Some advice needed.

netwhizkid

Hi,
I am new to astronomy in general, but this years occurances, including the lunar eclipse, mars passing so close to earth and a supposed mateorite crash landing in kerry have got me really interested. I am hereby treating myself to a new telescope for xmas, and i would just like some advice regarding which would be good ones and which ones to avoid. I am thinking about this one in the argos catalog Click Here It is a Tasco 660x Refractor Telescope, and it suits my budget very well. My main area of interest would be the moon and some of the brightest stars in the sky and meteor showers whenever they fall.
Also if somebody could tell me what would be the book/s to buy regarding astronomy and if they are any astronomy clubs in the kerry region.

Anyway thanking you in advance,

Regards netwhizkid.

Redshift

You would be much better off spending your money on a good pair of Binoculars than buying that telescope seriously it will only serve to put you off the hobby as they are really poorly made and not suited to the task at all. My advice get yourself a star atlas and a good pair of binoculars and work your way from there.

Don't be lead by the 660X magnification claims such magnification is invariably useless even the optimum magnification is widly exagerated IMO

albertw

Hi,

Originally posted by Redshift
You would be much better off spending your money on a good pair of Binoculars than buying that telescope seriously it will only serve to put you off the hobby as they are really poorly made and not suited to the task at all. My advice get yourself a star atlas and a good pair of binoculars and work your way from there.

I agree. You won't get a useful telescope for that money, so you would be better off with binoculars and a good `guide to the night sky` type book.

Don't be lead by the 660X magnification claims such magnification is invariably useless even the optimum magnification is widly exagerated IMO

I think there was a thread here regarding a similar scope recently, also offering this high magnification. This is only a theoretical magnification using the highest mag eyepiece and a barlow, which wont be of great quality either, and will be useless.

60mm scopes, are not going to be great regardless of who makes them. Even 70mm scopes require very good optics to be useful.

Cheers,
~Al
--
www.irishastronomy.org

sirpsycho

yeah, keep away from tasco and buy binoculars instead. go for 7 * 50 or 10 * 50 and get a book like Patrick Moore's observing the night sky with binoculars. you can pick up tons of stuff with these.

netwhizkid

okay fellas thanks for the info,

does anybody know of anywhere in ireland that sells good quality telescopes that are not too expencive ?
How about this telescope click here i know they are in the U.S but i'm sure i could get them imported if they were of good enough quality.

Well i'll keep ye posted,

Regards netwhizkid

albertw

Originally posted by netwhizkid

does anybody know of anywhere in ireland that sells good quality telescopes that are not too expencive ?

Andromeda Optics, www.andromedaoptics.com, official dealer for several makes of telescopes (Meade, Helios, Intes..)
North Down Telescopes, http://www.mccreaa.freeserve.co.uk/, official NI dealer of most brands.
Astronomy & Space Ltd., www.astronomy.ie, they are the Celestron dealer for Ireland, but seem over priced. (c.f. www.irishastronomy.COM price review.)

They are the only ones I know of, the first two come highly recommended from what I've heard. They also stock binoculars and books etc. Shop around!

How about this telescope
click here i know they are in the U.S but i'm sure i could get them imported if they were of good enough quality.

Orion (US) wont ship it to you from the states, they will insist you go through their UK dealer, which I think is SCSAstro. If you do want to go down the US route check out www.optcorp.com who I think are the only place that will ship internationally on all makes except meade (I spoke to them recently and they definatly will ship Orion scopes). Though you will have to pay the import duty, shipping, etc. and the warrantly may not be valid.

In addition to the threads here discussing prices and where to buy have a look at
http://www.irishastronomy.org/boards/viewtopic.php?t=269
http://www.irishastronomy.org/boards/viewtopic.php?t=132
http://www.irishastronomy.org/boards/viewtopic.php?t=251
for some lenghtly discussions on the issues.
Dave Lillis at Shannonside Astronomy Club also has an article on choosing a telescope which you may find of interest http://www.geocities.com/shannonsideac/choose.htm

The scope you selected looks reasonably good, though a little bigger mirror would be nice, about 6" ideally. You could sacrafice the euqtorial mount for a dobsonian mount, which will chop a few euro off the price. however a 6" dob over here costs about EUR500

Hope this is of help,

Cheers,
~Al
--
Irish Astronomical Society

Beëlzebooze

300 - 500 is a lot of money to spend just to see if you like a hobby or not, even the $229 is maybe pushing it.

You can, as was suggested, get a decent 7 * 60 bino for about $100, and if you don't like gazing at stars (*gasp* *shock* *horror*) you could always use it for yer holliers.

There is more than enough to see without a scope or bino's, spend some time getting familiar with the night sky, and if after a while you want more, then lash out, and buy a scope that will not only give you nice planetary images, but will also reveal DSO's

Unless you can afford buying a new (read better) scope every year or so, hold out and buy something that will keep you happy for a good while.

only my €0.02 worth

jArgHA

Hi

I first became interested in astronomy after receiving a Tasco 60mm refractor from Santy Claus some years ago. Whereas it initiated my interest in the subject and gave me some spectacular views over the first few nights of the moon, I found myself becoming more and more frustrated with the Tasco and turning more to using my 10x50 binoculars (It wasn't until 4 years later that I could afford my first decent telescope, a Celestron 8 SCT).

Unless you are will to spend €500+ up front for a good telescope, I would strongly recommend as have others in this thread, buying a good pair of 10x50 binoculars and one or two good books, such as "Patrick Moore's Guide TO The Night Sky For Binoculars".

