Buying a telescope, dont know what

I've been looking at buying my first one as well just recently, but with a smaller budget than yours. So far I'm leaning towards picking up the Celestron Nexstar 8se. All around good reviews. One thing to keep in mind is the size, if it's a pain to carry around then you won't end up using it that much.

Celestron Nexstar 8se Computerized Telescope

a reply to: Hyperia

It depends. How many stars can you see at that location? Dozens? Hundreds? Many hundreds? How much of the sky does the orange/brown glow of the city lights still invade into? I used to live about 10 miles from a town of just 30,000. Even from that fairly small town, about 10-15% of the sky was effectively useless to the telescope because of the glow from the city lights. Luckily, it was otherwise a very 'dark sky' site, especially on the opposite northern side.

a reply to: Hyperia

I'm pretty sure you can build a pretty big Newtonian with $3000 to $5000.

All of the mountings and mirror/prism holder along with the eyepieces are what get expensive.

A pre-ground 15" mirror can be had for just over $3000 from Zambuto Mirrors dot com, that's a pretty big light collecting surface.

Many of the other items that cost bug bucks you can actually make yourself to save money. It' has more to do with being able to get everything aligned correctly than buying specific parts to build it and you can buy a really small Newtonian and extend some of the mountings, or build it with a frame instead of a tube.

I was going to build one before I got laid off from my job, when I had a house and stuff in the country where it was nice and dark at night.

A big binocular with tripod mountings works for quite a few application too, and can be used for other things as well as gawking at stars.

a reply to: MystikMushroom

Be aware that the larger the scope you put on a CGEM, the harder high quality astrophotography becomes. I would recommend a smaller Cass with Edge HD optics riding on a CGEM. Something like this:
www.optcorp.com...
Put the leftover money into a really good astrophotography camera and focal reducer. To keep it within budget you could do what I did and buy a good used SBIG self-guiding camera on the used market. I picked up an SBIG ST-2000XCM for a great price on Ebay, but in general I'd recommend sticking to astromart.com. In general as a beginner I'd recommend sticking to a single shot color camera, but it's up to you, the critical thing is to have self-guiding. The STF-8300 is sort of the modern descendant of my camera and you can get a GREAT deal on one right now, but you'll need a separate guide camera if you go that route (with the OAG-8300 and an ST-i it becomes effectively a self-guiding camera):
www.sbig.com...
You're also going to want the .7 focal reducer designed specifically for the edge HD:
www.optcorp.com...
This rig puts OP slightly over-budget but I think it would be a great rig to start with. Later you could invest more in it to buy a nice widefield refractor to ride piggyback on the Cass, or even replace the mount with a CGE Pro if you want even better astrophotography.

a reply to: vor78

a couple of dozens, im screwed arent i

Dual 16" newtonians are the way to go if you have the money.

JMI Telescopes

Well, since we have gone into the territory of binocular telescopes... www.brucesayre.net...

a reply to: eManym

Do i see more on this one?

so someone said buy a Meade telescope, what is your expertise?

a reply to: ngchunter

Yeah good call, I bet an 8" Cass would work good for photos, it's what my old man had and he was into it. Back in the 80's they didn't have the fancy alignment stuff, so it's a wonder we ever found anything at all.

T-mounts (or whatever they're called), filters, battery pack, good camera...yeah I agree, go smaller on the scope and invest in some killer accessories. I think you can get more magnification out of the camera as well, correct?

And despite what people say...the mirror alignment of a Cass isn't that bad at all. My old man isn't technical and he never had problems. We moved his scope around a lot too.

a reply to: Hyperia

I would pay special attention to ngchunter if you're wanting to get into astrophotography.

originally posted by: Hyperia
so someone said buy a Meade telescope, what is your expertise?

Meade isn't as good as Celestron IMO.

That kind of question is like asking if BMW is better than Mercedes or Chevy vs. Ford. People have their reasons for preferring one over the other -- but I've always seen more serious amateur astronomers using Celestron, but that may have changed.

It's kind of a religious-like debate actually. I think the the scope that has the features you want, expandability to grow with you, and fits your budget would be the best scope.

