Telescope Advice

[benos]

I picked up a Celestron (Newtonian) "FirstScope 114" (900mm) from a friend who was leaving town and didn't want to drag it around with him. He also said he tried to put it together, but it was so involved he realized he didn't have the patience for it and boxed it back up.

Now I see why he was so happy when I gave him a hundred bucks for it. What a PITA it was to get everything functional. The collimination was way off, so I bought the little $10 tool... and then spent an entire evening colliminating it. I almost gave up, several times, but finally got the mirrors dialed in. Another evening spent fiddling with it, including aligning the "finder scope" with the telescope, and I was ready to look at something.

I did a little research, and figured I should be able to find Saturn. (Which was my goal, because I was blown away once when I looked at the rings of Saturn through a fairly small telescope in the parking lot of a strip mall, somewhere in Kansas I think.) So I'm looking where I think Saturn might be and spot a yellowish non-star. I dialed my Kowa spotting scope in on it... it was elliptical shaped, but I thought it was just out of focus. I put the telescope on it, and holy-crap-a-rony, I'm looking at the rings of Saturn.

I was so excited I ran across the street and grabbed one of my neighbors... We just looked disbelievingly back and forth at each other... then she said - "It's like you're looking at God." Which was exactly what it felt like. And right from my porch.

As you might guess, now I'm hooked. Mechanically, the Celestron "FirstScope" is pretty much a piece of junk. I took out the Secondary Mirror Assembly while trying to collimate the thing, and it couldn't have been made any stupider. And, whatever you're looking at moves out of the field of view so quickly that you really have to have the mount with the auto-tracking motor drive.

Any advice on what to buy, in the $500 - $1500 price range?

Celestron

Konus

Meade

Vixen Optics

Zhumell

?

Thanks a lot!

be

[Overkill]

I'm far from an expert but for a while I was playing around with the idea of building my own scope.

This... http://www.cloudynights.com/ubbthreads/ubb...s.php/Cat/0/C/2 is the best sky watcher forum I found.

This place had some cool scope kits. http://www.e-scopes.cc/

Here's a couple more cool links I found. http://members.aol.com/sfsidewalk/cdobplans.htm

http://lefevre.darkhorizons.org/sixinch/scp_part.htm

http://www.sjaa.net//beginner.html

I've pretty much decided to put the project off till the kids are a little older and can participate meaningfully in the construction.

I've got a buddy that recently bought a pricey Schmit-Casagrande scope from Discovery. Its pretty cool, and the fact that it finds stuff in the sky on its own is neat, but he's played hell getting it to work. Nice thing about those automated scopes are that you can adapt a camera to them. With the hand moved scopes things dont stay in the frame long enough to get a decent exposure time. And finding things is a lot more difficult that you can imagine.

[Jman]

Here is a great value. Read up on these. With the "Auto-Star" computer the 5" model would be awesome. Line it up to celestial north and off you go. Auto-Star has thousands of objects stored . You tell it where you want to go and punch "go". It slews to it all by itself.

Here is some advise. Buy a SOLID tri-pod. Or, set it on a stone or cement wall or table. Movement really bites here.

http://www.meade.com/etx_premier/index.html

Jim

Edited May 16, 2007 by JimmyM

[Jake Di Vita]

That's awesome BE. I've always loved astronomy and have wanted a good telescope for a really long time.

Let me know what you decide on.

[Miranda]

I will back JimmyM's comment Solid Mount is crucial.

I made a telescope from collected parts and had it on a camera tripod

it was ok ...saw stuff as others had described etc....

I had the chance later to look through another scope that had the same primary

and a much heavier tripod.

that was way better viewing.

The tracking issue may be helped my using a slightly lower magnification.

one can watch the object for longer between moves....

miranda

[benos]

Thanks all. And especially for the forum link Overkill.

It looks like the Meade 8" SN-8 AT LXD75 go-to is a big favorite (on the cloudynights forum).

The Meade ETX looks pretty cool too, but you gotta run it from a PC (not a Mac).

On the sturdy mount... I figured that out pretty quick. I didn't really believe it at first, when I read, in Peterson Astronomy book, that, surprisingly, the mount is the most important consideration when shopping for a telescope. But then when I looked through mine with a 10mm lense (90 x magnification), you can't even turn the focusing wheel without creating an earthquake in the lense.

Thanks again, and more input is welcomed!

be

[Overkill]

http://www.stellarium.org/

Down load and check out Stellarium too. Its pretty cool and its free. You can see the sky at different dates/times, from different directions, zoom in, zoom, out. Its pretty spectacular especially given the price.

BTW, you just shipped me your book last week. I'm in chapter 2. I haven't read anything so information and concept dense since college. I end up having to read each section a couple times before I get it all; I've been in novel reading mode for so long my focus while reading is as bad as my focus on the experience of the shot....which is really kind of simpatico with the content of the first chapter.

[benos]

It's downloading now - I can't wait to check it out. It will probably be tomorrow because tonight's the Suns game.

I'm glad to hear you're enjoying BF.

