GoTo Telescopes, help please..

[GSXRMovistar]

This is a subject I have no clue on what so ever so looking for some recommendations/advice.

My father in-law has an interest in astronomy and owns a smallish/cheap telescope. My wife and I are considering buying him a GoTo telescope hoping it would help his interest in this hobby. He lives in a rural area so doesn’t suffer too much from artificial light at night.

Our budget would be around £300 but could push to £400 if it makes a considerable difference. So the questions I have are:-

• Are they easy to use (whilst not a complete technophobe he doesn’t have too much interest in anything too computerised/technical)?
• Are they easy to setup/calibrate?
• Are they any good?

And then lastly, based on the budget any recommendations on which one?

Thanks for any help.

 

[Building Candy]

For 300-400 your looking at something like a Meade ETX 90 or 105 maybe a 125 2nd hand. It referes to the size of the apature dude. So 90 will be about 3.5 inches (someone correct me if im wrong!) The bigger the lens the more light you can get in and so the dimmer the object you can see. I have used a etx 70 and it was good for the moon and you can blow up some of the larger planets to little discs (jupiter, saturn) but not mind blowing. I have now got a LX90 10 inch, which is a big heavy thing! The moon is excellent and planets look quite good, you can see a fair amount of detail in jupiter and saturn.

I was quite disapointed with the smaller scope, at the end of the day its a small telescope and these objects are very far away so dont expect breathtaking images unless you have somehting the size of the kek.

 

[GSXRMovistar]

Thanks, looking at a few other forums the following also seem to get a good mention:-

Celestron Nexstar 127 SLT
Sky-Watcher SKYMAX 127

If I get a chance tomorrow I'll try and get down to a store that stocks scopes but there doesn't appear to be many too local.