If you then used the binos for looking at the night sky for a couple of months with the aid of a good book, you may catch the "aperature bug" meaning you'll desperately want to get hold of a telescope, and then can start saving for a good one. If the interest wanes, at least you will have discovered many night sky objects and still have a useful pair of binos at the end.

jAH

albertw

As for binoculars, have a read of

http://astunit.com/faq/binocular.htm
and
http://www.irishastronomy.com/bg2.shtml

Cheers,
~Al
--
Irish Astronomical Society
www.esatclear.ie/~ias

Tea drinker

Anyone know how much the import duty is?

Lets say you buy a 1500 dollar scope roughly how much is the total cost of the scope going to be, including any taxes duty and shipping?

Thanks a lot for any info.

halenger

Add 21% for VAT. Probably admin charges of about 20 or 30 euro...

Depends. Sometimes you wont get charged anything. But if they check it etc then you'll pay quite a bit.

Sev

As a rule of thumb, keep away from anything that tries to sell itself with its ludicrously high maximum magnification.

albertw

Last time I got stung for VAT there was a 10euro administration charge and of course the 21%. This wasnt on electronic stuff not optics but I guess the same applies. You can always call the revenue comissioners to give you a breakdown of the charges. The 21% is definatly applicable to optical equipment for `personal use`.

Delivery varies depending on who you buy from and what their carriers are. For example I got this from one US supplier who ships Celectron internationally

We can use quite a few different options for shipping outside the US. The main options we use for large packages are USPS and Airborne Express. We much prefer Airborne as we have hardly ever had a problem with them, they get there faster, and they treat the telescope like it is supposed to be treated. The downside is that they are more expensive than USPS.

Shipping a C9.25 to Ireland will vary based on if you mean a complete system (with the equatorial mount, counterweights, etc) or just an optical tube assembly. A C9.25 complete system via USPS will cost approximately $350-400 to ship to Ireland. Airborne Express would cost somewhere in the $400 range.

Shipping the optical tube only would be significantly less. USPS would be in the $120-150 range for USPS and the $175 range for Airborne Express. These values are not exact, but should be relatively close estimates.

Cheers,
~Al
-
www.irishastronomy.org

albertw

There may also be taxes on the US side as the prices in the magazines are not inclusive of state or federal taxes. Best to check with the dealer for details of that as I think the regulations vcary from state to state.

Cheers,
~Al
-
www.irishastronomy.org

Tea drinker

Thanks for the info, and apologies to netwhizkid for hijacking his thread.

One last thing, where could I get a look througha C8 or such like? I would like to know the kind of bang for the buck I could expect.

BR

albertw

Originally posted by Tea drinker
One last thing, where could I get a look througha C8 or such like? I would like to know the kind of bang for the buck I could expect./B]

The A&S Ltd. shop would likley have one set up for you to look through, though AI/A&S do not organise members observing nights so you may have to wait for one of their sta-b-q things to look through one at night.

Since you are in Dublin your best bet is to drop a mail to astro AT gofree.indigo.ie and see if someone in the South Dublin Astronomical Society can help you. They have regular observing trips, so you should be able to get a look through a C8 or something similar like a Meade LX90 8".

Cheers,
~Al

halenger

Originally posted by albertw
The A&S Ltd. shop would likley have one set up for you to look through, though AI/A&S do not organise members observing nights so you may have to wait for one of their sta-b-q things to look through one at night.

That's untrue... If a Friday/Saturday day/evening is looking clear give them a call and there's a good possibility that a few people might go for an observing night.

They've done it before. Unless they've changed very much recently then my guess is that they still do it.

albertw

Originally posted by halenger
That's untrue... If a Friday/Saturday day/evening is looking clear give them a call and there's a good possibility that a few people might go for an observing night.

They've done it before. Unless they've changed very much recently then my guess is that they still do it.

I have rang the shop a couple of times the last couple of years to ask about observing and was sharply told about how I could register for a star-b-q and nothing else.

However I have met A&S subscribers observing in the mountains,but they were their on their own or with other SDAS/IAS folks, not something that AI/A&S organised.

If A&S actually do organise something, as opposed to a few members just happening to go out, then they could post details on the site and magazine.

Cheers,
~Al

halenger

I'm quite surprised to hear that.

They used to do it all the time. Maybe you should say you wanna test out a telescope and see what it can really do etc.

Meh... I dunno.

Wouldn't imagine it being posted in the magazine though due to it being spur of the moment in general. Just a case of "Hey it looks clear, lets go observe!"

Tea drinker

Well, I for one have no intention of buying a scope from A+S as they are grossly
overpriced. (I couldn't afford to buy from them so I don't have a choice)
Pointless my speaking to them on the pretext of buying, I would be as cheap as they are expensive.

I tried mailing sdas on astro@gofree.indigo.ie but got no reply, maybe the email address is incorrect?

So there still seems to be no way of getting access to a scope!

Any ideas?

Thanks...
Martin

albertw

Originally posted by Tea drinker
I tried mailing sdas on astro@gofree.indigo.ie but got no reply, maybe the email address is incorrect?

Looks like the right address....

Their next meeting is tomorrow night if you are around Dublin. Judging by the clouds I dont think there will be observing, but you should me able to chat to people with similar scopes to what you are looking for.

South Dublin Astronomical Society and Gonzaga College Astronomy Club

next meeting scheduled for Thursday, 5th February 2004 at 8pm in Gonzaga College, Ranelagh, Dublin

Cheers,
~Al

Tea drinker

Hi, Albertw, thanks for that.

I'll drop down and see what I can see......

Martin