Need advice on buying telescope

[Delphine]

Hi

My existing telescope is becoming too cumbersome & heavy for me to handle.  I get serious neck ache & back ache every time I use it!  Therefore I want to buy a light telescope with a GoTo.   Mike has suggested a Celestron NexStar which looks ideal to me.   Do any of you have one I could look at and see how heavy it is etc.?  Or could you tell me where the best place place would be to buy one where I could check it out first.   

Cheers
Delphine

[Roy]

Hi Delphine,

A look on the Net showed Astronomia of Dorking stock Celestron. We went there to buy our mount and they seemed very helpful, knowledgable and had a reasonable stock, though it's always worth calling first. Also Dorking is not far to go and has a lot of interesting shops worth browsing. In terms of reviews of telescopes try these sites.

http://www.cloudynights.com/category.php?category_id=2

http://www.scopereviews.com/

Good luck

Roy

[Carole]

The Celestron Nexstar sounds like a good choice Delphine since you don't plan to do any imaging.  

Simon who joined the society a couple of years ago had one but he seems to have disappeared off the face of the Earth.  I've got his work E Mail address (assuming he still works there), but the shop in Dorking sounds like a good bet.

You want to try lifting an NEQ6!!!   

Carole

[MarkS]

 I had the Celestron 130SLT - in fact I still have it - down in France.

Optics are fine but the Go-To mount (same as the other NextStars) was only just adequate for it - it takes a while to calm down after being nudged - especially with a heavier eyepiece.  The whole thing is extremely light though.

I did manage to set it up for eyepiece projection:


to obtain this image of Saturn:


Mark

[Delphine]

Hi Roy, Carole & Mark,

Thanks for your replies.  I have looked at the reviews on the links you posted Roy and I am pretty certain that I should go for the Celestron NexStar.  The only negative thing that I can find on the reviews is that the GoTo mount is possibly a little bit flimsy as you also mention Mark.  However I am prepared to put up with that if it means that is light to carry.  As Carole says I am not planning to get into any serious imaging so possibly that won't be too much of an issue.  I may take the odd shot of the moon and planets though.

Thanks again for your input.

Cheers
Delphine