Thank you.

be

[EricW]

Brian,

If you're going to be looking mainly at planets, I'd take a hard look at a small, high-quality refractor. Televue is pretty much the gold standard of all refracting telescopes. I have a TV Pronto, which was their base model and it does a spectacular job for planetary viewing. And just like everyone said, the mount is critical to your ability to view. I use a Bogen Manfrotto tripod with the fluid pan head. It's not *perfect*, but it's a great compromise between cost, weight, and versatility (as a camera/video tripod).

The bonus is that small refractors are very portable. I used to carry mine on the airlines.

For all around, the best bang for the buck is a dobsonian. Orion sells a very reputable line of dobsonians. For city viewing, an 8" is about all you can make good use of. If you have a big car/van and want to head out to the sticks to view, you may want a 10 or 12" dob, but those get to be pretty bulky.

Orion's dobs are here: http://www.telescope.com/jump.jsp?itemType...RY&itemID=9

Here's what I would buy if I was starting out:

10" Dobsonian

1 1/4" 24mm Plossl (Televue, Orion, and Celestron probably all have similar quality Plossls)

1 1/4" 2X Barlow (a barlow is a magnifying element just like a teleconverter for SLRs)

1 1/4" 3X Barlow.

Laser Collimator

That's it. That's really all you need to do a LOT of good viewing without going broke. That will give you effectively 24mm, 12mm, and 8mm eyepieces. (Whatever you do, don't buy a 12mm or 8mm Plossl. They're terrible. Use the barlows to get to the magnification you need with the 24mm.)

After that, you're down to buying eyepieces and upgrading from 1 1/4" optics to 2" optics. Televue is the reference standard, and 90% of the time, worth the premium. There's very little depreciation in used Televue gear. This is not to say that there aren't some bargains out there, but with Televue you don't have to guess as to the quality. Every one's a good one. Keep in mind that the eyepiece is anywhere from 60 to 95% of your optical train, so investments there pay out proportional dividends.

In general, I would avoid the cutesy, little "auto scopes" because you're sacrificing a LOT of optical integrity in lieu of the mechanism. The Dobs now come with human-powered navigation systems which are much more cost effective. Schmidt-Cassegrains or Maksutov-Cassegrains on motorized mounts can get pretty expensive in a hurry and really don't provide *that* much benefit aside from tracking. You're really looking at $2K and up for anything worth having.

Hope that helps. Call if you want to chat. I used to be really into astronomy for a while, but sorta gave it up because it was too sedentary.

http://www.televue.com

One place to buy discount optics that's reputable:

http://www.buytelescopes.com

(I bought my Prono from them.)

E

Edited May 17, 2007 by EricW

[Jman]

Here is an old well established astronomy club right in the east valley. I've been to some "star parties". Highly recommend it. Members set up there scopes (all kinds of them) at different objects. Your invited to take a look. Very cool.

http://www.eastvalleyastronomy.org/

Jim

[benos]

Huge thank you's to Eric and Jimmy.

I love being able to come to The Forum to get quickly get great answers to any question!

[Catfish]

I'll echo the +1 on the Dobs. We host star parties here at my park, smack in the middle of DFW and one of the amateur astronomers has a 10" and a 20" Dob. Freaking unbelievable the level of detail that's possible, even with all the city lights that surround us.

If you'd like, I can track down who made his Dobs, it's a Texas boy who builds them out of his garage if I remember correctly, and they break down to the size of a big piece of carry on luggage and are surprisingly easily portable.

[benos]

http://www.stellarium.org/

Down load and check out Stellarium too. Its pretty cool and its free. You can see the sky at different dates/times, from different directions, zoom in, zoom, out. Its pretty spectacular especially given the price.

Wow. It's awesome - thanks!

be

[Viggen]

Starizona down in Tucson is a wonderful place and a resource. Last time I was down there they had a telescope set up to look directly at the sun - with filters of course, but it was absolutely cool doing it. I don't know of any place like it in the valley although the astromony folks in the east valley would know.

http://starizona.com/acb/

[Derek45]

My 8 year old daughter has become interested in the night sky.

We took her to the planetarium last winter, got her a book on finding stars and constellations.

She's realy good at spotting the night sky.

What she really wants is to see the rings of Saturn.

I've been waiting on (hopefully) getting a real nice telescope from My Father's estate, but it's been over 6 months and things are dragging on.

I've been thinking about buying her one now while she's still interested.

Brian, did I understand you saw Saturn with your spotting scope?

I've heard if you've only got $200 to spend, forget the cheap telescope and get some quality binoculars instead.......is that true???

[Matthew_Mink]

Sure, you can see it with the naked eye.

Other cool things to see (from memory):

Ring Nebula

Andromeda galaxy

Crab Nebula

The planets of course, Venus is a particularly good view now, just look up in the sky in the direction of the setting sun and see a very bright greenish star, that is Venus

Jupiter is very cool, can even see 4 or 5 moons usually

Pleiades (you can just make out the nebula it shines thru with a scope, also tons of stars within in

Various globular clusters

[benos]

Brian, did I understand you saw Saturn with your spotting scope?

