A telescope

Fallen Seraph

I'm considering buying a telescope. It would be my first one. Can anyone recommend a good one? What price can I be expecting to pay for something decent?

monkeyfudge

I picked up the Celestron EQ80 second hand last year and it's supposed to be a pretty good starter scope.

I only actually got around to using it this week for the first time... the clear skies were too tempting to pass up... It took me a while to find even the moon, but once I did I was able to align the laser scope and I was able to find Venus within seconds.

Grayarea

Fallen Seraph wrote:

I'm considering buying a telescope. It would be my first one. Can anyone recommend a good one? What price can I be expecting to pay for something decent?

It depends on what you define as decent. You can spend anything from several hundred to tens of thousands on a telescope.

In my experience the "starter" scopes tends to be of dubious quality and little value.

My advice would be to find a local club and see what people are using for the area of astronomy that interests you.

If you feel you must buy something then a good pair of 10x50 binoculars (and a book like "turn left at orion" which will get you started with binoculars) is a good starting point as if you find out that astronomy is not for you then you can use them in day time as well.

Later,

slade_x

Fallen Seraph wrote:

I'm considering buying a telescope. It would be my first one. Can anyone recommend a good one? What price can I be expecting to pay for something decent?

It would be helpful to know what your primary intent for a telescope is, ie. Planets, Star cluster, Galaxies, Nebulae, wide field views of open patches of sky, even eventual astrophotography etc. It would also help to know the conditions in which you wish to observe the night sky. primarily if you will have to travel to escape light pollution, even the best of telescopes are crippled by light pollution and/or bad seeing conditions (this is one factor however thats out of everyones control)

Meade introduced a Portable Dobsonian Telescope not too long ago called the Meade Truss Lightbridge; an example:


These are large Newtonian reflectors with sturdy base mounts that can be disasembled and reassembled on site and range from 8" (€580 RRP) to 16" (€2100 RRP). Alternatives that cant be disassembled are cheaper but way to cumbersome and practically immobile especially the larger ones

The other type of Newtonian reflectors are mounted on expensive (or ideally would be) mounts for example:

Newtonians are more commonly used for Wide Field deep sky viewing, ie Nebulae's Galaxies because of there inexpensive design and large light gathering ability, they are much cheaper than refractors (traditional telescopes) which cost far more for every inch of aperture because of the manufacturing costs of lenses (basically bigger ones). Newtonians uses two simple mirrors to reflect the image up onto your eye piece for focusing but arent quite as crisp in the image department as refractors (but not noticably for a lot of people). Reflector telescopes are by far the best bang for your buck as they give you more aperture for less money. A Dobsonian will easily open up the sky to you, even as a beginner.

There are other types of telescopes but i will refrain from mentioning them right now under your circumstances, i highly doubt your budget will allow

The price of a decent telescope depends on the standard and expectations of the user/ buyer. The most popular mainstream makes are Meade, Celestron, Zhummel and Orion, typically beginner telescopes start from even €100 and can finish at the price of the hubble space telescope

I would never recommend a beginner telescope as they arent really the best way to get into astronomy since every newcomers expectations are so high they are greatly dissappointed. Astronomy is an expensive hobby but it doesnt have to be when you learn to get the most out of even your modest equipment, this will only come from experience however

Have a think about exaclty what you want to be observing and your budget...

For some Browsing and price indexing:
http://www.telescopes.com
http://www.telescopehouse.co.uk
http://www.telescopeshop.co.uk/

Fallen Seraph

Thanks a lot for the replies. My main interest would be observing planets and the moon, but seeing as how I'm beginnning I would consider something relatively flexable to be best.

I wouldn't consider myself too able to assess the light polution in my area. I don't live in a major centre of population; but there certainly exists some. I have a set of 10x50 binoculars as it is and I don't find that the level of pollution that exists impedes me greatly. That said, travelling is certainly possible if needs be.

slade_x

Fallen Seraph wrote:

Thanks a lot for the replies. My main interest would be observing planets and the moon, but seeing as how I'm beginnning I would consider something relatively flexable to be best.

I wouldn't consider myself too able to assess the light polution in my area. I don't live in a major centre of population; but there certainly exists some. I have a set of 10x50 binoculars as it is and I don't find that the level of pollution that exists impedes me greatly. That said, travelling is certainly possible if needs be.

Well a Reflector will be by far the most versatile for you, i would extremely doubt you will notice the difference in image quality between a reflector and a refractor at this stage, As i said before the dobsonians by far offer the most light gathering ability for your money

When you do decide on a telescope you may want to account for the little accessories in your budget too, for example extra eyepieces, barlow lens if not included, solar filters, etc. A barlow lens increases the focal length of any eyepiece which in the case of a 2x it will double and 3x triple.

Magnification is the telescope's focal length divided by the eyepiece's focal length. So for example with an 8" meade lightbridge (Dobsonian) it comes with a 26mm eyepiece, the 8" meade has a focal length of 1016mm
So thats 1016mm/26mm which will give 39X magnification.

A 26mm eyepiece is called that because it has a 26mm focal length. depending on the telescope you put it in its yielding magnification will vary because telescopes focal lengths can vary considerably

The theoretical "usable" magnification is typically twice the telescope aperture in millimeters (8" [200mm approx] Dobsonian would equal 400x magnification) or 50-60x per inch of aperture (400-480x). but because we have to look through earths atmosphere where seeing conditions will vary greatly, most times you will never be able to reach this limit except under excellent conditions and on bright objects (like the Moon and brighter planets).

I would recommend a 3x Barlow lens, an 8mm or 9mm and maybe a 12mm eyepiece with an 8" telescope:
8mm - 1016mm/8mm = 127x -> with barlow 127x3 = 381x
9mm - 1016mm/8mm = 112x -> with barlow 112x3 = 338x
12mm - 1016mm/12mm = 84x -> with barlow 84x3 = 254x
Included 26mm - 1016mm/26mm = 39x -> with barlow 39x3 = 117x

The above eyepieces should give you a nice range with out overpowering the telescope, the 8mm with a barlow @ 381x magnification may be a bit iffy if seeing conditions are bad. on a good night it should be okay

Zoom Eyepieces may be good investments also they allow you to adjust the focal length of the eyepiece, for example a Meade Series 4000 Zoom 8mm-24mm eyepiece will allow you 8mm focal length up to 24mm:

To note i have never used one though so i cant comment on them