Buying a Telescope!

Hi Im a freakin n00b when it comes to exploring the Uni. I just got my income tax refund of $991 beautiful dollars after working for only two months at RadioShack. Anyways, I want to buy the best telescope I can get for $200-$250. I checked out Telescopes.com which seems to have some pretty good deals but I dont know what the heck I should get because a lot of the features confuse me. I would rather not spend more than $200 because I need to save summa dat dough to get my brakes fixed and for a trip to Houston, TX to get stoned and drunk. I want to be able to see the planets perfectly and maybe be able to see some galaxies if thats at all possible. Space experts please help me find some aliens!!!

I have one that magnafies about 800 x. With that you can clearly see the craters on the moon and most of the planets. The real cool one's are those with a electronic position device. You can hook it up to your computer and just type in the location of the star and voila... Its in the viewfinder. I saw one here in holland for about 200 euro's. And also the reflector telescoop are better and smaller than the refractor telescoop (the are a lot longer... and have some distortion)

hope it helpzzzz..

bazz

edit: spelling

[edit on 3-2-2005 by sebastiaan]

Mate Ebay has good & cheap ones if you can get them

No eBay for me. This is for US dollars BTW.

Magnification is NOT what you want to buy on the basis of. What you should go buy is light gathering power And NEVER buy a telescope off Ebay. That could be bad news in a lot of ways...

I highly suggest you read this: Buying a telescope. It's a really good resource and may help you decide on what you want. Plus here's something I wrote for ATS a while back Astronomy: Telescopes. That may help also.

What you would get in the price range you're looking for is nothing too spectacular. If this is something you'll do for a while and forget about, Then get something in the cheap range. You could even get a really decent pair of binoculars and a tripod for about the same price. If this is something you plan on getting interested in I would recommend buying some eyepieces that don't come with the telescope. Most of those are junk. Before that though you should invest in some books, so you can learn the night sky.

So if this is something you're serious about I'd recommend the Orion SkyQuest XT6 Intelliscope. I've used the 8 and 10 inch versions, which are spectacular. If this is just something you want to do for fun for a couple weeks and never do it again, go to Walmart or wherever and just buy a telescope from there. You'll be sorely disappointed though.

EDIT: Holy mistyped urls Batman!

[edit on 2/3/2005 by cmdrkeenkid]

Originally posted by CmptrN3rd5
Hi Im a freakin n00b when it comes to exploring the Uni. I just got my income tax refund of $991 beautiful dollars after working for only two months at RadioShack. Anyways, I want to buy the best telescope I can get for $200-$250. I checked out Telescopes.com which seems to have some pretty good deals but I dont know what the heck I should get because a lot of the features confuse me. I would rather not spend more than $200 because I need to save summa dat dough to get my brakes fixed and for a trip to Houston, TX to get stoned and drunk. I want to be able to see the planets perfectly and maybe be able to see some galaxies if thats at all possible. Space experts please help me find some aliens!!!

First of all, ignore any telescope that tries to sell itself on magnification. Most of these are of the department store variety and you'll quickly get bored and frustrated with them.

My advice would be the same as another poster, a good quality 6-8" reflector. They're of good-to-very good quality for an inexpensive telescope and have enough light gathering ability to show you most of the more interesting objects in the sky and much more detail on the moon and planets than a smaller one can.

So I can scan the surface of the moon perfectly with a nice telescope? I have some pretty good binoculars and I could see the moon really good and clear but it was really hard to keep it steady so I would really appreciate the stillness of a telescope.

but you still won't be able to make out the lunar landing sites with an earth bound tellescope.

You mean cause it never happened? lol. I actually want to see if maybe I can see some aliens out there like on them NASA tapes. That would be awesome but Im sure many people have already tried.

Originally posted by HowardRoark
but you still won't be able to make out the lunar landing sites with an earth bound tellescope.

You cant even make out stuff that small with space based ones like the Hubble. I think the only way is to have some type of telescope/probe orbiting the moon.

CmptrN3rd5 Most of the alien stuff I hear about the moon deals with the dark side of the moon.

Yea I know I just thought maybe I could see something. I dont know a whole lot about the moon or anything but Im guessing the moon doesnt spin? It just goes around the earth? Thats weird. So I guess that would be a pretty good hiding spot for them. What if theres like some big ole base back there with a whole bunch of cities of aliens. That would be crazy!

i bought a telescope too! that was about a year ago and i still cant figure out how to use it maybe i should take a course or something...

Tahlen

Originally posted by CmptrN3rd5
Yea I know I just thought maybe I could see something. I dont know a whole lot about the moon or anything but Im guessing the moon doesnt spin? It just goes around the earth? Thats weird. So I guess that would be a pretty good hiding spot for them. What if theres like some big ole base back there with a whole bunch of cities of aliens. That would be crazy!

The moon does spin on its axis, but it happens to be at the same rate as it revolves around the earth. The end result is that it always keeps one side facing us.

Originally posted by CmptrN3rd5
So I can scan the surface of the moon perfectly with a nice telescope? I have some pretty good binoculars and I could see the moon really good and clear but it was really hard to keep it steady so I would really appreciate the stillness of a telescope.

If you just want to look at the Moon and you have a decent pair of binoculars, I'd recommend just buying a tripod. You could get a basic set up of one that mounts right on top or go all the way up to a counterbalanced one. That would also be good for looking at some of the planets. Mainly Venus, Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn. Though you could probably see Uranus and Neptune as well, but with not much excitement.

Now I'm curious. What kind of binocs are they?

Originally posted by Tahlen
i bought a telescope too! that was about a year ago and i still cant figure out how to use it

maybe i should take a course or something...

Try finding a local astronomy club. They could help you out if you go to one of thier meetings.