Need suggestions for buying my first telescope

Hey guys,
I wanted to buy my parents a telescope for Christmas this year, but wasn't really sure where to start.
They recently bought property in central Texas, so they have a great place with virtually zero light pollution.
My price range is around $300.

I would like something that is capable of viewing some deep-space objects, such as a few galaxies, star clusters, etc, but is also accessible for the beginner.

www.amazon.com...=sr_1_4?ie=UTF8&qid=1321575301&sr=8-4

^ This is one of the options I am currently looking at. But I really don't know much about it.

Any suggestions, advice, pointers, information, etc, would be really appreciated!

Thanks in advance,
God bless.

I was lucky enough to be given a telescope recently, somthing i would never have bought for myself but now i have one, i think id have to replace it if it broke!

Anyways back on topic, join up to some private astronomy forums. There you will find not only good advice on telescopes available but also often have "want to sell/buy" sections, i telescope bought from a private astronomer will likly be cared for and in good condition for a good price.

Way better than blindly shoping on ebay or buying brand new first time.

reply to post by eleven44


Meade and Celestron are the best mid-range scopes IMHO I own a 5" Nexstar by Celestron. Orion is not bad either but they all have some lower end stuff that is not good quality. It might make sense to join them in a club or get magazines first then a scope when they decide what will suit them. There are lot of cheap (WALMART) TASCO...types scopes out there that will just frustrate a beginner.

I have had this hobby for over 10 years now and I did some research and joined a club before I even thought about buying a scope and I am glad I did. The club loaned me FOR FREE (well the price of joining $20 I think) scope a 5" (like mine) and I cut my teeth on it! But the club taught me more than I could learn online and helped me to decide what I wanted.

Here are some other references.

The first one is a bit old
scopereviews.com...
www.telescopeforkids.net...
www.opticsplanet.net...

reply to post by abeverage


I have recently started into the astrophotography end of it! I would love a larger scope someday, but for now I can photo Jupiter, and I love to look at the Sun (you need a filter for this!!!).

Good luck and you can ask me anything on this and I will answer to the best of my ability.

They have the telescope out where you can enter a planet or star,it will spin right to the location.Its a cool unit.

reply to post by brindle


Yeah, also viewer eye peices with a CCD camera inside that fits almost any scope!!!

I will be ordering one soon for my scope, hopfully the 1.3 mega pixel will be enough to record some images to my laptop.

reply to post by eleven44


I just recently bought my first telescope from Amazon. Meade 80xta with autostar, 2 eyepieces digital or manual perfect first, retails for $577.00 plus tax, snatched it up from Amazon $265.00 out the door. Nice

For my first scope i bought the celesteon 4 se with computersized mount. Only a four inch scope but absolutely brilliant for the price. Simple to operate via my old laptop, can easily find any star with the push of a button and excellent optics. For a planet I just type in "saturn" and it takes me to saturn. I wired up a webcam to the eye peice and the resolution is brilliant. Then I went one further and removed the infra red filter from the webcam and can now see in the infrared range on the 17" laptop screen.

Its easy to set up using various methods, I just point it at the north star And then the center star of orion and the built in gps does the rest. It has a trackinh system to track stars and planets as they traverse the sky, most cool. But what I really love is the slew speed, i mounted my night vision goggles on top with a simple velcro grip, these have a video output and I can sit inthe comfort of my home and watch the sky for UFOs.

Great stuff. Have fun. Sorry about the sales pitch, but trust me, its worth it

There's a guy on here that does shots of the moon and jupiter, really cool you should ask him what telescope he uses

heres his youtube channel:

www.youtube.com...

reply to post by eleven44


If you look up a site named stargazers lounge, you wil meet alot of good people that know their stuff, also they are very helpful indeed, it depends what you want to use your scope for really. There are 3 main types of scope, each are good at different things.

Seriously, if you go there, you will get some good advice, far better than i can give you here, there are many amatuer astronomers there and they are a helpful lot.

Personally i have a skywatcher goto130 as a starter scope, good optics and good starter scopes. celestron also are good and affordable, that kind of gives you a start, but like i say it depends what you want to do as to which scope to buy. u2u me if u want a little more help and dnt wanna go to where i suggest

Use hand binoculars.Basically make a zero with each of your hands.Now put both hands up to your eyes.Bamm,instant binoculars any time of the day or night.Happy viewing.

Originally posted by brindle
Use hand binoculars.Basically make a zero with each of your hands.Now put both hands up to your eyes.Bamm,instant binoculars any time of the day or night.Happy viewing.

annoying