I only located what I thought was Saturn with my spotting scope. Although through my spotting scope at about 45x, you could see that you were looking at an elliptical shape. First, I confirmed (internet research) that Saturn was in the night sky, anywhere from overhead right after sunset to setting in the west later in the night. So I scanned the sky, and easily found a non-star that looked soft yellowish. I put the binoculars on it and it definitely was a planet. So then I tried the spotting scope, and I could see that it was a non-twinkling ellipticaly shaped object. But at that moment I thought probably the scope was just out of focus. Not until I focused the telescope on it could I see the rings with shocking clarity. It's a mind-blowing experience to see it the first time in a telescope.

I've heard if you've only got $200 to spend, forget the cheap telescope and get some quality binoculars instead.......is that true???

From the little I've learned so far, for $269, I bet this guy would be worlds better than binoculars.

[benos]

One last question... Part of the fun is finding the objects in the sky... so I can't decide if I want to go with a scope with a "goto" mount, like this Meade, or the Orion Eric suggested.

On the Meade, it doesn't look like you can operate the mount manually. That's kind of a big one for me. Because although it would be cool to punch some buttons and have it go and stay on whatever you were looking at, I'd hate to be too dependent on a bunch of electrical stuff to even be able to use the scope.

I don't have any doubts that the Orion would be a great scope, but I do wonder if I'd get tired of manually "following the planets" with it. At the moment, that is an irritating feature of my Celestron, but the tracking mechanisms are of junk quality, so I'm not sure but I bet that's adding to the "tracking hate."

I think my ideal mount would allow you to find a planet manually, then, you punch a button to auto-track the planet. So at least after you came back from getting a beer the planet would still be in the scope.

Thanks for any more info.

be

[EricW]

Brian,

After talking with you, it really sounds like you should over buy your scope with a tracking mount. You sound interested in planet watching, and that's a high-mag sport and tracking really is a must to do it seriously. Whether you want the computerized "GOTO" is something only you can decide. I see a lot of virtue in it, but I also appreciate the pitfalls of "training wheels" - although I couldn't imagine you using it as anything but a rapid learning tool. I think that the bugs have largely been worked out with the GOTO systems and that you will be *very* happy with your purchase.

Not sure if you've been to Meade's main site here:

http://www.meade.com/lxd75/index.html

If I lived in Arizona, I'd be buying a 10" Schmidt-Newtonian, or a 10" Schmidt Cassegrain (what you should buy if you ever think you're going to connect your scope to a computer to do imaging.) If you've still got the VW van, you've got the room to haul it. Anything less than 10" and you're going to be less than happy when you head out into the desert and don't have the aperture to really avail yourself of that inky-black Arizona sky.

Do see if the local astronomy club has a newsletter with classified ads or the internet equivalent. People are always drifting in and out of astronomy and there are deals to be had on some very nice scopes. Unless someone does something really stupid to the mirror, good scopes really don't age that much. And even if the mirror is a little buggered up, they can be easily re-silvered.

If you really want to go crazy, think about the Meade LX200R:

http://www.meade.com/lx200r/index.html

My only concern with that is that you'd burn up enough cash on the scope that you'd be shy about putting out the dough for the eyepieces. I think you'd be better served by the LX75 and a few, nice televue eypieces and barlows.

Good luck! I really can't think of too many people that will get more out of gazing into the sky and pondering it's wonders.

[Derek45]

http://www.stellarium.org/

Down load and check out Stellarium too. Its pretty cool and its free. You can see the sky at different dates/times, from different directions, zoom in, zoom, out. Its pretty spectacular especially given the price.

That's a very cool program.

Thanks !

few nights ago, from my backyard, offhand PENTAX DSLR 200mm

Edited May 22, 2007 by Derek45

[ima45dv8]

Derek,

Was that Venus to the left of the moon? We were checking it out under a beautiful Saturday night sky in Anderson, S. Carolina.

[Derek45]

Derek,

Was that Venus to the left of the moon? We were checking it out under a beautiful Saturday night sky in Anderson, S. Carolina.

Yep.

I took in Saturday night.

[benos]

Thanks Eric. That's what I was needing to hear.

Yea, I was looking at the LX 200 series, they look like the shit. But I'm not ready to drop that kind of cash into it now.

I'm down to the Meade LXD75 SN-8AT 8" or the same thing in the 10". From what I've read on the cloudynights forum - the 8" is the best choice, because they both come on the same base, and the 10" is a little too heavy for it.

be

[benos]

Eric,

For the Meade, do the Barlows have to be made by Meade? If so, I can't find much, except this one.

be

[Skywalker]

be,

I know it's a bit off-topic, but I thought this might help: I've found out a nice educational SW that will make a planetarium out of your PC, it's called Stellarium.

From its description:

Stellarium is a free open source planetarium for your computer. It shows a realistic sky in 3D, just like what you see with the naked eye, binoculars or a telescope.

It is being used in planetarium projectors. Just set your coordinates and go.

And, a couple of screenshots from Stellarium website:

I'm planning to use this as an educational tool for my kid, just letting him play with it and then getting outside on the porch to match what he saw on the PC and what's the real thing.

Edited May 23, 2007 by Skywalker