First Proper Telescope

[Brian]

+1 for the Startravel. I have the Helios version from 2000, on an EQ1 and with a simple motor drive added on the RA axis. I've used it visually and for imaging with a webcam and I think it's a good value in spite of the drawbacks - lightweight equatorial head and some blue fringing on bright objects. I bought a Baader "contrast booster" eyepiece filter to use with it - this cuts the blue, making objects appear warmer and for instance helping to make Jupiter's belts stand out a little better. I did a lot of lunar and white-light solar imaging with that scope, some of my lunar images were used in Peter Grego's "Solar System Observers Guide" and "Moon Observers Guide" at the time , so they can't have been too bad

ATB,

[David Frydman]

Just thought I would mention that Mike's Startravel is on the sturdy Altazimuth AZ3 mount, which does not need the fiddly polar alignment of an equatorial mount.
The basic scope comes with a 20x and 50x eyepiece I think, so with experience one would get a higher magnification eyepiece.
With an altazimuth mount it helps to have a wider field say 5mm eyepiece to more easily find and follow say a planet at say 100x.

Regards, David