try it but I think you're going to run into frustrations. If it's a Dob the weight of the camera will nosedive the front end. You will likely have focus issues. If you get that sorted out, you might be able to get some quick snaps of the moon but that's about it.
Get a SW130PDS. NOT P. The PDS. Thing is I believe they don't sell in the US. Got mine from Germany. Re astrophotography capability - just look in stargazerlounge. They're already on page 137 of the review. Mind blowing. Cult following. They nicknamed it "the APO killer", for good reason. The focusing tube goes way way into the OTA to be able to achieve camera focus. Kinda funny. You'll need a very decent tracking mount (I plan to get an HEQ5pro, since I saw that the vast majority of photos were taken either by it or by the EQ6/Atlas mounts). A gem.
Hmmm i mean it'll be abit expensive to get a mount and eyepices but ill see, thanks clear skys! Edit btw i checked out the sky wtacher starquest 130P and im debating on whether getting this or the PDS this is obvi abit cheaper but what exactly is the difference?
The problem with this model is the optical tube's long focal length is too much for the table top mount. You are going to be frustrated finding and tracking objects. It is a myth that Maks are "portable". Any wins you get from the small optical tube are wiped out by the size of the mount you have to buy to hold it steady.
I'm not that thrilled with the "Sloots". In this design, go for at least the NexStar, and even on those, if you watch my videos, I have mixed-to-slightly-positive views on those.
I would also skip it in favour of the 4SE 5SE having owned all of them. Optically the 130p is absolutely fine with it's 130mm parabolic mirror, and the 2" focuser is a nice touch on an entry AZ goto. However, the mount is just too flimsy for the 130p optical tube in my opinion. Without fettling the tripod to stiffen things up the goto's were always off. The 5SE is a cracking little scope by comparison, but of course it costs more.
@@edting oh! By what some other people have reviewed, it seems to be a really decent product! Ed, I really like your reviews. Would you please review the Sarblue Mak 60 as well?
I've viewed several of these videos, and always catch the part where you explain your club "tricks out" a telescope you donate to libraries. I work for the city of Santa Fe in NM, and would love for our libraries to be considered for that donation. We have beautiful skies devoid of light pollution, and I know we would spark so much interest with a donation like that. Please let me know what I can do!!! Please feel free to contact me for my personal contact information!
The standard stuff still applies - Orion Short Tube 80 (needs sturdy tripod/mount) or Starblast. 8 is a little young. Sometimes kids that young have trouble focusing on virtual images. Also, be there to supervise her, to make sure she doesn't point it at the sun, etc.
You won't go wrong with either, but I just get the "plain" solid tubed ones. The collapsible truss doesn't save you any weight, and the major space savings are in the vertical direction, which isn't where most people are compromised for space.
@@benjaminoaks3293 it's only been a month since your question and backorders probably haven't cleared yet. Ed's pretty sweet on Orion, but this is all really a preference thing. All the commercial 8s are great. I ended up with the collapsible Skywatcher after owning many different 8" Dobs. I have to drive over an hour to get to even Bortle 4 skies, the size of the tube when it's in your vehicle can matter a lot more than when it's sitting assembled pointing vertically in your home somewhere. Skywatcher vs Orion, I prefer the Skywatcher tension knob to Orion's springs (Ed is the opposite), but truly, I balance my scope with a heavy magnet wrapped in felt anyways, the Skywatcher lets me put minimum tension on at the knobs and do what I need to with the magnet. I also have a 12" Skywatcher collapsible, the last time I used it I forgot to use the knobs at all, it just sat in the cradle by way of gravity. My magnet system kept everything balanced and happy. At this stage, you're best off getting whatever 8" will actually show up and get you observing with it, that could be used off of a marketplace site like Craigslist or Facebook, or new from one of many vendors. I've had much better luck searching frequently locally than going with new purchases. Of course, your geographical location can have a huge effect on that.
I managed to get my hands on a TV-85 earlier this year, couldn’t find them anywhere. Buying the rings and accessories for it is getting expensive fast.
Be aware. When you buy Directly from Orion, they Will charge sales tax. You can buy Orion products from other vendors selling their products without charging sales tax.