Put it simply: In your budget range you aren't going to find a bad scope!

a reply to: MystikMushroom

like Nikon or canon?

a reply to: Hyperia

Sort of, but Meade's quality control has gone down hill in my personal opinion. I have a Meade Classic LX200 so I'm by no means biased in favor of Celestron, but the Classic LX200 was made in the good old USA back before they started outsourcing everything. Back then Meade was top of the line for computerized telescopes. Now the roles have somewhat reversed, though if a fork mounted Alt-Az scope is what you want I'd still recommend even the newer LX200's. The LX600's are supposedly a turnkey astrophotography solution, but I haven't had a chance to see one in the field yet so I can't vouch for it at all. To me it looks like a pricey way to get a wedge mounted LX200 with a built-in guidescope and autoguider (absolutely no point in going for the non-wedge version, you'll still get field rotation without a wedge) - I basically have the cheaper version of that with my LX200 rig, which has a guidescope and autoguider that I supplied separately. The debacle with Meade's RCX Max Mount scopes really makes me gunshy of Meades these days.

originally posted by: Hyperia
Dont know if its the wrong thread probably is;

Im gonna buy me a telescope, would be great if any expertise were available, most bang for the buck?

...whatever you are going to buy, post some of your pictures here
Astronomy is very nice hobby

a reply to: ngchunter

Honestly, I kind of like the cheaper Celestron Nextstar line (orange tubes) -- those mounts/forks look easier to set up. If I have a hard time putting together a scope and taking it down, I'm less likely to want to use it and go places where I can get away from light pollution.

A scope that's easy to transport and setup (IMO) would get more use and be a better buy than something more expensive that's a lot more complicated.

I think a big people overlook is the fork/mount/tripod assembly. You don't want cheap there, and if its frustrating and complicated or breaking ... you're going to spend less time looking up and out.

originally posted by: MystikMushroom
a reply to: ngchunter

Yeah good call, I bet an 8" Cass would work good for photos, it's what my old man had and he was into it. Back in the 80's they didn't have the fancy alignment stuff, so it's a wonder we ever found anything at all.

T-mounts (or whatever they're called), filters, battery pack, good camera...yeah I agree, go smaller on the scope and invest in some killer accessories. I think you can get more magnification out of the camera as well, correct?

And despite what people say...the mirror alignment of a Cass isn't that bad at all. My old man isn't technical and he never had problems. We moved his scope around a lot too.

If you want to do deep space astrophotography, for most deep space objects you actually don't want to increase the effective magnification, you want to decrease it (decreasing the effective f/ratio) with a focal reducer. This will make the scope "faster" and mean that you collect more light onto each pixel for a given exposure length. For lunar/planetary astrophotography you can increase it by using barlows. An 8" Cassegrain provides a decent amount of flexibility to go either way, adding a focal reducer to do deep space work, or a barlow to dabble in planetary imaging. The SBIG camera I recommended is a descendant of the one I use, the ST-2000XCM. Combined with a .63 focal reducer on my Meade LX200 it does a fine job.
c1.staticflickr.com...
h.dropcanvas.com...

For planetary imaging you can still use the same SBIG camera in theory, but you can also use a much smaller camera. I use a modified Samsung security camera for planetary work (Samsung SDC-435), it's surprisingly effective at delivering crisp images.
c1.staticflickr.com...

a reply to: ngchunter

Have you ever DIY a telescope`?

a reply to: MystikMushroom

Well when it comes to alt-az fork mounts I prefer the LX200's but of course I'm biased since I own one. The Nexstar line isn't really intended for deep space astrophotography though, and since the OP mentioned wanting to take pictures I figured it might be good to invest in a rig that's well suited to it. The Nexstars can be polar aligned with a wedge just like an LX200, but they lack built-in periodic error correction and the periodic error on a Nexstar is horrendous.
www.epinions.com...
Suffice it to say, deep space astrophotography with a wedge on a Nexstar is a lost cause (not to be confused with the equatorial mount CGEM or CGE Pro).

The LX200 is a beefier scope, but for a good reason, and they're really quite easy to set up in altitude-azimuth mode. They can do double duty as quick and easy viewing scopes, but if you get bit by the astrophotography bug they can handle that too by adding a wedge.

originally posted by: Hyperia
a reply to: ngchunter

Have you ever DIY a telescope`?

No, I've never owned one, but I've seen plenty of them at star parties, and I've operated Dobsonian style telescopes at an observatory I worked at in college. They're certainly fun for visual viewing and powerful, but if you really want to get into photography with your scope they're not well suited for that. You need a good polar aligned mount if you want to do deep space photography. You can add altitude-azimuth style tracking to large dobsonians, but that's really still intended for "live viewing," though it does open up the door to "video astronomy" where you use sensitive video cameras to view deep space objects on a monitor live, though it's generally with standard definition cameras and the exposure lengths have to be kept to within a minute or so to avoid field rotation. It's not intended for very long exposure high resolution astrophotography with SBIG cameras and the like.