What to buy? (Telescope)

Hey all, I recently got a cheapo telescope and I think I got bit by the bug! I want to upgrade to something that will give me good detail of the moon and planets! Heck, I wanna get decent detail of the moons also! I have a budget of around 500.00 bucks! Whats a decent buy for a beginner? Should I shell out a few G's and go high grade? I'm not trying to find a new planet or anything, I just want to enjoy whats in the backyard! Thanks for any help you can give me!!!!!

Search
is your friend


Buying a Telescope!

Choosing a decent amateur backyard telescope

Astronomy: Telescopes

Here ya go, GP'

( these are all ATS threads, of course)



[edit on 16-10-2007 by Jbird]

Yea, Searching is good, but hearing personal experience is better! Websites that want to sell a product will sometimes overblow the quality of what your really looking for. I trust ats'ers more

First of all, don't just run out and buy something.
If you plunk down $750-$1000 on what 'looks' good, once you learn a bit more, you will kick yourself.
Take some time and do some research.
Keep in mind, once you have your tube, that's just the beginning.
The eyepieces are the thing. A badly made EP will ruin a good 'scope.

Here are some decent resourses :

www.cloudynights.com...

and

www.astromart.com...

Read the reviews written by guys who have been there, done that.
I would tend to stay away from the reflectors. Get a good refractor.
I have a 6" reflector, and a 5" refractor.
I am so much happier with the refractor, that I don't bother with the 6".
Much more crisp with the 5". I'm happy with my meade AR-5. Any bigger, and you will have trouble getting it thru the door.
Another fun thing is lunar photography.
Never took a course in it but you can rig up your own setup. Here's an example of the 5" w/ a cheap $75 camera, and downsized to 75kb :



With some EP's I can get within objectively, about 300 miles of the surface.

Hope this helps.
Good luck.

I bought a Meade reflector earlier this year, and I've been quite happy with the overall perfomance and results thus far. The ONLY downside realized is the lack of time my schedule has since afforded for using the damn thing. :shk:

www.telescopes.com...

The motor driven auto-align is excellent for the beginner as is the Smart Finder feature. It came with two eyepieces (9.7 & 26mm) and the added bonus of an electronic one that you can hook to a VCR for recording.

Definitely a nice scope for one just starting out, in my opinion.

 

Originally posted by GiantPanda1979
Yea, Searching is good, but hearing personal experience is better! ... I trust ats'ers more

GP- Those links I posted ARE members opinions and experiences...


Not to mention tips from an astronomy professor, on matching your preferred results with the correct 'scope.




[edit on 16-10-2007 by Jbird]

reply to post by GiantPanda1979

It's not just a question of money, it is also of time. It takes a great deal of effort and time to observe the planets to glean any details off them. I have spent nearly 30 years observing and I am still learning. For most planetary observation a 6" reflector will be a good start, which can be had for as little as 400 dollars.

I see that now Jbird! Thanks alot! Thanks to you all for your info! I look forward to exploring and sharing anything I may find!

I read somewhere the top end walmart job around 250 is both economical and rocks. Sorry, forgot the name.

One thing to consider is find clubs in your area. A little travel wouldn't hurt.

This way, you can experience first hand different scopes, with people with experience with them. Sometimes some will have some nice sized ones they share time with others. Such groups can be very helpful. They usually know the darkest locations around you as well.

You may just get lucky and someone have one of the medium to very large dobsonians ... and get to see other galaxies and anomalies.

Best to you in any case. Just thought I would throw out something that is helpful for this in a different way

reply to post by GiantPanda1979


Hi GiantPanda1979. Glad you've got the astronomy bug! I was bitten by it when I was 8 and I've been a amateur planetary astronomer ever since. Your budget is large enough to get a good telescope, but if you want to specialise is planetary and lunar astronomy, make sure you get a telescope with focal ratio greater than or equal to f/5. There are three types of telescope:

1. Refractor
2. Reflector
3. Cassegrain

The refractor is your standard telescope- a big lens at the front and a smaller one near the eyepiece, the light is magnified by the first lens and brought into focus by the second. Refracts are without doubt the best telescopes for planetary astronomy, but they do suffer from chromatic aberration - false colour. They are also very expensive! A 6" refractor will be a large affair indeed, compared to the 6" reflector! A 3inch Refractor is the standard size for lunar/planetary astronomer.

The Newtonian reflector has a large primary mirror at the bottom of the tube. This magnifies the light and sends the magnified light up to the secondary mirror where we use eyepieces to view the image. My own 8 inch reflector gives wonderful views of the moon, the polar icecaps of Mars, Jupiter shows a wealth of detail and it's four large moons look like little disks rather than dots. Saturn is simply breathtaking!!! A six inch reflector is the standard size for planetary astronomy.

