Advice needed for a good telescope

It's a toughy. I just did alot of telescope research because I wanted to get one for my daughter for christmas.

The place I would recommend is Orion Telescopes, and their website is www.telescope.com

Their website has some telescope tutorial info.

Your needs will dictate what type of telescope (reflector vs refractor) and also the size (bigger aperature is better, but portability becomes a consideration).

Dom

 

I had 2 Celestrons, 1 celestial and 1 terrestrial. They were both fine for what I used them for.

DL

 

If you want to look at the ocean, you want a refractor, NOT a reflector. I wanted a refractor and was very specific about the one I wanted. My wife bought me a reflector that was bigger and better. The problem is, a reflector turns the image upside down. That's fine if you're looking at the moon, but not so good if you want to see things on land.

Refractor=right side up.
Reflector=upside down.

 

I've got a Mead 8". Use it for planetary watching. The two best, in my opinion, are Mead and Celestron. There are others which are cheaper, but they aren't anywhere as good. There are better, but the diminishing returns issue comes into play. If you're just going to watch on the land, you won't need the complex imaging, nor autopilot for them.

Art

 

Art, we should know what your idea of "breaking the bank' is! Hell, you may be up to pop $4K on a new scope!

 

Actually, that's not entirely correct. A refractor with a 90degree diagonal will also show things incorrectly. You would need to have a 45degree corect image diagonal to view terrestrial objects. Apparently, a correct image diagonal will allow less light to pass, and so is not good for astronomical use.

Also, you can get an image erector for a reflector scope.

Reflectors typically give you more bang for your buck than refractors, but are a little more complicated to use (collimation of mirrors, for example).

Art is correct also about Meade and Celestron. Orion is comparable in quality and price to these two and is also worth considering. Most of these scopes are made in china and sold to the resellers, so for example, you can get the exact same scope from meade, celestron, orion, or several other vendors.

Typically, a company will market a scope for either terrestrial use or astronomical use, with the appropriate diagonal.

I like Orion's webpage with their learning center, and product finding wizard.

Dom

 

Not quite correct. Whether it's a refractor with a lens as the main objective optic, or a reflector with a mirror as the main objective optic, the image on both will be inverted unless an image erecting eyepiece is used. Erecting eyepieces are no big deal. Just buy one for terrestrial viewing. Most serious astronomical telescopes omit the erecting lense because it would just cause that much more glass for the extremely dim image to pass through and be attenuated by. If you are photographing the image, you simply invert and flop the negative when you print the picture.

Sincerely, Horsefly amateur astronomer and reader of many Edmund Scientific Company catalogs during the mid sixties.

 

OMG, I agree with Horsefly! Is the world about to come to an end

Dom

 

Dom, we must have both been typing our replies at exactly the same time! I always dreamed about those big 8 inch reflectors that Edmund use to sell. But being a poor kid, I had to be satisfied with my brother's 3 inch refractor with 60 power maximum magnification. It still provided years of fun. You could easily make out the rings of Saturn and we eyeballed many high altitude weather balloons. A few years ago, I found an original old Edmund 4 inch reflector at a flea market for $25. It was built like a tank. American made, heavy duty base pipe with 3 legs. It's stashed away in storage. Nobody makes things like that in America anymore. Of course nowadays, no kid could be bothered with learning about astronomy unless it's a show on cable TV between video game sessions.

 

Horesefly,

I just started getting into this after searching for my daughters christmas present.

Remember the Edmund Astroscan? I got her something similar, though smaller. It is called the Celestron explorascope, and has an 80mm mirror (as opposed to the 114 mm in the astroscan).

There is a great book called "Turn Left at Orion" that is specifically geared towards people with smaller scopes (smaller the 3" aperature". Hundreds of sky objects to check out.

I'd love a much bigger scope, but can't deal with the size, since I like portability. I have recently started building my own 4.5" dobsonian scope, after seeing how simple the reflector design is. I would have built bigger, but I really want portability, since I will be walking about 1 block with it to the park near by our home. I am waiting for the mirrors to be delivered, and hopefully soon I will have the thing put together.


Dom

 

Ok ok, I defer to the knowledge base. But MY telescope shows things upside down.

I told my wife I need an erector thingy and she said 'you sure do!'. What do you think that meant?