Re: Galaxies OT: telescopes?

On Dec 16, 9:10 am, Jay <grox...@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Most department store telescopes aren't bad
optically, it is the mount that is bad. The result is a very wobbly
set up and the views are poor because of it.
Jay

Jay makes good recommendations. Orion is a great and popular source to
see pretty much anything you'd want in astronomy from beginner to
advanced. There are other places too but, apparently like Jay, I am
most familiar with Orion.

I would strongly disagree though that department store telescopes have
decent optics. In my experience they have terrible optics, and good
optics is paramount in astronomy. It's worth either going to a good
source like Orion, or getting high-quality stuff from eBay or
something once you learn what is worth getting. Of course, once you
have good optics, it's not much good with wobbly mounts & tripods, so
that's important too. Buying a scope from department or hardware
stores, etc. amounts to throwing money away because the stuff is so
difficult and disappointing to use that it's more fun to let it sit in
the closet. One thing to keep in mind: all telescopes pretty much
operate the same way and cheap scopes always tout magnification - this
means NOTHING. In fact, high magnification with bad optics is totally
useless, so don't let "magnification" be any consideration whatsoever
in you purchase.

Both Meade and Celestron (brand names) make some fantastic scopes, but
in the past few years they have been putting their name on some pretty
inferior lower end imports though. A good distributor will know which
is which and help steer you in the right direction, but you can
usually tell from the price too.

The best bang for the buck is reflecting telescopes. Dobsonian type
scopes don't have complex equatorial mount clock drives but are easy
to point and pretty stable, so the money is in the optics. They are a
pretty good inexpensive way to get into astronomy and fun to use.

In my opinion, I'd recommend these two scopes from Orion: (or a
similar Dobsonian from another source)
http://www.telescope.com/control/product/~category_id=dobsonians/~pcategory=telescopes/~product_id=09185
http://www.telescope.com/control/product/~category_id=dobsonians/~pcategory=telescopes/~product_id=09707

The first one is pretty good for the money. The second one is a larger
version of the first scope. Size matters in astronomy, but if it's too
cumbersome to haul out and use it then it sits in the closet too, so
factor that in.
.

Relevant Pages

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