Finally we have the Cassegrain type. These are very short telescopes however one looks through the primary mirror at the secondary mirror where the image is reflected. The tube is generally sealed (Meade telescopes do a very good line in this type of telescopes). These telescopes are very expensive and usually come with computer drives and so on.

Finally a word about mounts. A flimsy mount makes the telescope worth than useless! The standard azimuth mount (tripod) is fine for smaller telescopes, but because of the Earth's rotation objects drift out of view. IN a small telescope this isn't a problem, but with a larger telescope you may only have about half a minute before the things drifts out of view. The best type of mount is the Equatorial mount. This is aligned with the Earth's polar axis so that there is only drift in the East-West direction, and so you only need to correct in one direction.

Remember when it comes to telescopes aperture size is all important- never buy a telescope which is advertised in terms of it's magnification!!!
Some good telescope firms include: SkyWatchder, Meade, Orion Optics.

If you look in "Astronomy" magazine for the US, or the Sky at Night magazine if your in the UK, you will find regular reviews of telescopes and good manufactures of telescopes on sale.

Hope this helps! Let me know how you get on.

Regards,

-Paul.






[edit on 17-10-2007 by timelike]

[edit on 17-10-2007 by timelike]

I have the Zhummel 10" dobsonian telescope. This thing is massive, but provides an excellent view of the sky for a pretty good price.

I bought mine online here:
www.telescopes.com...

I am about to buy this! What do the experts think about it?

www.opticsplanet.net...

Many Thanks

Simon

Awesome Info peeps Once I write some of this down I think it will be time to do some shopping! Many thanks to you all and I look forward to sharing what I find OUT THERE!

Don't forget to include some notebooks on your shopping list GiantPanda! Mars is visible in the late evening sky now, why not have a go sketching it? I assure you that you will get a lot more out of your observations if you record them- you will have a journal of each discovery you make in the night sky. I have a separate note book for each planet (Venus, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn and Uranus), as well as a Lunar book and Deep Sky books.
A friend of mine has observation log books going back to 1933! You will become a better observer as you will train your eye to "ask" what is in the eyepice. Have a look at some of these:
www.alpo.arksky.org...

We normally record planetary details on standard blanks- Mars is a 50mm circle with a black surround, Jupiter is a 65x60mm ellipse. Saturn needs a similar disk with the correct angle for the rings- I can send you some of these if you give me your email address (it's very time consuming to keep drawing them so I got some made!)

You will find HB,2B and 3B pencils very useful, I use a 3B pencil when sketching Mars as you can smudge it and recreate the dusky Martian deserts.

If you don't know your way around the night sky, it will be best to make a start now. You don't want to have your telescope ready to go, but not sure where to point it!

Finally, don't forget to catch Venus and Saturn in the early morning skies.

Best Wishes,

-Paul.



[edit on 19-10-2007 by timelike]

reply to post by Simmy


Hi Simmy,

That looks quite nice, don't know the make so be sure to check them out- see if you can find a review of the make online. It comes with a drive so you won't have to worry about the Earth's rotation.

200mm is a good size- I found that moving my own 200mm Skywatcher about was not practical (the counter weights are heavy and the thing is very sturdy when set up!) so I set it up permanently in my observatory. You might want to think about doing the same as carrying optics about is the middle of the night is precarious! Telescope mirrors and eyepieces need the utmost attention!

Let me know how you get on.

-Paul.

Originally posted by Alexander the o.k.


With some EP's I can get within objectively, about 300 miles of the surface.

Hope this helps.
Good luck.

Did you take this photo? It's amazing. I want a telescope now.

reply to post by timelike


Thanks paul for your reply. Yeah it is a good scope for a beginner infact you can see alot with an 8" glass. I would still need to buy a 2x barlow so i can view the planets better. However this scope is a bit heavy too so you are not alone. I would probably would want to move from time to time and go places with it but we will see. It is what i read so i still have to experience it myself.

Take care

Simon

Originally posted by wigit

Originally posted by Alexander the o.k.


With some EP's I can get within objectively, about 300 miles of the surface.

Hope this helps.
Good luck.

Did you take this photo? It's amazing. I want a telescope now.

-Yep. Thanks.
Movies too, but can't upload those. Here's a pullback shot reduced to about 90kb from a 1.5mb pic.



Lunar photography is fun. And who knows what you might capture!
It's pretty easy to teach yourself how to photgraph the moon.
It changes all the time.
Wish I could get some far side shots....

Alex, Thats too cool! How much did your setup run you? What problems have you run into using your scope?