should i buy the meade polaris 127 eq?

[abhinavk]

i am looking to buy a beginner telescope and i have come across many but i think the meade polaris 127 is the best in the range.

please share your views and suggest alternatives .

[TerryMcK]

Hello and welcome to the forum. What are you interested in viewing as that would give members an idea of what they recommend?

[abhinavk]

i have intrest in viewing the deep sky objects mostly.

 

[TerryMcK]

Reading a review on it and it appears to be a do not buy

https://telescopestobuy.com/meade-polaris-127-eq-reflector-telescope/

 

They are recommending the 130 version but say that one has a bad wobbly EQ mount.

 

My preference would be for a Dobsonian telescope such as the Skywatcher Skyliner 200P which has a lot more light collecting power. Dobsonians are very easy to use rather than manual poorly made EQ mounts (equatorial) which are notoriously difficult for beginners to master.

 

Not sure where you are in the world but Skywatcher scopes are sold under different brand names/colours dependant upon geographical location but they are all made in the same factory.

 

This is the a typical seller of the 200P in the United Kingdom https://www.altairastro.com/skywatcher-skyliner-200p-classic-dobsonian-telescope-2022-p.asp

 

 

[Moonlit]

I recently bought my first telescope, and I was told by a mate that I HAD to get one with an EQ mount as opposed to an Alt-Az mount (for it to be able to follow objects by just adjusting one axis. Az-Ath mounts need to adjust both axis to follow something).
He also told me to get a mount with motorized tracking, but I disregarded that as I'm comfortable turning the knob manually. 

The problem of tracking stars seems to apply whenever you use eyepieces that give more than about 100x magnification. When I use EPs that give 200x magnification (good for planets) the object moves out of the field of view after just a few seconds. 

 I haven't used motorized tracking myself (yet), but I know that it requires precise set-up and calibration of the EQ mount. 

More expensive mounts also have Goto/Synscan functionality, letting you tell the scope which object you wish to see, whereupon it automatically finds it. I don't know if you still need to align and calibrate the EQ mount properly before Goto actually works, but it sounds fiddly.

You might want to get a less complicated set-up for your first scope - see Terry's suggestion which seems simple enough assuming you don't go for very high magnifications.

[Moonlit]

Additional post - I have used two tools to "simulate" how fast an object disappears from the field of view with various eyepieces and magnifications.

1. Use this tool to simulate your set-up and select the scope and eyepieces you want to consider. You can use the "Custom" options if you don't find the specific products: https://astronomy.tools/calculators/field_of_view/

2. Choose an object (Saturn, for instance) and click Add to View. Note down the "Field of View" number.

3. Open StellariumWeb and zoom to Saturn until the FoV number (upper right corner) is about the same as the FoV number you got from the calculator: https://stellarium-web.org

 

StellariumWeb should now give a good impression of how fast Saturn will disappear from view when looking at it with the selected combination of telescope and eyepieces.

Here is a direct link to a simulation of the Sky-Watcher Classic 200P telescope using the 10mm EP that is included, giving a FoV of 0.43 degrees: https://astronomy.tools/calculators/field_of_view/?fov[]=1|68|||1||&solar_system=saturn

[abhinavk]

thank you for your replies.😀