StarSense Explorer DX 130AZ alternatives

[whooooper]

Hi All,
I live in Reading, UK and looking forward to buy for me and my 7 years old son our first telescope.
We are not going to do photography.

I thing about getting StarSense Explorer DX 130AZ and read a lot of reviews already. Looks like the tripod is not great and the supplied eyepieces are not good quality.
I really like the idea of using the application which provides more info about each object and proposes objects for the day. This will make the experience more interactive.
The other feature i really like is that you manually find the objects although I am not sure how easy is this really. I am looking for the emotional reward of pointing the telescope to the object "myself" (helped by the app of course).

We've been to an astronomy gathering and looked through an auto aligning 6" newtonion telescope and honestly it was a bit boring - "press a button and look" was feeling too automated somehow.
The surprising fact for me is that my son still wants a telescope after that meeting.

The Dobsonian 8" alternatives are way too bulky.
Sky Watcher Heritage 150-p looks like a great option too, but most suitable for photography. I will definitely have fun upgrading it, but might be a bit boring for my son.
Celestron StarSence DX6 (CST) has a bigger aperture and it's smaller in general ...but it looks like it has a wonky tripod as DX 130.

Any suggestions ?

Cheers!
Emil

[helicon]

Hi and Welcome to the Forums Emil. I'm not terribly familiar with the 130mm scope, but the mount looks a bit problematic. I would suggest maybe a 4" refractor or an Astronomers without Borders OneSky reflector which also is 130mm.This scope comes with a stable Dobsonian style mount....and prices out at about $250 U.S. EDIT: I just noticed this scope is only available in the U.S.

But here it is anyway
https://shop.astronomerswithoutborders. ... -telescope

As you can see, the AWB store also sells the Starsense explorer

As far as a 4" refractor on the market there are many models available from Celestron and Skywatcher, either of short or long focal length. The short focal length at f/5 or so will offer great views of clusters and nebulae what we call deep sky objects while a longer focal length scope will offer good views of the moon and planets. (f/10 or so). These scopes are portable and can usually be taken outside easily.

[Lady Fraktor]

This is quite expensive to me for a starter telescope. £400 is to much for this.

I would recommend this: https://www.firstlightoptics.com/herita ... Ny4wLjAuMA..
A more capable reflector at half the price. Download SkySafari to your telephone and have pretty much the same functionality for half the price.
You can use the saved ££ to purchase a collimation cap and cheshire/ sight tube and a couple of more eyepieces.

You would have to provide a stable box/ tabletop/ stool to set the telescope on but these are very capable telescopes.

[Bigzmey]

From my experience with my daughter and other children at outreach events, kids really like small refractors on simple AltAz mounts. In particular if you equip it with correct image diagonal. This is most natural setup where up is up and right is right. It took my 10 years old daughter one session to master the controls.

Her scope was very similar to this OTA albeit on a different mount

Sky-Watcher Evostar-90/660 AZ Pronto

https://www.firstlightoptics.com/sky-wa ... OS4wLjAuMA..

We had many fun nights together with our small refractor and even completed Messier 40 challenge. This rekindled my interest to astronomy and I moved up to larger scopes, but for her they were too intimidating to operate on her own.

[whooooper]

Thanks a lot for the quick replies and the suggestions!
Unfortunately my garden table is also wobbly as it's portable/collapsible table. I also plan to "transport" the telescope to the nearby kids playground some evenings as my garden is surrounded by trees.
A tripod will be really useful. Looks like the app is providing a lot of info about the objects.